God the Word that spoke this to the People the ancient Church could not doubt as we see in the Book of Deuteronomy where Jonathan tells us that thus Moses minded his People of what they had heard and seen at the giving of the Law Deut. iv 33. Is it possible that a People should have heard the voice of the Word of the Lord the Living God speak out of the middle of the fire as you have heard and yet live Again v. 36. Out of Heaven he hath made you hear the voice of his Word and ye have heard his words out of the midst of the fire Again he puts them in mind of the fright they were in Deut. v. 23. After ye had heard the voice of the Word out of the midst of the Darkness on the Mount burning with fire all the Chiefs of you came to me and said Behold the Word of the Lord our God has shewed us the Divine Majesty of his Glory and the Excellence of his Magnificence and we have heard the voice of his Word out of the midst of the fire why should we die as we must if we hear any more of the voice of the Word of the Lord our God for who is there living in flesh that hears the voice of the Word of the Living God speaking out of the middle of the fire as we do and yet live Again Deut. xviii 16. he minds them of the same thing in some of the same Words Many more such Quotations might be added but these are sufficient to prove that it was the undoubted Tradition of the ancient Jewish Church That their Law was given by the Word of God and that it was he that appeared to Moses for this purpose As the Word gave the Law it was he that made those many Appearances to Moses throughout his whole Conduct of the People of Israel through the Wilderness To begin with that Divine Appearance which was continually in sight of all the People of Israel for forty years together throughout their whole Travel in the Wilderness namely the Pillar which they saw in the Air day and night Where this Pillar is first spoken of namely at the coming of the People of Israel up out of Egypt there it is expresly said That the Lord went before them in the Pillar of Cloud by day and fire by night Exod. xiii 21. Afterward indeed he is called the Angel of God Exod. xiv 19. where we read that the People being come to the Red-Sea and being there in imminent danger of being overtaken by the Egyptians by whom they were closely pursued the Angel which had gone before the Camp of Israel all day removed at night and went behind them That this Angel was God it is certain not only because he is called God Exod. xiii 21. xiv 24. Numb xii 5. But also because he was Worshipped Exod. xxxiii 10. which was a sure Proof of his Divinity Being therefore God himself and yet the Messenger of God it must be that this was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Word and that this was the Tradition of the ancient Church we are taught not only by Philo in the place above mentioned Quis rer Div. haeres p. 397. F.G. but also by the Jerusalem Targum on Exod. xiv 24. and Jonathan on Exod. xxxiii 9. and by Onkelos on Deut. i. 32 33. as has been mentioned When the Children of Israel after the first three days march found no other Waters but what were too bitter for them to drink at which they murmured Moses cried unto the Lord who thereupon shewed him a Tree which they threw into the Waters and thereby made them sweet Exod. xv 25. Here was a Divine Appearance and it was of the Word of the Lord according to the Jerusalem Targum A Month after their coming out of Egypt for want of Bread they murmured against Moses and Aaron at which God shewed himself so much concerned that he made his Glory appear to them in the Pillar of Cloud Exod. xvi 7 10 That according to the sense of the ancient Church this was the Shekinah of the Word has been newly shown both from Philo and from all the Targums and the same we find here in this place v. 8. where Moses tells them your murmurings are not against us but against the Word of the Lord according to Onkelos and Jonathan When Exod. xvii 8 c. the Amalekites came against this poor people that had never seen War and smote the hindmost of them God not only gave his people a Victory over them but also said unto Moses write this for a Memorial in a Book That I will utterly put out the Remembrance of Amalek from under Heaven Exod. xvii 14. See how Moses performs this v. 15. In the place where they had fought he set up an Altar inscribed Jehovah Nissi The Lord is my Standard meaning that it was the will of God they should be in perpetual War against Amalek and this reason for it he entreth in his Book v. 16. according to Jonathan for the Word of the Lord has sworn by his Glory that he will have war against Amalek for all Generations The next Divine Appearance we read of was at the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai whereof enough has been already said and we must avoid being too long For which reason we omit much more that might be said of the following Appearances in the Wilderness which are all ascribed to the Word in one or other of the Targums But I ought not to omit to take notice of some special things So for their places of Worship God promised according to the Jerusalem Targum Exod. xx 24. Wheresoever you shall mention my Holy Name my Word shall appear to you and shall bless you and the Temple is called the place which the Word of the Lord your God will chuse to place his Shekinah there according to Jonathan's and the Jerusalem Targums on Deut. xii 4. Especially at the Altar for Sacrifice which was before the Door of the Tabernacle God promised Moses both for himself and the People according to Onkelos and Jonathan on Exod. xxix 42. I will appoint my Word to speak with thee there and I will appoint my Word there for the Children of Israel Above all at the Mercy-seat where the Ark stood God promised to Moses according to those Targums on Exod. xxv 22. xxx 36. Numb xxvii 4. I will appoint my Word to speak with thee there And in sum of all the Precepts in Leviticus it is said at the end of that Book according to those Targums on Levit. xxvi 46. These are the Statutes and Judgments and Laws which the Lord made between his Word and the Children of Israel When they entred into Covenant with God obliging themselves to live according to his Laws Hereby they made the Word to be their King and themselves his Subjects So Moses tells them Deut. xxvi 17. according to the Jerusalem Targum You have
in the Old Testament and to shew who they are I need not prove it of the Father since it will not be denied that he is called God by them that will deny it of any other But I shall shew that sometimes the Son is called so whether by that name of the Son or of the Word or some other name without mention of the Spirit Next I shall shew that the Spirit is spoken of as God even he is mentioned without the Son And lastly That the Father the Son and the Spirit are all Three mentioned as God and all Three spoken of together in some Texts of the Old Testament Scriptures To keep to this order I am first to shew that there is some kind of Intimation of a Trinity in places where God is spoken of in these Scriptures I shall name but two or three Texts of many for I call it but an Intimation and it may amount to thus much that we find the Name of God repeated three times over for it was certainly no vain Repetition Thus in the Blessing of Israel Numb vi 24 25 26. The Lord bless thee and keep thee The Lord make his face shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee and give thee peace So Isa xxxiii 22. The Lord is our judge the Lord is our lawgiver the Lord is our king he will save us So Dan. ix 19. O Lord hear O Lord forgive O Lord hearken and do defer not for thy own sake O God The like Intimation we find in those words of the Prophet Isaiah which do both shew a Plurality in the Divine Nature and restrain it to a Trinity Isa vi 3. The Prophet heard the Seraphims cry one to another Holy Holy Holy Lord God of hosts These are Titles which taken together can belong to no one but God and the Repetition of them shews something in it which cannot but seem Mysterious especially to any one that considers those other words of God speaking in the same Chapter ver 8. Who will go for us words which clearly note a Plurality of Persons as also in Hos xii 4 5. and in some other places To shew who these are we must consider those places of the Old Testament where the Son and the Holy Spirit are distinctly spoken of as several Persons The Son is expresly spoken of by David who himself was a Type of the Messias and is so acknowledged by the Jews Psal ii 7. The Lord said unto me Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee That the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who as has been already proved is called Wisdom according to the Jewish Notions is the Son of God by Eternal Generation himself sheweth Prov. viii 23 24. The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way before his works of old I was set up from everlasting from the beginning or ever the Earth was when there were no depths I was brought forth So in Prov. xxx 4. Who hath established all the ends of the earth What is his name or what is his Son's name The Son can be understood of no other than of that Eternal Wisdom that assisted in the Creation as was before mentioned Elsewhere the Son or the Word is spoken of according to the Jewish Expositions of such Texts where he is not named and yet he is called God and Lord as Psal xlv 7. O God thy God hath anointed thee And Psal cx 1. The Lord said unto my Lord Sit thou on my right hand till I make thy enemies thy footstool It was the same Son who appeared oftentimes under the Character of the Angel of the Lord though he was not a Created Angel but the Lord Jehovah himself This I only mention here being to treat of it largely in some of the following Chapters That the Spirit is spoken of as a Person in Scripture none can be ignorant of that reads but the beginning of Genesis where in the 2d Verse he is named the Spirit of God and said to have his part in the Work of the Creation The Jews could not make this Spirit to be an Angel because they all agree the Angels were not yet created when the Spirit moved upon the face of the Waters Nor was the Spirit of God a mighty Wind as some render it in that place for as yet there was no Air much less Exhalations till this Work was past But that Moses meant a Person sufficiently appears by that which followeth Gen. vi 3. Where God saith My Spirit shall not alway strive with man It was the Holy Spirit of God that inspired the holy Patriarchs to give those Admonitions and Warnings to the wicked World of Mankind before the Flood by which he strove to bring them to Repentance It was the same Divine Spirit whose Operations the Israelites were sensible of in his inspiring the Seventy Elders Numb xi 25 26. The Psalmist no doubt thought of those words of Moses in the beginning of Genesis when he said in speaking of the Works of the Creation Psal xxxiii 6. All the hosts of them were made by the Spirit of his mouth and this Spirit he sensibly knew to be a Person for thus he saith of himself 2 Sam. xxiii 2 3. The Spirit of the Lord spake by me and his Word was in my tongue Lastly In some places of the Old Testament there are plainly Three Persons spoken of together and especially in the beginning of Genesis where it ought to be remembred that the word Elohim Gods does naturally import a Plurality R. Bechai in Gen. chap. i. 1. and others quoted in the former Chapter Now there can be no Plural of less than Two in number and therefore at least God the Father and the Word are to be understood in the first Verse the second Verse adds the Spirit of God as it has been just now mentioned And it is very natural to think that God spake to these Two the Word and the Spirit in Verse 26. of that Chapter when he said Let Us make man after Our Image as also afterward Gen. iii. 22. Behold the man is become as one of Us And again speaking of the Builders of Babel Gen. ix 7. Let Us go down and confound their Language This must be to Two at least for had he spoke to One only he would have said in the Singular Number Come thou and let us confound their language The manner of speaking plainly imports a Plurality and they could be no other than those Three which were spoken of in the first Chapter As Moses brings in these Three Persons into his History of the first Creation so does the Evangelical Prophet in speaking of the Mission of Christ Isa xi 1 2 c. The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him i. e. upon the Messias according to the received Opinion of the Jews Isa xlviii 16. The Lord hath sent Me and his Spirit Again Isa lix 19 20 21. When the enemy shall
Righteousness Therefore it was the Word of the Lord that came to him in a Vision ver 1. and that made him that Promise ver 5. It followeth ver 7. that he said to Abraham I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees Who said this to Abraham Even the Word of the Lord according to Jonathan's Targum for there is no other Nominative Case of the Verb in his Paraphrase You see the same upon Abraham's dividing the Beasts in order to his making a Covenant with God it was done at God's Command who thereupon did appear between the Pieces to Abraham and did solemnly enter into a Covenant with Abraham Gen. xv 9 c. Now saith the Jerusalem Paraphrase on Exod. xii 42. It was the Word of the Lord that appeared to Abraham between the Pieces And according to Onkelos and Jonathan Exod. vi 8. It was by his Word that God made this Covenant with Abraham We must take notice that he that appeared then to Abraham saith I am El Shaddai which is here translated The Almighty God For according to Onkelos on Gen. xlix 25. in the Blessing of Jacob to his Son Joseph these Names The Word of God and El Shaddai are of the same Extent Thus it runs according to Onkelos The Word of the God of thy Father shall help thee and El Shaddai shall bless thee Where plainly El Shaddai is the same that is called The Word of the God of thy Father As Philo taught us that the Appearance of God to Abraham mentioned Gen. xviii 1. was an Appearance of the Word Alleg. 11. p. 77. E. where he calls one of the Three Angels that appeared to Abraham the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word of God and Josephus L. 1. Ant. c. 12. calls him God So the Jerusalem Paraphrase has it in the end of the next Verse The Word of the Lord appeared to Abraham in the Valley of Vision as he sat warming himself in the Sun because of his Circumcision Elsewhere the same Paraphrase quotes these Words as being the Words of Scripture saying on Gen. xxxv 9. The Scripture hath declared and said And the Word of the Lord appeared to him in the Valley of Vision Jonathan also in his Paraphrase on Deut. xxxiv 6. hath these words The Lord hath taught us to visit the Sick in that he revealed himself by the Vision of his Word to Abraham when he was sick of the cutting of Circumcision When God gave him a Command for the sacrificing of his Son Gen. 22.2 then as Abraham was doing it the Angel of the Lord called to him out of Heaven and told him Now I know thou fearest God seeing thou hast not withheld thy Son thine only Son from ME. This last word plainly sheweth that this Angel was God himself even the same that spake to Abraham and gave him that Command ver 1 2. And that Command was given by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word according to Philo as it has been already shewn The Jerusalem Paraphrase hath the same on ver 8. where upon Isaac's enquiring for the Lamb that was to be sacrificed Abraham answereth him My Son the Word of the Lord will prepare me a sheep And so when Abraham found that the Word did provide him a Sheep and accepted of that for a Sacrifice instead of his Son Abraham worshipped and pray'd to the Word of the Lord saying among many other things Thou O Lord didst speak to me that I should offer up Isaac my Son In the other Targums ver 16 17. where the Angel of the Lord calls to Abraham out of Heaven the second time which last word sheweth that this Angel was God himself for it was God that called to him out of Heaven the first time as it has been already shewn and saith to Abraham By my self I have sworn saith the Lord because thou hast done this thing and hast not withheld thine only son from me From me is in the Samaritan and LXX therefore in blessing I will bless thee c. There both Onkelos and Jonathan have it By my Word I have sworn saith the Lord. What should be their meaning in this For the manner of speaking Thus saith the Lord it was properly used by the Word appearing here as an Angel and not according to his own Natural Being But for the Form of the Oath where according to the Hebrew Text chap. xx God swore by Himself the Paraphrasts render it that God swore by his Word and well they might who understood that the Word was God And indeed these Targums shew elsewhere That where this Form of Swearing was used it was the Word of the Lord that swore and held himself obliged to perform what was sworn Compare Exod. vi 8. with Deut. xxvi 3. And Numb xiv 30. with Deut. xxxi 7. We read of an Angel appearing to Hagar in the Wilderness Gen. xvi 7. He bid her return and submit to Sarah her Mistress ver 9. telling her withal what a numerous Issue she should have by the Child she now went with and what sort of man he should be But as this Angel spoke in the Stile of God saying I will multiply thy seed exceedingly ver 10. So she owned it was the Lord that spake to her and she said to him Thou God seest me ver 13. 'T is clear that it was God himself that appeared tho he is called an Angel in the Text. And therefore not only Philo calleth him the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in those places above-mentioned but the Targums likewise shew that he was the Word of the Lord according to the Sense of the Jewish Church for so Jonathan renders ver 13. She confessed before the Lord Jehovah whose Word had spoken to her And the Jerusalem Targum She confessed and prayed to the Word of the Lord who had appeared to her Again an Angel called to Hagar out of Heaven Gen. xxi 16. But he also said to her that which no created Angel could say speaking of her Son Ishmael I will make him a great Nation ver 18. Philo saith that it was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And who perform'd it 'T was God the Word according to the Targums For whereas the Text saith ver 20. God was with the Lad it is thus rendred both by Onkelos and Jonathan The Word of the Lord was his Support or Assistance We read also of Two Divine Appearances to Isaac one in Gerar Gen. xxvi 2. and the other at Beersheba ver 24. In the former of these places Isaac being ready to have gone down into Egypt God bid him continue in Canaan and gave him a Promise in these words Gen. xxvi 3. I will be with thee and will bless thee for unto thee and thy Seed I will give all these Countries and I will perform the Oath which I sware unto Abraham thy Father So then he that appeared now to Isaac is the same that swore this to Abraham so much we learn from
all this while even the same that appeared to him in the Bush Moses being thus employ'd by the Word of God as his Messenger to the Children of Israel for the discharge of his Ministry had both his Instructions and Credentials from the Word according to the Targums For the first of these God appeared to him oftener than to any before him R. Akiba who lived since Christ's time saith that Moses acted as Mediator between the Gevura that is the Word of God and the People of Israel and observeth that God spake to him 175 times They were times without number that God spake to him from off the Mercy-seat upon the Ark of Testimony from between the two Cherubims Numb vii 89. But those which R. Akiba reckons were Appearances upon extraordinary occasions In both these Appearances ordinary and extraordinary it was the Word of God that spake to Moses according to the Targums Thus of God's speaking to him from the Mercy-seat to appoint my Word for thee as God promised there according to Onkelos and Jonathan on Exod. xxv 22. xxx 36. So Numb vii 89. Jonathan saith it was the Word that spake to him And thus likewise in those Occasional Appearances both Jonathan and the Jerusalem Targums tell us once for all Deut. xxxiv 10. The Word of the Lord knew Moses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 speaking to Moses as oft as Moses spake to him on any occasion For his Credentials were as we see Deut. xxxiv 11. All the Signs and Wonders which the Lord sent him to do or according to the Targums which the Word of the Lord sent him to do in Egypt to Pharaoh and his Servants and all his Land and in all that mighty Land and that great terrour which Moses shewed in the sight of all Israel For the Acts of his Ministry they were chiefly these three 1. His bringing the People out of Egypt 2. His giving them Laws and Statutes and Judgments from God 3. His Leading them through the Wilderness to the Confines of Canaan In each of these was the Word that appeared to him according to the Targums His bringing the People out of Egypt is wholly ascribed to the Word by Onkelos and Jonathan on Deut. xx 1. and by Jonathan on Deut. xxiv 18. The People were commanded to teach this to their Children that it was the Word of the Lord that did all those Signs and Wonders in Egypt saith Jonathan on Exod. xiii 8. It was the Word that sent all those Plagues on Pharaoh and his Servants and all the Land of Egypt saith Jonathan on Deut. xxviii 6. and xxix 2. Especially it was the Word that gave that stroke which finisht the work according to the Jerusalem Targum Exod. xii 29. namely It was the Word of the Lord that appeared against the Egyptians at midnight and his right hand kill'd the first-born of the Egyptians and delivered his own first-born the Children of Israel After this the Word of the Lord led the People through the Desert to the Red-Sea saith the same Targum on Exod. xiii 18. The Word of the Lord being their Leader in a Pillar of Fire by night and of a Cloud by day saith Onkelos on Deut. i. 32 33. And when the People being come to the Red-Sea and seeing Pharaoh with his Army behind them were in a rage against Moses and he cried to God Exod. xiv 15. according to the Jerusalem Targum the Word of the Lord said to Moses How long dost thou stand and pray before me Bid the Children of Israel come forward and do thou reach out thy Rod and divide the Red Sea He did so and according to the Jerusalem Targum on Deut. i. 1. The Word divided the Sea before them So that the Children of Israel went into the midst of the Sea on dry ground Exod. xiv 22. the Egyptians following them And at morning v. 24. according to the Jerusalem Targum The Word of the Lord lookt upon the Army of the Egyptians and threw upon them Bitumen and Fire and Hail out of Heaven and v. 25. The Egyptians said Let us fly from before the People of Israel for this is the Word of the Lord that gets them victory But their flight was in vain for by the Word of the Lord the waters were made heaps according to Onkelos on Exod. xv 8. And according to him also when God spoke by his Word the Sea covered them v. 10. Thus as the whole work of the People of Israel's Deliverance out of Egypt so every part of it has been ascribed to the Word of the Lord by the Targums For the giving of the Laws by which they were to be formed into a Church and Kingdom First immediately after their coming out of the Red-Sea Exod. xv 25. according to the Jerusalem Targum the Word of the Lord gave them Precepts and Orders of Judgments particularly as Jonathan has it the Word of the Lord gave them there the Law of the Sabbath and that of Honouring Father and Mother and Judgments concerning Bruises and Wounds and for the Punishment of Transgressours Afterwards when they were come into the Wilderness of Sinai Exod. xix 3. the Text saith Moses went up to God and the Lord called to him out of the Mount saying Thus shalt thou say to the House of Israel c. there Onkelos saith according to one of Clark's various Readings Moses went up to meet the Word of the Lord Exod. xix 8. Moses returns with the People's Answer to the Lord then v. 9. according to the Jerusalem Targum the Word of the Lord said to Moses Go to the People and sanctifie them to day and to morrow and let them wash their Clothes and be ready against the third day for the third day the Lord will come down in the sight of all the People upon Mount Sinai Accordingly the People having prepared themselves on the third day according to Onkelos Exod. xix 17. Moses brought the People out of the Camp to meet the word of God Yet the People only saw Thunder and Lightning and the Mountain smoking and felt the Earth quake under them They also heard the noise of the Trumpet which so affrighted them that they removed and stood at a distance and said to Moses Speak thou to us and we will hear but let not the Word from before the Lord speak with us lest we die Exod. xx 19. according to Onkelos in one of Clark's various Readings Moses therefore according to Jonathan on Deut. v. 5. Stood between them and the Word of the Lord to shew them the Pithgama the matter and words that were spoken to him from the Lord. What they were we read Exod. xx 1 c. where according to the Jerusalem Targum the Word of the Lord spoke the tenor of all these words saying I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the Land of Egypt out of the House of Bondage then follow the Ten Commandments commonly called the Decalogue That it was
made the Word of the Lord King over you this day that he may be your Glory And v. 18. The VVord of the Lord is become King over you in his own Name as over his beloved and peculiar people In consequence hereof as being their King he ordered them by his chief Minister Moses to make him a Royal Pavilion or Tabernacle and to set it up in the midst of their Camp Both that and all the furniture of it he ordered Moses to make according to the Pattern show'd him in the Mount Exod. xxv 40. Especially for the Presence of the great King there must be an Apartment in the inner part of the Tabernacle separated from the rest with a Veil Embroidered with Cherubims Exod. xxvii 31. which part was called the Most Holy Place or the Holy of Holies Exod. xxvi 33. There was to be placed the Ark overlay'd with pure Gold and having a Crown of Gold round about it In the Ark were contain'd the Tables of the Law Upon it was placed the Mercy-seat overshadowed with the Wings of two Cherubims that stood on the two Ends of the Mercy-seat Exod. xxxvii 9. looking each of them toward the other and both of them toward the Mercy-seat This Provision being made for the place of his Shekinah the Word which shewed it self before in a Pillar of Cloud by day and fire by night that stood over the Camp now from thence came to take possession of his Royal Seat in the Tabernacle over the Ark from whence out of the void space between these Cherubims it was that the Word used to speak to Moses and to give him Orders from time to time for the Government of his People according to the Paraphrasts on Exod. xxv 22. xxx 36. Numb xvii 4. and especially Numb vii 8 9. as has been above mentioned Henceforward throughout their whole Journey through the Wilderness the Pillar was constantly over the Tabernacle and the People attended his motion But whensoever he gave the Commandment then the Pillar removed and shewed which way the Camp was to go Upon notice of that then Moses first gave the word in a set form of Prayer which we have in the first six verses of the lxviii Psalm The first verse of it is Numb x. 35. in these words according to the Jerusalem Targum Arise now Oh Word of the Lord in the might of thy strength According to Jonathan's Paraphrase Appear now Oh Word of the Lord in the strength of thy wrath In both the Targums it followeth as in the Hebrew Text and the enemies of thy people shall be scattered and they that hate thee shall flee before thee When they had performed their Journey according to the will of their King which they knew by seeing the Pillar stand still then Moses used the Form for the resting of the Ark Numb x. 36. according to the forementioned Targums Return now Oh Word of the Lord to thy people Israel make the Glory of thy Shekinah dwell among them and have mercy on the Thousands of Israel This being said the Priests who carried the several â—ins of the Tabernacle took down their Burdens and set up all things as before and the Pillar returned to its place over the midst of the Tabernacle In this State of Theocracy their keeping of God's Laws is called by their Targums The believing and obeying of the Word their breaches of his Laws are called their despising and rebelling against the Word Of the use of both these manners of speaking there might be given more instances than can be easily numbred The Targums likewise ascribe to the Word both the rewarding of their Obedience and the punishing of their Transgressions On their Obedience according to the Targums it was the usual promise that the Word should be their help or support Numb xxiii 8 21. that he should bless them and multiply them Deut. xxiv 19. that he should rejoice over them to do them good Deut. xxviii 63. xxx 9. They were told that he would be a consuming fire to their enemies Deut. iv 24. particularly that he was so to the Anakims Deut. ix 3. That it was he that delivered Og into their hands Deut. iii. 2. That it was he that would cast out all the Nations before them Deut. xi 22. On the other hand according to the sense of the ancient Church it was the Word that punished them for their disobedience and also it was he that forgave them upon their Repentance Of both these kinds there are many remarkable instances as particularly of the punishing of their disobedience according to Jonathan on Exod. xxxii 35. It was the Word that destroyed the people for worshipping the Calf that Aaron made For their lusting at Kibroth-hattaava Moses told them whom they provoked by it Numb xi 20. according to Onkelos and Jonathan You have despised the Word of the Lord whose Shekinah dwelleth among you Their refusing to go forward toward the promised Land upon the Spies evil report of it Moses tells them according to those Targums Deut. i. 26. It was rebelling against the Word of the Lord. Afterward when they would go up contrary to order Numb xiv 41. Moses asks them Why do you transgress the decree of the Word of the Lord In their murmuring at Zalmona Polyglot Vol. IV. Numb xxi 5. according to Onkelos in one of Clerk's various Readings They spoke against the Word of the Lord and against Moses Wherefore v. 6. according to the Jerusalem Targum The Word of the Lord sent fiery Serpents among the People Upon their Whoring with Baal-Peor Numb xxv 4. according to the Jerusalem Targum The Word of the Lord said to Moses take all the heads of the people and hang them up before the Lord. In short according to the Targums on Deut. xxviii 20 21 22 c. It was the Word of the Lord that would send all his Judgments and Curses that are there denounced against impenitent Sinners But on the other hand according to those Targums the Word had the dispencing of pardon to them that were Qualified for it So when Moses beg'd pardon for his People that had sinned beyond mercy if it had not been infinite Numb xiv 20. according to the Jerusalem Targum the Word of the Lord answered him and said behold I have forgiven and pardoned according to thy word And in case upon the inflicting of God's Judgments above mentioned God's People should be thereby brought to repentance It was promised Deut. xxx 3. according to Jonathan's Targum that then the Word should accept their repentance according to his good pleasure and should have mercy on them and gather them out of all Naons c. So likewise c. xxxii 36. according to the same Targum it is promised that the Word of the Lord by his mercy should judge the judgment of his people and should repent him of the evil that he had decreed against his Servants It were easie to add many more such Instances out of
the Targums but these are abundantly enough to shew the sense of the ancient Church what they thought of him that so often appeared to their Fathers in the Wilderness and spoke to them by his Servant Moses When Moses understood that God was not willing he should live to bring his People into the Promised Land thereupon he besought God to send him a Successor in these words according to Jonathan's Targum Numb xxvii 16. Let the Word of the Lord who has dominion over the souls of men appoint a faithful man over the Congregation of his People God having appointed Joshua in his stead Moses gave him this Charge in the hearing of the People Deut. iii. 21 22. according to Onkelos and Jonathan Thy eyes have seen what the Lord hath done to Og and Sihon so shall he do to all the kingdoms where thou art to pass therefore fear them not for the Word of the Lord your God shall fight for you The same he repeated afterward to all the People telling them first Deut. xxxi 2 3. according to Jonathan The Word of the Lord hath said to me Thou shalt not pass over this Jordan but the Lord your God and his Shekinah will go before you Josh iv He addeth And Joshua will go over before you as the Lord has spoken And for all your Enemies ver 5. The Word of the Lord shall deliver them up before you therefore saith he ver 6. according to Onkelos Fear them not for the Word of the Lord your God goes before you he will not fail nor forsake you After this he calleth to Joshua and saith to him before them all ver 7. according to Jonathan Be strong and of a good Courage for thou must go with this People into the Land which the Word of the Lord has sworn to their Fathers that he would give them and the Shekinah of the Word of the Lord shall go before thee and his Word shall be thy help he will not leave thee nor forsake thee fear not therefore neither be dismay'd He repeats it again from God to Joshua ver 23. according to Onkelos and Jonathan Thou shalt bring the Children of Israel into the Land which I have sworn to them and my Word shall be thy help It was the same day that together with this Charge Moses gave to Joshua his Prophetical Song Deut. xxxi 22 23. And the self-same day xxxii 48. God bade him Get thee up into Mount Nebo and dye After which Moses staid no longer than to give the Tribes of Israel his Blessing before his Death xxxiii 1. That being done he went up to Mount Nebo xxxiv 1. There according to Jonathan It was the Word of the Lord that gave that Satisfaction to his Bodily Eyes to see all the Land of Canaan before they were closed So ver 5. Moses the Servant of the Lord died there according to the Word of the Lord. He was translated by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 De Sacr. Abr. p. 162. C. D. according to Philo. It was certainly the current Tradition of the Church in his Age that his Soul was taken out of his Body by a Kiss of the Word of the Lord as Jonathan renders it or according to the Jerusalem Targum at the Mouth of the Decree of the Word of the Lord. After his Death Joshua entred into the Government ver 9. and according to the Jerusalem Targum the Children of Israel obeyed Joshua and they did as the Word of the Lord had commanded Moses Besides all these Divine Appearances to Moses and the Children of Israel there are also some few that were made to Balaam on their account and are therefore recorded in the same Sacred History Where these are first mentioned Numb xxii 9. both Onkelos and Jonathan have That the Word came from before the Lord to Balaam and said what followeth in that place So again the second time ver 20. according to the same Targums The Word came from before the Lord to Balaam by night and said to him what followeth in that second place It is plain that so far the Ancient Jewish Church took these Appearances to have been made by the Word But what Opinion had they of the Angel's appearing to Balaam ver 22. Others may ask what they thought of the Dialogue between Balaam and the Ass that he rode upon occasioned by the Fright that the Beast was in at the Angel's appearing to him All this as Maimonides * More Nebochim 11. p. 42. saith happened only in Vision of Prophecy But that it was a thing that really happened we are assured by St. Peter who tells us 2 Pet. ii 16. God opened the mouth of the dumb beast to rebuke the madness of the Prophet As it cannot be doubted that Balaam was used to have Communication with Devils that spake to him in divers manners so there is reason to believe they spoke to him sometimes by the mouth of dumb Beasts and if so then to hear the Ass speak could not be strange to him And why God should order it so there is a reason in Jonathan and the Jerusalem Targum The Reader may see other Reasons elsewhere †Muis Varia p. 95. but they are not proper for this place But we are here to consider whether this that appeared to Balaam was a created Angel or no. It appears by the words ver 35. to have been the Lord himself that appeared as an Angel to Balaam for thus he saith to him Go with the men but only the word that I shall speak to thee that thou shalt speak Now it doth not appear after this that any other spoke to him from God but God himself Therefore Philo saith plainly that this Appearance was of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as has been already shown And that this was the Sense of the Church in his Age we may see in the two following Appearances to Balaam where as well as in the two that were before this the Targums say It was the Word that met Balaam and spoke to him Thus both Onkelos and Jonathan on Num. xxiii 4 and 16. CHAP. XV. That all the Appearances of God or of the Angel of the Lord which are spoken after Moses his time in the Books of the Old Testament have been referred to the Word of God by the Jews before Christ's Incarnation THUS far it has been our business to shew that it was the Word that made all those Appearances either of God or of an Angel of God that was worshipt in any part of the five Books of Moses We have been much larger in this than was necessary for our present occasion But whatsoever may seem to have been too much in this Chapter it is hoped the Reader will not wish it had been spared when he comes to reflect upon the use of it to prove that the Word was a Person and that he was God At present there will be some kind of amends for the prolixity hitherto in the
is mentioned This is he of whom it is said and God called Moses out of the Bush He is called an Angel because he Governs the World for it is written in one place And Jehovah that is the Lord God brought us out of Egypt and in another place He sent his Angel and brought us out of Egypt And again The Angel of his Presence saved them viz. that Angel who is the face of God of whom it is said My face shall go before you Lastly that Angel of whom the Prophet Malachi mentions And the Lord whom you seek shall suddenly come to his Temple even the Angel of the Covenant whom you desire At length he adds The face of God is God himself as all Interpreters do acknowledge but no one can rightly understand this without being instructed in the Mysteries of the Law R. Menachem of Rekan on Gen. xlviii 16. the same that afterwards commented on the whole Pentateuch was no stranger to this Notion Saith he He means the Shekinah when he speaks of the Redeeming Angel f. 52. See also f. 55. The like has R. Bechai the famous Jewish Writer whose Comments are constantly in the hands of the Jewish Doctors He proves that this Blessing is not different from that which is afterwards repeated Gen. xlix where no Angel is mentioned Whence it follows that the three terms in Gen. xlviii God God that fed me the Angel that redeemed me are Synonimous to the mighty one of Jacob Ch. xlix which Title the Jews in their Prayers do frequently ascribe to God Bech f. 71. c. 4. Ed. Rivae di Trento He also there teaches that this Angel was the Shekinah As does R. Joseph Gekatilia in his Book called Saare Ora according to Menasseh Ben Israel q. 64. in Gen. p. 118. Aben Sueb on this place a Man of Name among his Party writes much to the same purpose on this place These are followed by two Eminent Authors of the Cabalists The one in his Notes on Zohar f. 122. toward the end saith the Angel that delivered me from all evil is the Shekinah of whom Exod. xiv 19. And the Angel of the Lord which went before the camp of Israel removed and went behind them and may God bless us in the age to come The other is he who contracted the Zohar on Genesis and is called R. David the less He in that Book Ed. Thessalonic f. 174. professes to follow the opinion of R. Gekatalia in his Saare Ora. Nor does Menasseh Ben Israel himself much dissent from these in the above-mentioned place For though he attempts to reconcile Gen. xxviii 16. with the first Commandment Exod. xx Thou shalt have no other Gods before me by saying it was the opinion of several of their Masters that there was no contradiction between them yet at length he produces the opinion of the Cabalists for the satisfaction of his Readers who possibly would not acquiesce in his former reason drawn only from Modern Authorities I mention not R. Levi ben Gersom's opinion who denies the Angel here spoken of to be a Creature but calls him the Intellectus Agens because he seems to have borrowed the Notion from the Arabian Philosophers nor is it commonly received by those of his Religion Many others might be added to these Jewish Testimonies but what I have already produced is I think very sufficient SECT V. Having thus shewed the Opinions of the ancient Jews concerning Jacob's Angel and that to this day the Tradition is not quite worn out that exalts him above a created Angel I now proceed to the third Question the clearing of which will fully justifie that Opinion of the Ancients concerning this Text. And that is Whether this form of Blessing be not an express Prayer The soundest and most part as well of Jews as Christians do agree That we can't worship Angels without Idolatry This Maimonides affirms as I quoted him above and the Protestants as all Men know do abhor this Idolatry in the Roman Church I do therefore positively assert That these words contain a Prayer to the Angel as well as to God for a Blessing on his Children This the Jews can't gain-say since Jonathan their Paraphrast and other Writers after him do commonly term this Blessing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Prayer And for this reason R. Menasseh thought it necessary to endeavour to reconcile this Prayer of Jacob with the first Commandment which forbids Angel-Worship according to the Jews Interpretation R. Menach de Rek in Pent. f. 97. c. 4. It is true Jacob's form of Blessing does seem to proceed from him either as a Wish or a Prophecy A Wish as if he had said Would to the Lord God and his Angel would bless the Lads A Prophecy as if he had foretold that God and his Angel should in after-times fulfill what he now wished But it might be both Wish and Prophecy and notwithstanding be a direct Prayer to God and the Redeeming Angel 'T is well known how the Jews commonly delivered their Petitions to God in this form And yet I can't forbear giving one instance to confirm it You may read it in Deut. vi 22 c. And the Lord said to Moses saying Speak to Aaron and his Sons thus shall you bless the children of Israel and say The Lord bless thee and keep thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lord make his face shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee the Lord lift up his countenance upon thee and give thee peace And they shall invoke my name for the children of Israel so our Translation is to be mended and I will bless them So that in plain terms the form of Blessing here prescribed by God is called Invocation I cannot therefore see what should hinder but that we after Jacob's example may offer up our Prayers to a created Angel supposing as some do that Jacob prayed for a Blessing to such a kind of Angel De Sanct. Beat. l. 1. c. 29. Corn. A Lap. on Gen. xlviii It is a necessary consequence that Bellarmine and others of his Communion draw from this instance Holy Jacob invoked an Angel therefore it is not unlawful for the pretended reformed to do the like therefore one may worship others besides God these things saith he cannot be denied unless you reckon Prayer to be no act of Worship not peculiar to God alone But let them of his Church get out of these difficulties as they can who believe Jacob's Angel to have been a meer Creature Let them try how they can convince a Socinian from Ephes i. 2. and other places of Scripture where Worship is ascribed to Christ The Socinian has his answer ready he may wish and pray to Christ for Grace though he be not God since he does no more than Jacob did when he prayed for a Blessing on his Children to a meer Angel I am more concerned for these Divines of the Reformed Church who have given the same Interpretation of Jacob's Angel
Exposition Page 52. Chap. V. Of the Authority of the Apocryphal Books of the Old Testament Page 66. Chap. VI. That the Works which go under the Name of Philo the Jew are truly his and that he writ them a long while before the time of Christ's Preaching the Gospel and that it does not appear in any of his Works that ever he had heard of Christ or of the Christian Religion Page 75. Chap. VII Of the Authority and Antiquity of the Chaldee Paraphrases Page 84. Chap. VIII That the Authors of the Apocryphal Books did acknowledge a Plurality and a Trinity in the Divine Nature Page 99. Chap. IX That the Jews had Good Grounds to acknowledge some kind of Plurality in the Divine Nature Page 115. Chap. X. That the Jews did acknowledge the Foundations of the Belief of the Trinity in the Divine Nature and that they had the Notion of it Page 138. Chap XI That this Notion of a Trinity in the Divine Nature has continued among the Jews since the time of our Lord Jesus Christ Page 158. Chap. XII That the Jews had a distinct Notion of the Word as a Person and of a Divine Person too Page 181. Chap. XIII That all the Appearances of God or of the Angel of the Lord which are spoken of in the Books of Moses have been referred to the Word by the Jews before Christ's Incarnation Page 201. Chap. XIV That all the Appearances of God or of the Angel of the Lord which are spoken of in Moses have been referred to the Word of God by the ancient Jewish Church Page 214. Chap. XV. That all the Appearances of God or of the Angel of the Lord which are spoken after Moses his time in the Books of the Old Testament have been referred to the Word of God by the Jews before Christ's Incarnation Page 233. Chap. XVI That the ancient Jews did often use the Notion of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Word in speaking of the Messias Page 253. Chap. XVII That the Jews did acknowledge the Messias should be the Son of God Page 265. Chap. XVIII That the Messias was represented in the Old Testament as being Jehovah that should come and that the ancient Synagogue did believe him to be so Page 278. Chap. XIX That the New Testament does exactly follow the Notions which the Old Jews had of the Trinity and of the Divinity of the Messias Page 293 Chap. XX. That both the Apostles and the first Christians speaking of the Messias did exactly follow the Notions of the Old Jews as the Jews themselves did acknowledge Page 313. Chap. XXI That we find in the Jewish Authors after the time of Jesus Christ the same Notions which Jesus Christ and his Apostles Grounded their Discourses on to the Jews Page 327. Chap. XXII An Answer to some Exceptions taken from Expressions used in the Gospel Page 339. Chap. XXIII That neither Philo nor the Chaldee Paraphrases nor the Christians have borrowed from the Platonick Philosophers their Notions about the Trinity But that Plato should have more probably borrowed his Notions from the Books of Moses and the Prophets which he was acquainted with Page 413. Chap. XXIV An Answer to some Objections of the Modern Jews and of the Unitarians Page 365. Chap. XXV An Answer to an Objection against the Notions of the Old Jews compared with those of the new Ones Page 380. Chap. XXVI That the Jews have laid aside the Old Explications of their Forefathers the better to defend themselves in their Disputes with the Christians Page 392. Chap. XXVII That the Unitarians in opposing the Doctrines of the Trinity and our Lord's Divinity do go much further than the Modern Jews and that they are not fit Persons to Convert the Jews Page 413. A Dissertation concerning the Angel who is called the Redeemer Gen. XLVIII Page 433. THE JUDGMENT OF THE Ancient JEWISH Church Against the VNITARIANS c. CHAP. I. The Design of this Book and what Matters it treats of IF the Doctrines of the Ever-Blessed Trinity and of the Promised Messias being very God had been altogether unknown to the Jews before Jesus Christ began to preach the Gospel it would be a great prejudice against the Christian Religion But the contrary being once satisfactorily made out will go a great way towards proving those Doctrines among Christians The Socinians are so sensible of this that they give their Cause for lost if this be admitted And therefore they have used their utmost Endeavours to weaken or at least to bring under suspicion the Arguments by which this may be proved It is now about sixty years ago since one of that Sect writ a Latin Tract about the meaning of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Chaldee Paraphrases in Answer to Wechner who had proved that St. John used this word in the first Chapter of his Gospel in the same sense that the Chaldee Paraphrases had used it before Christ's time and consequently that it is to be understood of a Person properly so called in the Blessed Trinity which way of interpreting that word because it directly overthrew the Socinian Doctrine which was then that St. John by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 understood no other than Christ as Man it is no wonder that this Author used all his Wit and Learning to evade it The Construction which Socinus put upon the first Chapter of the Gospel of St. John was then followed generally by his Disciples But some years since they have set it aside here as being absurd and impertinent And they now freely own what that Socinian Author strongly opposed That the Word mentioned by St. John is the eternal and essential Vertue of God by which he made the World and operated in the Person of Christ Only they deny that Word to be a Person distinct from the Father as we do affirm And whereas Socinus taught That Christ was made God and therefore is a proper Object of religious Worship now the Unitarians who believe him to be no other than a meer human Creature following the Principles of Christianity better than Socinus condemn the Religious Worship which is paid to him As they do believe that the Jews had the same Notions of the Godhead and Person of the Messias which they have themselves so they think they have done the Christian Religion an extraordinary service in thus ridding it of this double Difficulty which hinders the Conversion of the Jews Mr. N. one of their ablest Men having read Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho in which Trypho says that he did not believe that the Messias was to be other than Man makes use of this Passage of Trypho for proof that the Doctrines of the Divinity of the Messias and by consequence of the Trinity were never acknowledged by the Jews This he does in a Book the Title whereof is The Judgment of the Fathers against Dr. Bull. His design being to prove that Justin Martyr about 140 years after Christ was
have to do with do very confidently affirm any thing that comes into their heads be it never so little probable so they may thereby give any plausible Solutions of the Difficulties in which they find themselves entangled and perplext and they are much given to vaunt of their unanswerable Arguments so they call them which are many times but weak Objections such as Men of Learning and Wit should be ashamed of For this reason I thought it necessary to prevent as far as it was possible all that they can object against my Position of the Opinions the Old Jews held concerning those Doctrines which were exactly followed and fully declared by the Apostles and first Christians And because I foresee some Objections may arise I will shew that nothing can be more absurd than to imagine that the Jews or the first Christians borrowed their Notions about the Trinity or the Divinity of Christ from Plato's Disciples whereas Plato hath in truth followed the Jewish Notions of those things After this I shall make it appear that however some of the Modern Jews have changed their Opinions in these Articles yet the Socinians can make no advantage thereof because the Jews have in reality much alter'd their belief since Christ's time and are guilty of great Disingenuity as is common to all those who are obstinately set upon the maintaining of erroneous Doctrines In fine I shall plainly shew that the Socinians to defend themselves against the Orthodox have been forced to imitate those Modern Jews and have much out done them in changing and shifting their Opinions when they dispute with Christians I hope to manage this Controversy with the Socinians so plainly and fully as to satisfy the Reader That as on the one side they most falsly accuse the Church of having corrupted the New Testament to favour the Doctrines of the Trinity and of Christ's Godhead So they cannot on the other side get any ground upon the Jews in their Disputes with them though they fancy they got a great way towards their Conversion by rejecting those Doctrines In a word both the Ancient and Modern Jews do so far agree in those things which make on the Church's side against the Socinians that if they appeal to the Jews they are sure to lose their Cause which when they have better considered they will find it their best way for the maintaining of their Opinions to abandon the Jews altogether as Men that understood not their own Scriptures viz. the Old Testament and to reject both as they have gone a great way towards it in rejecting that traditional sense of the Old Testament for which it was quoted in the New and without which it would have signified little or nothing to those purposes for which it was quoted And so it will appear that for all their brags of the Aptness and even Necessity of their way for the Conversion of the Jews they have taken the direct way to harden them by giving up that sense of the Old Testament Scriptures which Christ and his Apostles made use of for the converting of their Forefathers But we have the less reason to complain of them for this when we see how apt they are to question the Authority of the Books of the New Testament as oft as they find them so clearly opposite to their Doctrines that they cannot obscure the Light of them by any tolerable Exposition To shew that I do not say this without cause I shall show some instances in the last Chapter of this Book CHAP. II. That in the times of Jesus Christ our Blessed Saviour the Jews had among them a common Explication of the Scriptures of the Old Testament grounded on the Tradition of their Fathers which was in many things approved by Christ and his Apostles THE Jews have to this day a certain kind of Tradition received from their Forefathers which contain many precepts of things to be done or avoided on the account of their Religion This they call their Oral Law by which name they distinguish it from the written Law which God gave them by Moses They make five Orders of such a Tradition which are explained by Moses de Trano in his Kiriat Sepher Printed at Venice Anno 1551. The first is of the things which they infer from Moses and the Prophets by a clear consequence and they are certainly of the same Authority as the rest of the Revelation although they call it a Tradition We are not such Enemies to Names as not to like such a sort of Tradition and we receive it with all imaginable reverence we like very well the Judgment of Maimonides who leaves as uncertain whatsoever the Jewish Doctors speak upon many things as being without ground when their Tradition is not gathered from Texts of Scripture de Regib c. 12. The second Order is of the Ceremonies and Rites which they keep as coming from Mount Sinai but of which there is not a word in the Law The third Order is of the Judiciary Laws upon which the two Schools of Hillel and Shammai were divided The fourth is of some Constitutions of the Ancients which they look upon as an hedge to the Law The last is of their Customs which are various in several places of their dispersion Tho' in many things they cannot but see that those last four Orders of Tradition do not agree with the Law of Moses or are quite unknown in it yet they seem to like it never the worse Nay their Rabbins professedly ascribe a much greater Authority to this Oral Law than to the Law of Moses They say in the Talmud Avoda zara c. 1. fol. 17. Col. 2. that a Man who studies in the Law alone without these Traditions is a Man which is without God according to the Prophecy of Azariah 2 Chr. 15.3 Of this sort were all the Traditions which were condemned by our Lord Jesus Christ He plainly calls them the Commandments of Men Mat. XV. 9. and has purposely directed several of his Discourses against them because even where their observing these Traditions would not consist with their Obedience to God as particularly in the case of Corban Mat. XV. 3. yet they gave Tradition the preference and so as our Saviour there tells them Ver. 9. They made the Commandments of God of no effect by their Tradition The Author of these Traditions or new Laws as one may term them did almost all of them live since the time that the Jews were under the power of the Seleucidae and they were the Leaders of those several Sects that corrupted their Religion by adding to it a great number of Observations which were perfectly new We have therefore no reason to look upon this sort of Tradition as the fountain from whence the Jews in Christ's time took their measures of the sense and meaning of the Writings of the Old Testament But for the Interpreting of their Scriptures the Jews in Christ's time had some other kinds of Traditions much different from
Christ and his Apostles spake to the Jews according to the Notions which were received among them What I say will clearly appear if we reflect on some of the Citations made by Christ and his Apostles from the Old Testament For altho Jesus Christ had in himself all the Treasures of Wisdom and altho his Apostles were divinely inspired yet they ought 〈◊〉 proportion what they said to the capacity of their hearers Their Miracles were to move and dispose them to the receiving of the Truth but their proofs and arguments were the proper means to convince their hearers of it 1. The Doctrines of the Immortality of the Soul and the Resurrection from the Dead being deny'd by the Sadducees who required an express Text of Moses for the proof of those Doctrines and affirmed that there was not any such to be found in the Writings of Moses our Saviour proves it against them by these words which stopped their mouths and raised the admiration of the multitude I am the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob but God is not the God of the dead but of the living Mat. xxii 32. His proof was by a known and necessary consequence from that Text out of the Law which he inferred according to the received method among the Jews For the Jews at this day do gather the same Doctrines from the same words Vid. Mede his Works p. 801. Exod. iii. 6 15 16. which Jesus Christ alledged to prove them by The astonishment of the people on this occasion did not proceed from the newness of his argument as if they had never heard the like before for they gathered also the Doctrine of the Resurrection from Moses his Song as we see in Josephus de Macchab. p. 1012. But it arose from another cause to wit his giving them such a Spiritual notion of the Resurrection as was not clogged with the difficulties drawn from that instance of a Woman's Marriage to more Husbands than one which the Sadducees justly urged against that gross Idea of a Resurrection that many of them had wherein Marriage and other actions of mortal life should have place 2. Our Blessed Saviour in the same 22th ch of St. Matth. asked the Pharisees whose Son the Messias was to be they answered the Son of David i. e. the Scripture saith he should descend from the Line of David Against which Christ raises this Objection How then does David in spirit or inspired by the Spirit call him Lord And he alledges for proof that David calls him Lord the words of Psal cx 1. The Lord said to my Lord sit thou at my right hand till I make thy enemies thy footstool If then David by the Spirit called him Lord how is he then his Son It appears that Jesus Christ in making this Objection did take these three things as granted by the Jews at that time 1. That Psal cx was the work of the Prophet David 2. That this Psalm concerned the Messias 3. That the name Adonai is in this place equivalent to the name Jehovah There is not any of these things which the Jews will not dispute at this day But that their Forefathers did hold that these words were spoken to the Messias it appears by their Midrash on the Psalms and Saadia Gaon on Dan. vii 13. Indeed their Targum justifies all that our Saviour said in this place not only in acknowledging that this Psalm was composed by David but also that it was written for the Messias who is therefore instead of Adonai called Memra or the Word according to Fagius his reading which is most natural to the place But that Memra the Word denotes the Messias shall be shown in the sequel of this Discourse St. Paul has taken the same way Act. xiii 24. where he quotes these words from Isa lv 3. I will give you the sure mercies of David He refers this passage to the sending of the Messias altho the Text seems obscure enough for such a reference But he does it in pursuance of the explication given of it by the ancient Jews who understood this Chapter of the Messias So does R. David Kimchi upon this verse and Aben Ezra and Sam. Laniado and R. Meir Ararma and Abarvanel Upon the same ground he applies to the Messias in the same Chapter the words of Psal xvi 10. Thou wilt not leave thy holy One to see corruption He proves that they could not be understood of David seeing that his Sepulchre the Monument of his Corruption remained till that day He ought first to have proved that this Psalm was spoken of the Messias and then have proved that it could not belong to David But this method was needless since he went on this known Maxim among the Jews That whatever Psalm was not fulfilled in David ought to be understood of the Messias Let us proceed to another clear proof of this Proposition St. Paul in Heb. i. 6. quotes a Text from Moses Song Deut. xxxii 43. according to the LXXth Version 'T is commonly believed that the Quotation is out of Psal xcvii 8. but the very words Let all the Angels of God worship him are not found in that Psalm They are in the Greek of Moses Song without the least alteration though it must be confessed they are not there in the Hebrew Text. I will not dispute whether the Jews have lost out of their Bibles this part of the ancient Text since St. Paul's time They may in their Vindication shew that neither the Samaritans have in their Text this Quotation which is extant in the LXX It seems therefore that this Song of Moses was copied separately from the rest of the Pentateuch for their convenience who were to learn it by heart to which some pious People added a few Verses out of the Psalms that concerned the same Subject Which Copy with the Additions was translated by the LXX because the People had generally committed this to their Memory What I conclude from hence is this That St. Paul made no difficulty to quote words that were only in the LXX Version because they contained things conformable to the ancient Sentiments of the Jews and following the Genius and Doctrine prevailing in his Nation he referrs these words to the second Appearance of the Messias when all the Angels of God shall pay him adoration If we read St. Paul's Citation Gal. iii. 8 16 of the Promise God made to Abraham that in his seed all the nations of the Earth should be blessed which he understands of the Promise of the Messias we shall quickly judge that he followed herein the sense of the ancient Synagogue I know the greatest part of the Modern Jews do understand it of Isaac As if God had said All the Nations of the Earth shall wish their Friends the Blessing which God gave to Isaac But the Ancients understood it otherwise as we can judge by the Book of Ecclesiasticus ch xliv 25. They referred it to the Calling of
Gentiles by the Messias as we see in Sepher Chasidim § 961. and to the abode of the Sekinah or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is explained by R. Joseph de Carnisol Saare Isider fol. 3. col 4. fol. 4. col 1. And so St. Peter supposes it to be spoken of the Messias Act. iii. 25. We may reflect in like manner on the promise God made the People Deut. xviii 15. To raise them up a Prophet like unto Moses St. Peter makes use of it as being spoken of the Messias that he should give a new Law Act. iii. 22. But the Modern Jews do all they can to evade this Application Nevertheless it appears to have been the Idea of the ancient Synagogue because we read that they speak of the Law which was to be given by the Messias as of a Law in comparison to which all other Law was to be lookt upon as meer Vanity So Coheleth Rabba in c. ii and in c. xi It is not without some surprize that we read the Application St. Mat. ii 15. has made of these words in Hos xi 1. Out of Egypt have I called my son which seem only to be spoken of the Children of Israel and not of the Messias And yet in the Book Midrash Tehillim Rabba on Ps ii we may see the Jews referred to the Messias what is written of the People of Israel Exod. iv 22. Which is an argument that St. Matthew cited this passage from Hosea according to the sense the Jews gave it with respect to the Messias The Actions of the Messias are related in the Law in the Prophets and in the Books called Hagiographa or in the Psalms In the Law Exod. iv 22. Israel is my first-born In the Prophets Isai lii 13. Behold my servant shall deal prudently In the Psalms as it is written The Lord said to my Lord Psal cx i. St. Matth. viii 17. referrs the words of Isai liii 4. to the miraculous Cures that Christ wrought And he follows herein the ancient Tradition of the Jews which taught that the Messias spoken of in this Chapter of Isaiah should pardon Sins and consequently heal their distempers which were the effects and punishments of their Sins From hence it follows that according to their Tradition the Messias should be God even as Jesus Christ did then suppose when he healed the Paralytick Man by his own power Matth. ix 6. and proves that he did not blaspheme in forgiving Sins which the Jews thought belonged only to God St. Matth. i. 23. applies the words of Isai vii 14. to Christ's being born of a Virgin Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bring forth a son c. This he did likewise according to the ancient Idea of the Jews which was not quite lost in the time of Adrian the Emperor For R. Akiba who lived and died under his Reign makes the following Reflection on this Prophecy He had considered that Isaiah in the beginning of the following Chapter received Order from God to take to him two Witnesses Uriah the Priest who lived in his time and Zechary the Son of Berachiah who lived not as he thought till under the second Temple Upon which he saith that God commanded the Prophet to do thus to shew that as what he had foretold concerning Maher-shalal-hash-baz was true by the Witness of Uriah who saw it accomplish'd so what he had foretold concerning the Conception and Delivery of a Virgin must be accomplished under the second Temple by the Witness of Zechary who lived then See Gemara tit Maccoth c. 3. fol. 24. 3. We see that Jesus Christ Joh. iv 21 c. alludes tacitly to the Prophecy of Mal. i. 11. concerning the Sacrifices of the New Testament This is a matter at present controverted between Christians and Jews But Christ deliver'd the sense of the Synagogue as it is evident from the Targum on those words of Malachy which applies them to the Times of the Messias 4. One would think it were only by way of Similitude that Christ applied to himself the History of the Brazen Serpent in saying Joh. iii. 14. As Moses lifted up the Serpent in the Wilderness so must the Son of Man be lifted up But there appears to be more in it than so The ancient Jews lookt upon the Brazen Serpent as a Type of the Messias so we find by their Targum on Numb xxi 8. which expounds this Serpent which Moses lifted up by the Word of the Lord who is also called God Wisd xvi 7. compared with chap. xv 1. Although Philo while he hunts for Allegories gives another Idea of it de Agric. p. 157. 5. It may also seem to be only by way of Allusion that Christ calls himself the Bread that came down from Heaven alluding to the Manna which came down from Heaven as we read Exod. xvi But he that looks into the ancient Jewish Writers shall find that herein also our Saviour followed the common Jewish Idea For Philo who writ in Egypt before Jesus Christ began to preach tells us positively that the Word or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was the Manna Lib. quòd Deter pot insid p. 137. St. Paul Heb. 1.5 cites God's Words to David concerning one that should come out of his Loins 2 Sam. vii 14. I will be to him a Father and he shall be to me a Son as if they respected the Messias How could he do thus When on the one hand he calleth Jesus Christ holy undefiled harmless separate from Sinners and on the other hand in that Promise to David God takes it for granted that that Son of his might be a Sinner and thereupon threatens in the very next words 2 Sam. vii 14. If he commit iniquity I will chasten him with the rod of men which suits well with Solomon but not at all with the Messias The reason is St. Paul followed the sense of this place which was commonly received among the Jews who as they refer to the Messias the Psal lxxii cx and cxxxii where the same Ideas occur so they must have referred to the Messias whatever is great in this Prophecy and to others whatever therein denotes humane infirmities And Indeed it was not very hard to give to that Oracle a further prospect viz. to the Messias 1st Because Solomon was made King in the Life of his Father whereas the Son which God speaks of was to be born after David's Death 2dly Because it is spoken of a Seed not born from David but from David's Children 3dly Because the Mercy of God was to make the Kingdom of David last for ever whereas the Kingdom of Solomon was divided soon after his Death and but two parts of twelve were left to Rehoboam his Son St. Paul Gal. iv 29. alludes to the History in Gen. xxi 9. as a Type of the Persecutions which the Jews should exercise on the Christians Whereon does he build this First having proved it his way that the Christian Church was typified in Isaac
that is to say he lived in the reign of Herod the Great about thirty years before the Birth of our Lord. And some Criticks believe our Saviour does cite his Chaldee Paraphrase Luc. iv 18. in quoting the Text Isa lx 2. Thus much may at least be said for it that all that which is there cited does agree better with his Targum than with the Original Text. Onkelos a Proselyte was he according to their common account who turned the five Books of Moses into Chaldee This Work is rather a pure simple Translation than a Paraphrase notwithstanding it must be allowed that in divers places he does not endeavour so much to give us the Text word for word as to clear up the sense of certain places which otherwise could not well be understood by the people This Onkelos according to the common opinion of the Jews saw Jonathan and lived in the time of that ancient Gamaliel who was Master of the Apostle St. Paul as some would have it We find in Megillah c. 1. that he Composed his Targum under the Conduct of R. Eliezer and of R. Josua after the year of our Lord 70 and that he died in the year of our Lord 108 and that his Targum was immediately received into the publick use of the Jews what other Targums there were on the five Books of Moses having almost wholly lost their credit and their authority As to the other Sacred Books which the Jews call Cetouvim or Hagiographes they ascribe the Targums of the Psalms the Proverbs and Job to R. Joseph Caeeus and affirm that he lived a long time after Onkelos And for the Targums of the other Books they look on them as works of Anonymous Authors However the most part of these Targums have been Printed under the name of Jonathan as if he had been Author of them all There are moreover some scraps of a Paraphrase upon the five Books of Moses which is called the Jerusalem Targum and there is another that bears the name of Jonathan upon the Pentateuch and which some Learned Jews have said to be his As doth R. Azaria Imrebinah c. 25. and the Author of the Chain of Tradition p. 28. after R. Menahem de Rekanati who cites it under the name of Jonathan following some Ancient MSS. These Targums ordinarily exceed the bounds of a Paraphrase and enter into Explications some of which are strange enough and appear to be the work of divers Commentators who among some good things have very often mixed their own idle Fancies and Dreams Beckius nineteen years ago published a Paraphrase on the two Books of Chronicles of which also there is a MSS. at Cambridge This deserves almost the same Character with these Paraphrases I spoke of last For the Author of this as well as those before mentioned does often intermingle such Explications as taste of the Commentator with those which appear to have been taken from the Ancient Perushim or Explications of the most Eminent Authors of the Synagogue A Man must be mighty credulous if he gives credit to all the fables which the Jews bring in their Talmud to extoll the authority of Jonathan his Targum and he must have read these Pieces with very little attention or judgment who should maintain that they are entirely and throughout the Works of the Authors whose names they bear or that they are of the same antiquity in respect of all their parts Onkelos is so simple that it seems nothing or very little has been added to him and he has been in so great esteem among the Jews that they have commonly inserted his Version after the Text of Moses verse for verse in the Ancient Manuscripts of the Pentateuch And from thence we may judge if there is any ground for the Conjecture of some Jews who would persuade us that it is only an Abridgment of the Targum of Jonathan upon the Pentateuch Certainly Jonathan his Targum upon the Pentateuch must be of a very dubious origin since we see that the Zohar cites from it the first words which are not to be found in it but in the Targum of Jerusalem fol. 79. col 1. l. 17. It is uncertain if the Targum of Jerusalem hath been a continued Targum or only the Notes of some Learned Jew upon the Margent of the Pentateuch or an abridgment of Onkelos for it hath a mixture of Chaldaick Greek Latin and Persian words which sheweth it hath been written in latter times according to the judgment of R. Elias Levita Jonathan who explained the former and the latter Prophets has not been so happy as Onkelos for it seems those that Copied his Targum have added many things to it some of which discover their Authors to have lived more than 700 years after him one may also see there a medly of different Targum of which the Targum on Isai xlix is a plain instance As to the Targums on all the other Holy Books which the Jews call the first Prophets it is visible that all their parts are not equally ancient Those which we have on Joshua and Judges are simple enough and Literal That on Ruth is full of Talmudical Ideas The same judgment may be made of those on the two Books of Samuel Those which we have on the two Books of Kings are a little freer from additions But that on Esther is rather a Commentary that collects several Opinions upon difficult places than a Paraphrase In that on Job attributed to R. Joseph in the Jews Edition at Venice in Folio Anno 1515. there are divers Targums cited in express Terms as there are also in the Targum on the Psalms which bears the name of R. Joseph in the aforesaid Edition of Venice One may also observe many Additions in the Targums on the Proverbs and Ecclesiastes but especially in that upon the Canticles all which have been published under the name of R. Joseph I have said almost as much of that on the two Books of Chronicles which Beckius published about eighteen or nineteen years ago This being so one may very well ask with what justice do you ascribe these Books to those who as the Jews now say were the Authors of them when by their own confession Onkelos on the five Books of Moses is perhaps the only Translator in whom you find none of these marks of corruption which you acknowledg in the other Targums you quote For the other Targums it may be said that we ought to leave them out of the Dispute unless we would impose the new Sentiments of the Jews that lived long after Christ's time under the pretence of producing the opinions of the ancient Synagogue before Jesus Christ One may insist upon it that we are to quote the Books of Onkelos only and lay the other aside as Books of no authority since we do confess that they are full of Additions in which there are many Fables and Visions borrowed from the Talmudical Jews I might hope to satisfie any
Martyr having been formerly a Platonist and then turning Christian was the first that invented this Doctrine or rather adopted it out of the Platonick into the Christian Divinity and that neither the Jewish nor the Christian Church had ever before conceived any Notion of a Trinity or of any Plurality in the Divine Essence The Doctrine of the Trinity supposes the Divine Essence to be common to three Persons distinguished from one another by incommunicable Properties These Persons are called by St. John 1 Joh. v. 7. the Father the Word and the Spirit There are Three saith he that bear Witness in Heaven the Father the Word and the Spirit and these Three are One. This Personal distinction supposes the Father not to be the Son nor the Holy Ghost and that the Son is not the Father nor the Holy Spirit Revelation teaching that the Son is begotten of the Father and that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son or from the Father by the Son And this distinction is the foundation of their Order and of their Operations For although the Unity of the Divine Nature makes it necessary that these three Persons should all co-operate in the Works of God ad extra as we call them nevertheless there being a certain order among the Persons and a distinction founded in their Personal Properties the Holy Scripture mentioneth an Oeconomy in their Operations so that one work ad extra is ascribed to the Father another to the Son and a third to the Holy Spirit But this distinction of Persons all partaking of the same common Nature and Majesty hinders not their being equally the Object of that Worship which Religion commands us to pay to God I touch this matter but very briefly because my business is only to examine whether the Jews had any notion of this Doctrine And our Opinion is this that though the Gospel has proposed that Doctrine more clearly and distinctly yet there were in the Old Testament sufficient notices of it so that the Jews before Christ's time did draw from thence their Notions concerning it On the contrary the Socinians maintain that this Doctrine is not only alike foreign to the Books of the Old and New Testament but that it was altogether unknown to the Jews before and after Christ till Justin Martyr first brought it into the Church In opposition to which I affirm for truth 1. That the Jews before Jesus Christ had a notion of a Plurality in God following herein certain Traces of this Doctrine that are to be found in the Books of Moses and the Prophets 2. That the same Jews following the Scriptures of the Old Testament did acknowledg a Trinity in the Divine Nature I begin the Examination of this Subject by considering the Notions of the Authors of the Apocryphal Books Now one cannot expect that these Authors should have explained their mind with relation to the notions of a Plurality and of a Trinity in the Godhead as if they had been Interpreters of the Books of the Old Testament But they express it sufficiently without that and speak in such a manner that no body can deny that they must have had those very Notions when it appears that their Expressions in speaking of God supposes the Notions of a Plurality in the Godhead and of a Trinity in particular Let us consider some of those Expressions 1. They were so full of the notion of a Plurality which is expressed in Gen. i. 26. that the Author of Tobith hath used it as the Form of Marriage among the Jews of old Let us make unto him an aid So Chap. 8.6 Thou madest Man and gavest him Eve his Wife for an helper and stay of them came Mankind Thou hast said It is not good that Man should be alone Let us make unto him an aid like unto himself whereas in the Hebrew it is only I shall make 2ly We see that they acknowledg the Creation of the World by the Word of God and by the Holy Ghost as David Psal xxxiii 6. So the Book of Wisdom Ch. ix 1. O God of my Fathers and Lord of mercy who hath made all things with thy Word or more properly by thy Word as it is explained in the 2. vers and ver 4. he asketh Wisdom in these words Give me Wisdom that sitteth by thy Throne And v. 17. Thy counsel who hath known except thou give Wisdom and send thy Holy Spirit from above Where he distinguisheth the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Wisdom and the Holy Spirit from God to whom he directs his Prayer And so the Book of Judith ch xvi 13 14. I will sing unto the Lord a new Song O Lord thou art great and glorious wonderful in strength and invincible Let all creatures serve thee for thou speakest and they were made thou didst send forth thy Spirit and it created them and there is none that can resist thy voice 3ly They speak of the Emanation of the Word from God Those are the words of the Book of Wisdom ch vii 25. For she is the breath of the power of God and a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty therefore can no defiled thing fall into her That description of Wisdom deserves to be considered as we have it in the same place ver 22 23 24 25 26. For Wisdom which is the worker of All things taught me for in her is an understanding spirit holy one only manifold subtil lively clear undefiled plain not subject to hurt loving the thing that is good quick which cannot be letted ready to do good Kind to man stedfast sure free from care having all power over-seeing all things and going through all understanding pure and most subtil Spirits For Wisdom is more moving than any motion she passeth and goeth through all things by reason of her pureness For she is the brightness of the everlasting Light the unspotted mirrour of the power of God and the image of his Goodness And indeed St. Paul Heb. i. 3. hath borrowed from thence what we read touching the Son that he is the brightness of God's glory and the express Image of his Person So the Book of Ecclesiasticus saith ch xxv 3. That it is come out of the mouth of the most High 4ly There are several Names in Scripture which serve to express the second Person the Son the Word the Wisdom the Angel of the Lord but who is the Lord indeed Now those Authors use all these Names to express a second Person For they acknowledge a Father and a Son by a natural consequence Thus the Author of Ecclesiasticus ch li. 10. I called upon the Lord the father of my Lord in the same way as David speaks of the Messias Psal ii and Psal cx and as Solomon in his Proverbs ch viii 25. as of a Son in the bosom of his Father and ch xxx 4. What is his Sons name if thou canst tell They speak of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as
the Creator of all things so the Author of Wisdom ch ix 1. O God of my Fathers and Lord of mercy who hath made all things with thy word Or more properly by thy Word And so they call that Wisdom the Worker of all things Wisd ch vli 22. They speak of the Wisdom in the same words as Solomon doth Prov. iii. and ch viii 22. where he expresseth the true notion of Eternity And indeed they attribute to her to have been eternal Ecclus ch iv 18. They refer constantly to God himself that is to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of God as we shall hereafter shew at large what is attributed to the Angel of the Lord in many places of the Books of Moses as to have delivered the Israelites from the Red Sea so Wisd ch xix 9. They went at large like horses and leaped like lambs praising thee O Lord who hadst delivered them Again to have had his Throne in a cloudy Pillar Ecclus xxiv 4. To have been caused by the Creator of all things to rest and to have his dwelling in Jacob and to have his inheritance in Israel Ibid. v. 8. and so to have given his memorial to his Children which is the Law commanded for an heritage into the Congregation of Jews Ib. 23. So they attribute to him to have spoken with Moses Ecclus ch xlv 5. He made him to hear his voice and brought him into the dark cloud and gave him commandments before his face even the Law of life and knowledg that he might teach Jacob his Covenants and Israel his Judgments Again to come down from Heaven to fight against the Egyptians Wisd ch xviii 15 16 17. Thine Almighty Word leapt down from Heaven out of thy Royal Throne as a fierce man of war into the midst of a land of destruction And brought thine unfeigned Commandment as a sharp sword and standing up filled all things with death and it touched the Heaven but it stood upon the Earth So they maintain that the Angel who appeared to Joshuah ch 5. was the Lord himself so the Author of Ecclesiasticus ch xlvi 5 6. He call'd upon the most high Lord when the enemies pressed upon him on every side and the great Lord heard him And with hailstones of mighty power he made the battle to fall violently upon the Nations and in the descent of Bethoron he destroyed them that resisted that the Nations might know all their strength because he fought in the sight of the Lord and he followed the mighty one They refer the Miracles wrought by Elias to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as you see in Ecclesiasticus ch xlviii 3 4 5. By the Word of the Lord he shut up the Heaven and also three times brought down fire O Elias how wast thou honoured in thy wondrous deeds and who may glory like unto thee Who didst raise up a dead man from death and his soul from the place of the dead by the Word of the most High As there is nothing more common in the Old Testament than to call the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Angel of the Lord because the Father sent him to do all things under the Old Dispensation so one can see that there is nothing more ordinary in the Apocryphal Books than to speak of an Angel in particular to whom is attributed all things which could not be performed but by God Three things prove clearly that they did not conceive a created Angel but an Angel who is God 1. Because they have this Maxim according to the constant Divinity of the Jews built upon Scripture Deut. xxxii 9. that God did take Israel for his Portion among all the Nations of the World as if he had left other Nations to the conduct of Angels so Esth ch xiii 15. 2ly Because they refer to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some Histories of the Old Testament which the Jews till this day refer to an Uncreated Angel or to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Shekina or Memra da Jehova as I shall prove afterwards We see that Wisd ch xvi 12. For it was neither herb nor mollifying Plaister that restored them to health but thy Word O Lord which healeth all things So Wisd ch xviii 15 16 17. Thine Almighty Word leapt down from Heaven out of thy Royal Throne as a fierce man of war into the midst of a land of destruction and brought thine unfeigned commandment as a sharp sword and standing up filled all things with death and it touched the Heaven but it stood upon the earth I thought fit to repeat this place here to make Mr. N. ashamed who hath exposed those Ideas and laught at them which I believe he would not have done if he had reflected upon two things one is That this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who is spoken of is that very man of war mentioned in Moses his Canticle Exod. xii 3. and in Juâ—lith ch ix 7. The other is that St. Paul hath followed the Notions of the Book of Wisdom speaking of a sharp sword which is to be understood not of the Gospel but of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. x. 12. But Mr. N. was in the right to laugh at such an authority which destroys to the ground the Unitarians Principles for nothing can be more clear than that this Author acknowledges a Plurality in God that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must be a Person and a Person equal to the Father being set upon the Royal Throne 3ly Because they bring such appearances of that Angel which shew they conceived him as the God who ruled Israel and who had taken their Temple for the place of his abode And on the contrary they speak of God whom they considered as dwelling in the Temple in the same words which are used in Scripture when it is spoken of the name of God Exod. xxiii 21. and 1 Sam. viii 16. of the Angel of the Covenant Malach. iii. 1. and such expressions So you see in the 1. Book of Esdras ch ii 5 7. If therefore there be any of you that are of his people let the Lord even his Lord be with him and let him go up to Jerusalem that is in Judea and build the House of the Lord of Israel for he is the Lord that dwelleth in Jerusalem And ch iv v. 58. Now when this young man was gone forth he lifted up his face to Heaven toward Jerusalem and praised the King of Heaven And Judith ch v. 18. and ch ix 8. and 2 Macch. i. 25. The only giver of all things the only just Almighty and Everlasting thou that deliveredst Israel from all trouble and didst chuse the fathers and sanctifie them And ch ii 17. We hope also that the God that delivered all his people and gave them all on heritage and the Kingdom and the Priesthood and the Sanctuary And ch xiv 35. Thou O Lord of all things who hast need of nothing was pleased that the Temple of thine habitation should be
among us I can add 4ly that they distinguish exactly the Angel of God from the Prophets although they are call'd by the same name of Angels or Messengers and they distinguish him from Angels which as creatures they exhort to praise God as in the Song of Azaria v. 36. O ye Angels of the Lord bless ye the Lord praise and exalt him above all for ever Such a distinction appears in the 1. of Esdras ch i. 50 51. Nevertheless the God of their Fathers sent by his Messenger to call them back because he spared them and his Tabernacle also But they had his Messengers in derision and look when the Lord spake unto them they made a sport of his Prophets So in Tobith ch v. 16. So they were well pleased Then said he to Tobias prepare thy self for the journey his father said Go thou with this man and God which dwelleth in heaven prosper your journey and the Angel of God keep you company Just according to the Prayer of Jacob Gen. 48.16 The Angel which redeemed me from all evil bless the lads And that very Angel is called God by Jacob in the verse before So in Ecclus ch xvli 17. For in the division of the Nations of the whole earth he set a ruler over every people but Israel is the Lord's portion So in the Epistle of Jeremy v. 5 6. But say ye in your hearts O Lord we must worship thee For mine Angel is with you and I my self caring for your souls Where in the Greek that caring for their souls is referred to the same Angel So 2 Mac. xi 6. Now they that were with Maccabeus heard that he besieged the holds they and all the people with lamentation and tears besought the Lord that he would send a good Angel to deliver Israel To shew that the Jews before Jesus Christ had such a notion of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who was to save his people we must take notice of two things the first is that the Author of the three Books of Maccabees speaks of God at the end of his Book in the same terms which are used by Jacob Gen. xlviii 15 16. and are to be referred to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not to a created Angel as I have explained it in a particular discussion of that very place of Genesis The second is that the Greek Interpreters of Scripture have used such method in translating some places of the Prophets which sheweth they understood that the Messias should be the very Angel of the Lord who is called the Counsellor and that the Angel of the Lord was the Lord himself Two examples will shew that clearly the first is in that famous Oracle of Isaiah ch ix 6. they have these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Angel of the Great Counsel whereas in the Hebrew it is said he shall be called the admirable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the very Word that the Angel of the Lord gives to himself Judg. xiii 18. the Counsellor of the mighty God and it is clear that they did understand these words of the Messias who is spoken of as the Son of David v. 7. in the same words which are used in Psalm lxxii The other example is in this other famous place of Isai lxiii 9. they have translated neither an Angel but himself saved them as if they had read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 instead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we read now Some of the new Jews are mightily intangled in explaining that place but it appears that these Interpreters of Isaiah look'd upon the face of God to have been God himself which is the reason of their translation and shews that they understood the face of the Lord which is so often spoken of by Moses to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is Jehovah I can add a reflection upon their Version of the 3d of Daniel v. 25. Species quarti similis filio Dei as saith Aquila a Jew who lived under Hadrian but the ancient Greeks had translated it similis Angelo Dei as saith an old Scholion related by Drusius in Fragmentis p. 1213. which shews that the ancient Hellenist had the same Notion of the Angel of God as of the Son of God But all those things shall be more cleared when we come to the authority of the other Jews which we are to produce Some perhaps may think that the Book of Ecclesiasticus supposeth the Wisdom which we maintain to be eternal to have been created and so saith that Author ch 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and ch xxiv 9. But I take notice of three things 1. That such an Objection may be good in the mouth of an Arian but not at all in the mouth of a Socinian and much less in the mouth of an Unitarian of this Kingdom after their Writers have owned that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Word of God signifies the essential vertue of God 2ly That the Author of Ecclesiasticus follows in that expression the very words of the Greek Version of Proverbs ch viii 22. in which it answers to the word possessed which is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3ly That the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 although we should suppose it to be the true reading hath a very large signification and indeed Aristobulus a Jew of Alexandria who lived about the same age of the Authors of those Apocryphal Books and whose words are quoted by Eusebius de Praep. Ev. L. vii § 14. p. 324. declares that the Wisdom which Solomon speaks of in the Book of Proverbs was before the Heaven and Earth and the very Author of Ecclesiasticus calls it positively eternal ch xxiv 18. There is another Objection which is backed by the authority of Grotius who by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Wisdom understands a created Angel but I shall shew afterwards the absurdity of that opinion of Grotius and his error is so plain that Mr. N. and the Unitarian Authors have been ashamed to follow his authority in this point daring not to maintain that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the first of St. John signified an Angel which they would have done if they could have digested the absurdity of Grotius his Notions upon that place of Wisdom ch xviii 15. As for the Holy Ghost that they acknowledged him for a Person and for a Divine one there is as much evidence from the same Apocryphal Books 1. I have noted they attributed to him the Creation of the World as you see in Judith ch xvi 14. Thou didst send forth thy Spirit and it created them which is an imitation of David's Notions Psal xxxiii 6. 2ly They call him the mouth of the Lord so in the 3d Book of Esdras ch i. 28. and 47 and 57. Howbeit Josias did not turn back his chariot from him but undertook to fight with him not regarding the words of the Prophet Jeremy spoken by the mouth of the Lord.
in another reading of the Text which I take to be the true reading for we find it not only in the now vulgar Latin but also in Irenaeus i. 20. which sheweth it was the current reading in his time and we find it also in several Manuscripts some of which are of the highest esteem with Learned Men as namely the Alexandrian in the King's Library and the ancient Manuscript of Lions in the Cambridge Library In all these the words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This person is the power of God which is called the great power For their calling him the power of God what that means we cannot better learn than from Origen who speaking of Simon and such others as would make themselves like our Lord Jesus Christ saith they called themselves Sons of God or the Power of God which he makes to be two Titles of one and the same signification Orig. cont Celsum lib. 1. p. 44. And both these Titles are given to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Philo in more places than we can number For their calling him the Great Power of God which implies that there was another power besides this also perfectly agrees with the Notions of Philo who so often speaks of the two Powers of God describing them as true and proper Persons We have a farther proof of the Samaritans having these Notions in the account which their Country-man Justin Martyr hath given us of the honour they had for Simon Magus in his time which was about eighty years after the writing of the Acts of the Apostles It may seem very strange that when the charms of that Magus wherewith he had bewitched that poor people were so intirely dissolved by Philip's Preaching and Miracles that not only they but the Impostor himself had embraced the Christian Religion yet after this he could so far bewitch them a second time as to raise himself in their opinion from being the great power of God as they called him before to be in their new style the God above all power whatsoever Yet that was the Title they gave him in Justin's time as he sheweth in his Dialogue with Tryphon Justin Dial. cum Tryph. p. 349. G. elswhere Justin saith Apol. 11. p. 69. E. of Simon they confess him as the first God and as such they worship him This Notion of a first God is manifestly the same with that of Philo who called the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the second God Euseb Prep Evang. vii 13. p. 323. But if the Samaritans in the Apostles time took Simon to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or second God as I have shewn it more than probable that they meant it by calling him the Great power of God Who should be the second God now since Simon was so advanced in their opinion that now they accounted him to be the First Justin sheweth in the place before mentioned p. 69. E. that in his time as they called Simon the first God so they called his Companion Helen the second God His words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what is that one may easily guess for certainly the first emanation from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And so according to Justin himself the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies For in the same Book he interprets it of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Apol. 11. p. 97. b. So that as the second God was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Philo's account so was Simon 's Companion the same in the opinion of the Samaritans This poor bewitched people were almost Singular in this opinion in Justin's time for he saith then there were but few of their way in other Nations And Origen who wrote within sixty years after saith That when he wrote there were of Simon 's Sect scarce thirty at Samaria and none any where else in the World Orig. cont Cels 1. p. 44. Possibly there might remain some of them till those times when other Writers give other accounts of their Opinions and possibly their Opinions might vary so that those later accounts are not to be much heeded we can't be certain of any thing concerning them but what we have from Justin Martyr who lived when they were at the highest and writing as he did to the Emperour an Apology for the Christians and acquainting him with the Errors of his Country-men at Samaria which as he more than intimates was not without some hazard of his being torn in pieces by the Mobb Just Dial. cum Tryphon p. 340. we may be very sure he would write nothing of them but what was so evidently true that it could not be denied by any that lived in those days But from the account that Justin Martyr gives of them together with what we read in the Acts of the Apostles I think it is sufficiently proved that the Samaritans held a Plurality in the Divine Nature which not a little confirms that which I undertook to prove of the Jews having these Notions in the times of Christ and his Apostles I shall not insist longer on the Arguments which confirm a Plurality in the Divine Nature because I shall touch on some of them again in the Sequel of this Discourse where I shall shew that those places of the Old Testament that speak of the Angel of the Lord are to be understood not of a created Angel but of a person that is truly Jehova and that this has been acknowledged by the ancient Jews which alone is proof enough of this Notion's being sufficiently known by that Nation to which God committed his Sacred Oracles Rom. ix 6. Pass we now to the second Article that the Jews did so acknowledg a Plurality in God as that at the same time they held that this Plurality was a Trinity CHAP. X. That the Jews did acknowledge the Foundations of the Belief of a Trinity in the Divine Nature and that they had the Notion of it IN pursuance of the Method laid down in the foregoing Chapter I am now to shew these two things 1. That there are in the Scriptures of the Old Testament so many and so plain Intimations of a Trinity in the Divine Nature as might very well move the Jews to take them for a sufficient ground for the Belief of this Doctrine 2. That these Intimations had that real effect on the Jews that as they found in their Scriptures a Plurality in the One Infinite Being of God so they found these Scriptures to restrain this Plurality to a Trinity of which they had though much more darkly and confusedly the same Notions that are now among Christians 1. To shew that there is ground for this Doctrine in the Scriptures of the Old Testament I might shew this oftentimes in these Scriptures where God is spoken of there is some kind of intimation given of Three in the Divine Nature But of this I shall only touch upon it my intention being chiefly to shew That there are Three that are called God
come in like a flood the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him and the Redeemer shall come unto Sion Again Isa lxi 1. The Spirit of the Lord Jehovah is upon Me because the Lord hath anointed me They are the words which Christ applied to himself Luke iv 18. It may not be amiss here to answer an Objection against the use that we have made of those Texts wherein God saith WE and US in the Plural which manner of speaking the Jews cannot but see does denote a Plurality R. Kimchi on Isa vi 8. makes that Observation But then he fancies it is spoken with relation to Angels whom God is pleased to call in by way of Consultation In the Text Isa vi those whom God consults with are to send as well as he and those in Gen. i. 26. are to make Man as well as he And surely God would not join the Angels with himself in the sending of his Prophets much less would he give Angels a share in the Glory of making Man the Master-piece of the Creation Angels are Creatures as well as Man and were but a Day elder than he according to some of the Jews a Week older than he they could not be And at the making of Man it is believed with very good reason that those Angels were not yet fallen whom we now call Devils It seems not very likely that as soon as they were made God should call them into Council for making of another of his Creatures much less that he should make them Creators together with himself especially when this gives them a Title to the Worship of Intelligent Beings such as Man who if this had been true ought to have worshipp'd not only Angels but Devils as being his Creators together with God But the Truth is so far on the contrary that as at first Man was made but a little lower than the Angels so there is a Man since made Lord both of Angels and Devils whom they are to worship This I know our Unitarians will now deny But to come to an end of this matter It is certainly below the Infinite Majesty of God in any of his works whatever to say to any of his Creatures Let us make or Let us do this or that And for that idle Fancy of a Consultation it is not only absurd in it self but it is contrary to the holy Scripture that asks Isa xl 13. Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord or who hath been his Counsellor Which in effect is a flat denial that there is any Creature to be call'd into Consultation with God And therefore whoever they were to whom God said this Let us make or Let us do this or that they could be no Creatures they must be uncreated Beings like himself if there were any such then in being But that then at the Creation such there were even the Word and the Spirit has been shewn from the beginning of that History I think beyond contradiction Thus we have collected a number of Places from the Old Testament which speak of a Trinity and consequently do reduce the Plurality which we proved before to a Trinity in the Unity of the Divine Nature We see there Three distinct Characters of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit We see the Generation of the Son express'd and the Mission of the Holy Spirit upon the Son when he came to live in our Nature We see the number Three still observed in begging Pardon of Sins of Blessings and in returning Praises to God intimating there were Three from whom all good things come and who are therefore the Objects of Prayer It remains that we enquire whether the like Inferences which we draw from these Texts were made by the Jews before Jesus Christ which is the second Particular of our proposed Method I shall not repeat here what in the preceding Chapters I proved That both Philo and the Chaldee Paraphrasts had such Notions of the Unity of God as were not repugnant to his Plurality The Reader can't have forgotten already a thing of such importance My business now is to shew that the Ancient Jews plainly own Two Powers in God which they distinguish from God and yet call each of them God the one being the Son of God the other the Holy Spirit who is called the Spirit of God Notwithstanding that I take the Chaldee Paraphrasts to be ancienter than Philo yet I chuse to begin with Philo's Testimonies rather than theirs for three Reasons First Because he writ in the way of Treatises and therefore much larger and clearer than they did that writ only in the way of Translation or Paraphrase adding nothing of their own but only sometimes a very short Note on the Text And therefore their Writings are much likelier to be explained by his than his by theirs 2dly Because the Passages in Philo for the Existence of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a Person coeternal with the Father are so evident as to leave the Socinians no other way of answering them but to deny with Mr. N. that the Books that contain them were written by Philo the Jew 3dly A third Reason is because these Passages of Philo being written at Alexandria and abounding with Expressions used by the Apostles when they speak of Jesus Christ as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will contribute to explain some of the Quotations we shall take out of the Paraphrases in use at Babylon and Jerusalem These three great Cities Babylon Jerusalem and Alexandria were the three great Academies of the Jews till the destruction of the Temple under Vespasian So that whatever was received among the Jews in these three Cities before our Saviour's time may well pass for the Opinion of the Jewish Church at that time Let us proceed then to some of those Passages in Philo the Jew wherein he declares that there are Two such Powers in God as we call Two Persons and no one shall make sense of those Passages that calls them otherwise 1. In general he acknowledges that God hath Two Chief Supreme Powers one of which is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lord. De Abrah p. 286 287. F. De vit Mos iii. p. 517. F. 2. That these Two Powers are Uncreated Quod Deus sit immut p. 238. A. Eternal De Plant. Noae 176. D. and Infinite or Immense and Incomprehensible De Sacr. Ab. p. 168. B. 3. On many occasions he speaks of these Two Powers as De Cherub p. 86. F. G. 87. A. De Sacr. Ab. p. 108. A. B. De Plant. Noae p. 176. D. E. Quod Deus est immut p. 229. B. De Confus Ling. p. 270. E. 271. Lib. de Prof. p. 359. G. and especially p. 362 and p. 363. B. C. D. Quis rerum divin Haer. p. 393. G. p. 394. A. C. De Somn. p. 457. F. De Monar p. 631. A. B. C. De Vict. Offeren p. 661. B. De Mund. p. 888. B. 4.
he may be the meaning of this It seems that Moses should have said Who have God so near them But saith he there is a Superior God and there is the God who was the Fear of Isaac and there is an Inferior God and therefore Moses saith The Gods so near For there are many Virtues that come from the only One and all they are one See how the same Author supposes that there are Three Degrees in the Godhead in Levit. col 116. Come and see the Mystery in the word Elohim viz. There are Three degrees and every degree is distinct by himself and notwithstanding they are all One and tied in One and one is not separated from the other And again in Exod. col 75. Upon the words of Deut vi 4. Hear O Israel the Lord our God is one Lord they must know that those Three viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are One unum and that is a Secret which we learn in the Mystery of the Voice which is heard The Voice is One unum but it contains Three Modes viz. the Fire the Air and the Water Now these Three are One in the Mystery of the Voice and they are but One unum So in this place Jehovah our Lord Jehovah are one unum You have this Remark of the same Author in Gen. fol. 54. col 2. de Litera ש That the Three Branches of that Letter denote the Heavenly Fathers who are there named Jehovah our Lord Jehovah R. Hay Hagahon who lived Seven hundred Years ago said there are Three Lights in God the Ancient Light or Kadmon the Pure Light or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Purified Light or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that these make but One God And that there is neither Plurality nor Polytheism in this The same Idea is followed by R. Shem Tov in his Book Emunoth part 4. cap. 8. p. 32. col 2. See again R. Hamay Hagaon in his Book 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Speculation cited by Reuchlin p. 651. Hi tres qui sunt unum inter se proportionem habent ut 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unum uniens unitum He said before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sunt principium medium finis haec sunt unus punctus est dominus universi R. Joseph ben Gekatilia and the other Cabalists are in effect for three Elohims when they treat of the three 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or three first Sephiroth For they agree that the three first Sephiroth were never seen by any body and that there is no discord no imperfection among them The Note of this R. Joseph Gekatilia is very remarkable The Jews saith he have been under the severity of judgment and shall continue so till the coming of the Messias who shall be united saith he with the second Sephirah which is Wisdom according as it is written Isa xi 2. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him the Spirit of Wisdom c. And he shall cause the Spirit of Grace and Clemency to descend from the first Sephirah who is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Infinite and he follows in that Rabbi Salomon Jarchi who saith upon Isa xi that the Cochma which is the second Sephira shall be in the middle of the Messias In a word this Notion of Plurality and Trinity expressed in the Writings of Moses and the Prophets hath not only been observed by the Jews but they have found and acknowledged it as well as the Christians to be a great and profound mystery And for the explaining of it the Jews have employed very near the same Ideas that the Christians use in speaking of the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity For they conceive in God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Faces and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Subsistences which we call Persons as one may see in Sepher Jetzirah Moreover we may observe 1. That when they speak of the three first Sephiroth they understand the same thing by them as we do by three Personalities three Modes of Existence active or passive Emanations or Processions which are the foundation of the Personalities 2ly That though they hold ten Sephiroth in all yet they make a great difference between the three first Sephiroth and the seven last For they regard the first as Persons but the last as Attributes according to which God acts in the ordinary course of his Providence or according to his several dispensations towards his Creatures Hence they call the seven last Middoth or Measures that is to say the Attributes and Characters which are visible in the Works of God namely his Justice and Mercy c. And this is confessed in plain words by the great Cabalist R. Menachem de Rekanati Tres primariae numerationes quae sunt intellectuales non vocantur mensurae i.e. they are not Attributes as are the seven last which he explains under that Notion Rittangel hath already quoted that place in his Notes upon Sepher Jetzira p. 193. It may be objected that the ancient Jews were ignorant of the Names of Father Son and Holy Spirit which Names the Christians give to the three Persons in the Deity But this if it were true would not weigh much with a reasonable mind For who can doubt but a new Revelation may distinguish those Notions clearly by proper and suitable Names which the Jews by what Revelation they had knew but more confusedly And yet to remove the Objection wholly it is certain the ancient Cabalists were acquainted with the Names of Father Son and Holy Ghost They gave the Name of Father to the first of their Sephiroth whom they called En Soph i. e. Infinite to express his Incomprehensibility This we have in Zohar from whence it is easie to conclude that they must own the Son also the Name of Father being relative to the Son But further they knew that second Person by the name Coema Wisdom even that Wisdom by which the Word was created c. according to Prov. 3.19 The Lord by Wisdom hath founded the Earth This Notion was so ancient among the Jews that the Jerusalem Targum hath rendred the first verse of Genesis thus The Lord created by his Wisdom The Christians call'd him the Word and Wisdom alluding to divers places especially Psal xxxiii 6. and Prov. viii 14. The Jews commonly call him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the second Glory and the Crown of the Creation Rittanget brings their Authorities for this in Seph Jetzira p. 4 5. They knew the third Person by the name of Binah or Intelligence because they thought it was he that gave Men the knowledg of what God was pleased to reveal to them In particular they called him the Sanctifier and the Father of Faith nor is any thing more common among them than to give him the name of the Spirit of Holiness or the Holy Spirit The same Doctrine is to be found in several other Books of the Cabalists which are known to most Christians because they are Printed
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is begotten of God Alleg. ii p. 76. B. Which can agree only to a Person And 2. where he proves that the Word acted and spoke in all the Divine Appearances that are mentioned in the Old Testament which certainly supposes a Person 3. Where he describes the Word as presiding over the Empires of the World and determining the Changes that befall them Lib. quod Deus sit Immutab p. 248. D. 4ly Where he brings in the Word for a Mediator between God and Men Quis rer Div. haer p. 393. that renders God propitious to his Creatures de Somn. p 447. E. F. That is the Instructer of Men Ib. p. 448. and their Shepherd alluding to Psal xxiii 1. The Chaldee Paraphrases are full of Notions and Expressions relating to the Word conformable to those of Philo touching the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So that he must wink hard who does not see that in their sense the word is truly a Person And 1. they almost always distinguish the Memra or Word of the Lord which answers to Philo's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the word Pithgama which signifies a Matter or a Discourse as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does in Greek 2. They ascribe the Creation of the World to the Word 3. They make it the Word that appeared to the Ancients under the name of the Angel of the Lord. 4. The Word that saved Noah in the time of the Flood and made a Covenant with him Onkelos on Gen. vii viii 5. They say that Abraham believed in the Word which thing was imputed to him for Righteousness Onkel on Gen. xv 6. 6. That the Word brought Abraham out of Chaldea Onk. on Gen. xv 7. and commanded him to Sacrifice Gen. xv 9. and gave him the Prophecy related v. 13. 7. That Abraham swore by the Word Onk. on Gen. xxi 23. 8. That the Word succoured Ishmael Gen. xxi 21. and Joseph in his Bondage Gen. xxxix 2 3. The like Notions has Onkelos in his Targum on Exodus 1. It is the Word's assistance that God promises Moses Exod. iii. 12. iv 12. xviii 19. 2. It is the Word in whom Israel believed as well as in Moses Exod. xiv 32. 3. It is the Word that redeems Israel out of Egypt Exod. xv 2. 4. It is the Word against whom Israel murmur'd in Sin Exod. xvi 8. 5. It is the Word before whom the People marched to receive the Law Exod. xix 17. 6. It is the Word whose Presence is promised in the Tabernacle Exod. xxx 6. xxxvi 42. which is repeated Numb viii 29. 7. It is the Word between whom and Israel the Sabbath is made a Sign Exod. xxxi 13 17. and so Lev. xxxvi 46. 8. It is the Word whose Protection was promised Moses when he desired to see God Exod. xxxiv 22. Much the same has Onkelos on Leviticus and Numbers 1. It is the Word whose Commandments the Israelites were to observe carefully Lev. viii 35. xviii 30. xxii 9. Numb ix 19. xx 23. 2. It is spoken of the Word that he will not forsake the People if they continue in their Obedience Lev. xxviii 11. 3. By the Word God regards his People Ib. 4. The Majesty of the Word did rest among the Israelites Numb xi 20. 5. It is the Word whom Moses exhorts the Jews not to rebell against Numb xiv 9. xx 24. 6. They believed in the Word Num. xiv 11. xx 12 7. The Word meets Balaam Numb xxiii and opens his Eyes xxii 31. The same things or the like we find in Onkelos on Deuteronomy 1. The Word brought Israel out of Egypt and fought for them Deut. i. 30. iii. 22. viii 2. xx 1. 2. The Word led Israel in the Pillar of a Cloud Ch. i. 32. 3. The Word spake out of the fire at Horeb V. 34 36. Moses was Mediator between the Word and his People V. 5. 5. Moses Exhorts the Jews to obey the Word xiv 18. xv 5. xxvii 14. xxviii 1 3 15 45 62. xxx 8 19 20. 6. The Word conducts Israel under Joshua to the Land of Canaan xxxi 6 8. 7. The Word created the World Chap. xxxiii 27. So agreeable as you see are the Notions of Onkelos to those of Philo though the one writ in Egypt the other in Palestine and both before the time of our Lord Jesus Christ But besides Onkelos on the Pentateuch we have two other Paraphrases the one which is very diffuse is said to be Jonathan's the other which is called the Jerusalem Targum and is short and as it seems imperfect The Reader may soon judg by comparing them whether they differ from Philo and Onkelos or no. The Jerusalem Targum saith That God Created the World by his Wisdom which he grounds on the word Bereshith Gen. i. 1. And Philo means the same things when he calls the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first Emanation de Confus Ling. p. 267. B. The same Targum saith the Word made Man after his Image Gen. i. 27. Jonathan's affirms the Garden of Eden was planted by the Word for the Just before the Creation of the World Gen. ii 8. And both Jonathan's and the Jerusalem Targum say the Word spoke to Adam in the Garden Gen. iii. 9. the Word lifted up Enoch to Heaven Gen. v. 24. Jonathan's affirms that the Word protected Noah and shut the Door of the Ark upon him Gen. vii 16. That the Word threw down the Tower at Babel Gen. xi 6. And both have it That God promised Abraham that his Word should protect him Gen. xv 1. Jonathan's makes it the Word that plagued Pharaoh for Abraham's sake Gen. xii 17. The Jerusalem Targum saith it was the Word that appeared to Abraham at the Door of the Tent Gen. xviii 1. And that the Word rained Fire from before the Lord Gen. xix 24. And both that Targum and Jonathan's say That Abraham taught his People to hope in the Name of the Word of the Lord Gen. xxi 33. The Jerusalem Targum makes Abraham say The Word of the Lord will prepare a Sacrifice Gen. xxii 8. And asserts that Abraham invoked the Word and called him Lord in his Prayer Gen. xxii 14. Jonathan's Targum brings in Abraham swearing by the Word of the Lord Gen. xxiv 3. And God promising his Word should succour Isaac Gen. xxiii 24 28. repeated Gen. xxxi 3 5 42. xxxii 9. The same Targum says That the Word of the Lord made Rachel bear a Child Gen. xxx 22. Which is consonant to what Philo saith That the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 caused Isaac to be born Alleg. l. 2. p. 77. According to this Targum the Word sent Michael to save Thamar Gen. xxxviii 25. The Word went down with Jacob into Egypt Gen. xlvi 1 2 3 4. The Word succours Joseph Gen. xlix 25. Which Joseph acknowledges Gen. l. 20. We may trace the same Notions in their Targums on Exodus According to Jonathan's The Word built Houses for the Midwives that feared God Exod. i.
consulted Philo's Notions of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before he made this Judgment notwithstanding that he could not but see them in Grotius on St. John's Gospel which he quotes and he could not but know how much they were insisted upon by those Writers whom he pretended to answer They do indeed so distinctly and clearly establish the Personality of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they render useless and unsuitable all the Interpretations he has found out for the Texts in the Targums The second is that he himself though he fitted his Interpretations to divers passages in the Targum thereby to break the force of them when turned against him is yet forced to acknowledg that sometimes the word Memra signifies a Person properly so called according to our sense of it The several places where the Word is said to create the World give him much trouble to elude them And though he endeavours to rid his hands of them by asserting the Word does there signifie the Power of God nevertheless he lets you understand that if you are not pleased with that Solution you may have his consent to take it in the Arian sense of the word for a created God by whom as by a real and Instrumental cause God did truly create the Universe This is the strangest answer that could be returned to so great an Objection For he must have lost his Reason who imagins that God can make a Creature capable of creating the Universe Grant this and by what Character will you distinguish the Creature from the Creator By what right then could God appropriate as he doth very often in the Old Testament the work of the World's Creation to himself excluding any other from having to do in it but himself Why should God upon this score forbid the giving worship to the Creature which is due to the Creator The Arians who worship Jesus Christ though they esteem him a Creature and those Papists who swallow whole the Doctrine of Transubstantion they may teach in their Schools that a Creature may be inabled by God to become a Creator But for us who deny that any thing but God is to be adored as Philo did before us de Decal p. 581. de Monarch p. 628. We reject all such vain conceits of a Creature being any way capable to receive the Infinite Power of a Creator There are other places also which he found he could not easily evade so at length he consents that the Memra does often denote a Person in the Language of the Targums as where we read the Word spake and the Word said But what kind of Person An Angel a Created Angel in his Judgment that speaks in the Name of God And thus he thinks the Word is to be understood in those Paraphrases when they ascribe to the Word the leading of Israel through the Desert The Reader may judge how many Texts this Answer will fit by reviewing what has been said in the two foregoing Chapters He will find I have there prevented this Answer and shewed that Philo and the Targums did not take this for a created Angel but for a Divine Person who was called an Angel in respect of the Office he discharged according to the Oeconomy between the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity and of whom the Targums generally make express mention in places where the Hebrew Text hath Jehovah Elohim or the Angel of the Lord and sometimes where it hath simply the Name Jehovah However to leave no doubt in this matter we will undertake to prove further that the Word doth not signifie a Created Angel in Philo or in the Targums but a truly Divine Person It is true that Philo sometimes calls the Angels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Plural But elswhere he speaks of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 singularly in terms that express his acknowledgment of him for the Creator of Angels and consequently for God This he does in his Book de Sacrif Abel p. 202. where he declares him to be the Word that appeared to Moses and separates him from the Angels which are the Hosts of God Again he describes the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 under the Name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as true God as Creator of the World Lib. de Temulentia p. 190. D. 194. B. But the Angels after another manner de Plant. Noae p. 168. F. G. de Gigant p. 221. E. de Mundo p. 391. It is true he calls the Word an Archangel de Conf. Linguar p. 267. B. But in the same place he calls him the first-born of God the Image of God the Creator of the World p. 258. A. And in another place the Son of God that conducted Israel through the Wilderness Quis rer Divin Haeres p. 397. F.G. He was so far from taking the Word to be an Angel that he affirmed the Word used to appear to Men under the form of an Angel thus saith he the Word appeared to Jacob de Somn. p. 465. D. And to Hagar p. 466. B. We are to observe this carefully that we may make Philo agree with Philo. For one while he saith an Angel appeared to the Patriarchs and another time he saith the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 appeared to them his design being to acquaint us that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is named an Angel because he appeared as an Angel in these kinds of Manifestations of himself Now as to the Targums they likewise understand by this Angel a Person that is truly God For 1. Could they ascribe the Creation of the World to the Word as they do and yet think him to be a Creature Could they profess him the Creator of Mankind without asserting his Divinity Could they think him to be no better than an Angel and yet make him to be Worshipped by Men whom they know to be little lower than Angels Could they imagin him to have given the Law on Mount Sinai and not reflect on the Preface of the Law wherein the great Law-giver says I am Jehovah thy God that brought thee out of the Land of Egypt The Word is not so often called an Angel in the Targums as he is set forth with these Characters of God as the Reader may see especially in Jonathan's Targum and in that of Jerusalem Exod. iii. 14. xii 42. and in many other places 2. The Targums always distinguish the Word from the Angels representing them as Messengers employed by the Word as the Word himself is often described as God's Messenger Thus the Targ. on 1 King xix 11 12. on Psal lxviii 13 18. on 2 Chron. xxxii 21. They say the Word was attended with Angels when he gave the Law Targ. on 1 Chron. xxix 11. and when he assisted at the Interment of Moses Jonathan on Deut. xxxiv 6. 3. The Targums represent the Word as sitting on a High Throne and hearing the Prayers of the People Jon. on Deut. iv 7. 4. Jonathan saith expresly that the Word that spake to Moses was
the same who spake and the World was made and who was God of Abraham Exod. iii. 14 15. vi 4. So then if he who was the God of Abraham was only an Angel that Personated God then he who created the World was a created Angel which as I have shewed is absurd 5. It is impossible to explain otherwise what the Jews so unanimously affirm that God revealed himself face to face to Moses which is more than he granted any Prophet besides unless the Word that appeared to Moses was true God and not a meer Angel See Onk. on Deut. xxxiv 10 11. and the other Targums But what say they may not an Angel bear the Name of God when he sustains the Person of God was not the Ark called Jehovah because it was a Symbol of his Person Does not Jonathan on Numb xi 35 36. say to the Ark Revelare Sermo Domini redi This is indeed a Notion which the Socinians have borrowed of Abenezra on Exod. iii. and Joseph Albo de fund c. 8. And so they pretend that the Pillar of Cloud is called the Lord Exod. xiii 21. xiv 19. that the Ark is called the Lord Numb x. 35. that the Angel is called the Lord Judg. vi 15. The Name being given to the Symbol viz. the Ark and to the second Cause namely the Angel because of their representing God But to the great displeasure of our Modern Jews and Socinians that borrow their Weapons we have still enough of the ancient Jewish Pieces left to shew their quite contrary Sentiments in these matters For 1. they as has been already observed believed that the Angel spoken of in Judg. vi 15. was the Word and that this Word created the World as has been largely proved 2. Just the reverse of what our Moderns say did the Ancients hold as we gather from Philo. For instead of an Angel's taking the place of God he saith the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 took the place of an Angel De Somn. p. 466. As to the Ark it is folly to imagin that because God promised to dwell and to hear Prayers there and enjoyned Worship toward it therefore the Ark was called Jehovah The ancient Jews spoke not to the Ark but to God who resided between the Cherubims This is plainly expressed in those words of Jonathan Numb xi 35 36. Revelare Sermo Domini c. where the words are not addressed to the Ark it self but to him that promised to give them some Tokens of his Presence namely to the Word who created the World who redeemed Israel from Egypt who heard their Prayers over the Ark and who had shut up therein the Tables of the Law which he had given them on Mount Sinai And thus the Targum on 1 Chron. xiii 6. David and all Israel went up to remove the Ark of the Lord that dwelleth between the Cherubims whose Name is called on it or as 2 Sam. vi 2. Whose Name is called by the Name of the Lord of Hosts that dwelleth between the Cherubims In short the Scripture never gives to any Place or Creature the Name Jehovah in the Nominative Case either singly or joined with any other Noun in apposition But either in an Oblique Case as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or with a Verb Substantive understood as Jehovah Nissi Jehovah Shamma What the Socinians have to say more against this the Reader may see fully answered by Buxt Hist of the Ark c. 1. And the Reader shall have a full Satisfaction upon it out of the following Chapters It remains therefore certain That the Word mentioned in Philo and the Paraphrases is not an Angel but a Divine Person 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Philo calls him many times and if the Expression be allowable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he speaks in Euseb Praep. vii 13. p. 322 323. But we must now go on to that which will remove all difficulties from this Subject and convince the Reader if any thing can do it That the Jews looked upon the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a Divine Person I speak of the Appearances of an Angel who is called God and worshipped as God under the Old Testament And I thought fit for this very reason to enlarge more upon this Subject to prevent at once all the Objections of the New Jews and of the Unitarians CHAP. XIII That all the Appearances of God or of the Angel of the Lord which are spoken of in the Books of Moses have been referred to the Word by the Jews before Christ's Incarnation SOME of the late Jewish Commentators that have had Disputes with the Christians particularly those whose Comments are collected in the Hebrew Bible printed by Bomberg at Venice do oppose this Proposition with all their Might They have laid it down for a Rule That whereever God is said to be present there all the Celestial Family is with him i. e. the Angels by whose Ministry as they say God has ordinarily acted in his Appearances to men So saith Rabbi Solom Jarchi on Gen. xix 24. Whereas those Old Jews who followed the Tradition of their Forefathers being not biassed by the Spirit of Dispute understood it of the Cochma and Bina viz. of the Wisdom and of the Holy Ghost as we were admonished by R. Joseph de Karnitol in his Saare Tsedec fol. 25. col 4. fol. 26. col 2. This Collection of Commentators being of great use for the interpreting the Scriptures several Divines that have applied themselves to the Study of the Rabbins Comments have been led by them unwarily into this Opinion The renowned Grotius fell into this Snare and has had but too many Followers We have no cause to wonder that Papists do the same being concern'd as they are to find Examples in the Old Testament of Religious Worship paid to Angels the better to cover their Idolatry But in truth the Modern Jews do in this quite abandon the Ancient Sentiments of their Fathers And they who follow the Modern Jews herein do weaken I hope without thinking of it the Proofs of the Godhead of Jesus Christ by yielding up to the Modern Jews as an agreed Point between them and the Christians that which is quite contrary to what the Apostles and Primitive Christians supposed in their Disputes with the Jews of their Times and which our later Jews themselves would never have submitted to if they had known any other way to avoid the Arguments that were brought against them out of their own Scriptures It behoves us therefore to give their just Force to those Arguments that were used by the Apostles and Fathers and to recover to Truth all her Advantages by shewing how bad Guides our Modern Jews are in the matters now before us and how they have deviated from the constant Doctrine of their Ancestors to find out ways to defend themselves against the Christians I affirm then for certain That the Appearances of God or of any Angel that is called Jehovah or the God of
Israel or that is worshipp'd spoken of in the Old Testament were not referred by the Ancient Jews to created Angels who personated God And further I maintain That generally the Ancient Jews referred these Appearances to the Word whom they distinguish'd from Angels as they do God from the Creature and thereby justified the Patriarchs in paying him that appeared to them Divine Worship and Adoration To prove this I must return to Philo's Opinion which I have had occasion to alledge in several places I would willingly spare my self the Trouble and my Reader the Nauseousness of repeating the same things But this is a matter of such Importance as necessarily obliges me by a particular Enumeration of Passages to produce Philo's Judgment in this Point as I have done in the former He is indeed so ample and so much ours in his Testimony concerning the Dignity of the Angel that appeared to the Fathers as more he could not well be if we had hired him to depose on our side In general he asserts That it was the Word that appeared to Adam Jacob and Moses although in the Books of Moses it is only an Angel that is spoken of De Somn. p. 461. It was the Word that appeared to Abraham Gen. xviii 1. according to Philo for he saith It was the Word that promised Sarah a Son in her Old Age and that enabled her to conceive and bring forth Lib. 11. Alleg. p. 77. E. It was the Word that appeared to Abraham as an Angel and that called to him not to hurt his Son when he was about to sacrifice him De Somn. p. 461. A E. It was the Word that appeared to Hagar De Cherub p. 83. C. De Profug p. 352. De Somn. p. 446. B. It was the Word that appeared so many times to Jacob although he be called the Angel that delivered him out of all his Trouble Alleg. 11. p. 71. D. E. It was the Word that appeared to Jacob in Bethel Lib. de Migr. Abr. p. 304. E. p. 305. A. De Somn. p. 460. G. And afterwards directed him how to manage Laban's Flock De Somn. p. 461. F. and advised him to return to the Land of his Kindred De Somn. p. 460. G. It was the Word that appeared to Jacob in the form of an Angel and wrestled with him De Somn. p. 454. E. and changed his Name to Israel De nom mut p. 819. C. It was the Image of God which in other places is the same with the Word that appeared to Moses in the Bush De Vit. Mosis 1. p. 475. E. It was God that called to him at the same time De Somn. p. 461. D. Even the Word p. Ib. A. Whom Moses desired to see Alleg. 11. p. 61. A. De Sacr. Ab. p. 102. A. C. It was the Word who led Israel through the Wilderness Exod. xxiii De Agric. p. 152. B. He was the Angel in whom God placed his Name De Migr. Abr. p. 324. E. F. That Word which is called the Prince of Angels and who was within the Cloud Quis rer Divin Haer. p. 397. F. G. and is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 De Vit. Mosis p. 534. G. And this Angel was he that appeared to Moses and the Elders of Israel on Mount Sinai Exod. xxiv De Confus p. 261. E. De Somn. p. 447. C. It was the Word whom those Jews rejected that said Let us make a Captain and return into Egypt Num. xiv 4. Alleg. 11. p. 71. B. It was the Word that governs the World that appeared to Balaam like an Angel De Cherub p. 87. F. G. Quod Deus sit immut p. 248. G. 249. A. It was the Word by whom Moses when he was to dye was translated De Sacr. Abr. p. 162. C. D. II. Let us come next to the Chaldee Paraphrases and see how they render those Texts that speak of the Divine Appearances in Scripture and let the Reader take these Remarks along with him 1. That whatsoever he finds in those Paraphrases he may be assured that it was the General Sense of the Jewish Church in Ancient Times 2. That any Judicious Writer can justly suspect those who first published those Targums to have cut many parts of them to favour the new Method of their last Writers which I have explained in the beginning of this Chapter The first Appearance of God to Man was when having created our first Parents Gen. i. 27. He blessed them and said unto them Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth Gen. i. 28. He that gave them this Blessing was he that created them as we read in the Jerusalem Targum on Gen. i. 27. The Word of the Lord created Man in his own Image For his giving them the Blessing we have it in that Targum on Gen. xxxv 9. We have these following words O Eternal God thou hast taught us the Marriage-blessing of Adam and his Wife for thus the Scripture saith expresly And the Word of the Lord blessed them and the Word of the Lord said to them Be ye fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth God appeared again to our first Parents after their Sin Gen. iii. 8. Where it is said that they heard the Voice of the Lord God walking in the midst of the garden Now as Philo said to us that it was the Word of the Lord that appeared to Adam so both Onkelos and Jonathan have it that Adam and his Wife heard the Voice of the Word of the Lord God walking in the garden Likewise in the Jerusalem Targum ver 9. it is said The Word of the Lord called to Adam c. And again ver 10. Where Adam makes this Answer to God I heard thy Voice in the garden both Onkelos and Jonathan have it I heard the Voice of thy Word in the garden In the History of the Deluge we see that there was a Revelation to Noah the Preacher of Righteousness to build the Ark and to warn others while that was preparing 1 Pet. iii. 20. But who gave Noah that warning Jonathan saith That the Lord said this by his Word And the Jerusalem Targum It was the Word of the Lord that said this And accordingly Jonathan has it in Gen. vi 6. That the Lord judged them by his Word and said I will destroy them by my Word Likewise for the saving of Noah Gen. vii 16. all the Paraphrasts attributed this to the Word The Jerusalem Targum saith The Word of the Lord spared Noah And Gen. viii 1. Jonathan has it That the Word of the Lord remembred Noah Lastly according to Onkelos and Jonathan The Lord said by his Word I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake Gen. viii 21. After the Flood God appeared often to Abraham Now according to Jonathan on Gen. xv 6. a Promise being made unto Abraham that his Seed should be as the Stars of Heaven for Number Abraham's believing in the Word of the Lord was accounted to him for
this Text But according to the Targums it was God the Word that swore all this to Abraham Elsewhere they also tell us That it was the Word that swore as well to Isaac as to Abraham that he would give them the promised Land Exod. vi 8. xxxii 13. At the second Appearance that God made to Isaac Gen. xxvi 24. he told him I am the God of Abraham thy Father But as the Jerusalem Targum on Gen. xxii 16. saith That Abraham worshipped and prayed to the Word of the Lord So according to Jonathan's Targum on Gen. xxvii 28. Isaac prayed for his Son Jacob in these Words The Word of the Lord give thee of the Dew of Heaven And in the same Targum on Gen. xxxi 5. where Jacob saith The God of my Father hath been with me Of thy Father so the Samaritan and LXX it is rendred The Word of the God of my Father or The Word being the God of my Father Amongst the Divine Appearances to Jacob those two at Bethel were more remarkable than the rest one at his going to Padan-Aram Gen. xxviii 13. the other at his Return from thence Gen. xxxv 9. where it is said expresly that then God appeared to him the second time The History of the first of these is given us at large Gen. xxviii 13 16. Jacob himself gives this account of the last to his Son Joseph Gen. xlviii 3 4. God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me and said unto me Behold I will make thee fruitful and multiply thee c. That it was the Word that appeared to him we have shewn already from Philo in several places and that this was the Sense of the Jewish Church in his time we have reason to believe For as to this first Appearance in the Introduction ver 10. where the Text speaks of Jacob's setting out from Beersheba to go to Haran there both Jonathan and the Jerusalem Targum tell us of the Sun 's making haste to go down before his time because the Word had a desire to speak with Jacob. Again in the Conclusion of this History Gen. xxviii 20 21. Where Jacob vowed a Vow saying If God will be with me c. then shall the Lord be my God Here we read in Jonathan's Targum That Jacob vowed a Vow to the Word saying If the Word of the Lord will be my help c then shall the Lord be my God Why should the Paraphrast say That Jacob made this Vow to the Word and not rather to God as it is in the Hebrew Text but that they believed that it was the Word that appeared to him And this being so we cannot be to seek who that Angel was that spake to Jacob Gen. xxxi 11. for he declares ver 13. I am the God of Bethel where thou vowedst a Vow unto me We see in the Targum on Gen. xxviii 20. That it was the Word to whom Jacob vowed a Vow at Bethel therefore according to this Targum it must be the Word that is called an Angel in the place next before mentioned The second time that God appeared to Jacob was in his Return from Padan-Aram Gen. xxxv 9. and it is expresly said in the Jerusalem Targum The Word of the Lord appeared to Jacob the second time when he was coming from Padan-Aram and blessed him which is as clear a Testimony as can be desired for our purpose Whosoever will reflect with some attention upon those Appearances of God to Jacob and compare them with what we read Gen. xlviii 15 16. and with what Hosea the Prophet saith ch xii concerning the Angel who was God could not but take notice of two things The first is that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is call'd an Angel was God indeed The second is that the wrestling of that Angel with Jacob was a preparation for the belief of the Mystery of the Incarnation by which the Apostles were made able to say which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the Word of Life this is our Message 1 Joh. i. 1.5 But we must go on upon such important a Subject CHAP. XIV That all the Appearances of God or of the Angel of the Lord which are spoken of in Moses his time have been referred to the Word of God by the ancient Jewish Church WE read of no other Appearance of God or of an Angel of the Lord till that which Moses saw on Mount Horeb Exod. iii. 2. There we read that the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a Bush This is the only place where Moses calleth him an Angel that now appeared Elswhere he always calleth him God as particularly v. 4. where he saith that upon his turning aside to see why the Bush was not burnt When the Lord saw this God called to him out of the midst of the Bush and said to him I am the God of thy Father the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob v. 6. whereupon Moses saith of himself that he hid his face for he was afraid to look upon God After this he goeth on still calling him God as we read almost in every verse so ver 16. He saith God commanded him to go to the Elders of Israel and say to them The Lord God of your Fathers the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob appeared to me God would not have him tell them that which was not true and therefore we may be sure that it was not a Created Angel but God that appeared to him But why then should Moses once call him an Angel as we see he did in the second verse A created Angel he could not be for the reasons now mentioned he must therefore be God and yet he must appear as an Angel that came on a Message from God This is what Philo saith in one word He was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Word who is both God and the Messenger of God as we have shewn from him in several places As for the Targums the matter is clear for when Moses was sent to the Children of Israel to tell them that their God had appeared to him and sent him to bring them forth out of Egypt and that Moses askt him his Name and that God said unto Moses tell them I AM THAT I AM or in fewer words say I AM has sent me unto you that which here God calls himself is the sense of the Name Jehovah that signifieth the Eternal Being Now see how this is rendred in the Jerusalem Targum There we read that the Word of the Lord said to Moses He that said to the World let it be and it was and shall say Let it be and it shall be Here Moses askt God and the Word answereth his question But certain it is that he that answered the question was the same that he had been speaking with
shortness of what we have to say in the following part of this Chapter For being now to treat of those Divine Appearances that are recorded in the other Books of Scripture after the Pentateuch we shall find those Appearances fewer and fewer till they come quite to cease in the Jewish Church For when once the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was setled as the King of Israel between the Cherubims He is not to be look'd for in other places And of those Books of Scripture in which the following Appearances are mentioned we have not so many Paraphrases as we have of the five Books of Moses One Paraphrase is all that we have of most of the Books we now speak of But after all we have reason to thank God that that Evidence of the Divine Appearances of the Word of God has been so abundantly sufficient that we have no need of any more So that of the following Appearances of God or of a Worshipt Angel it will be enough to shew that the ancient Jewish Church had the same Notion that they had of those already mentioned out of the five Books of Moses We read but of one Divine appearance to Joshua and that is of one that came to him as a man with a drawn-sword in his hand calling himself the Captain of the Lord's Host Josh v. 13 14. Some would have it that this was a created Angel But certainly Joshua did not take him to be such otherwise he would not have fallen down on his face and worshipped him as he did v. 14. Nor would a created Angel have taken it of him without giving him a present reproof as the Angel did to St. John in the like Case Rev. xix 10. xxii 9. But this Divine Person was so far from reproving him for having done too much that he commanded him to go on and do yet much more requiring of him the highest acknowledgment of a Divine Presence that was used among the Eastern Nations in these words Loose thy Shoo from off thy foot for the ground whereon thou standest is holy Now considering that these are the very same words that God used to Moses in Exod. iii. 2 3. We see a plain reason why God should command this to Joshua It was for the strengthening of his faith to let him know that as he was now in Moses's stead so God would be the same to him that he had been to Moses And particularly with respect to that trial which required a more than ordinary measure of faith the difficulty of taking the strong City of Jericho with such an Army as he had without any provision for a Siege the Lord said unto him Josh vi 2. See I have given Jericho into thy hand None but God could say and do this and the Text plainly saith It was the Lord. And that the Lord who thus appeared as a Warrier and called himself Captain of the Lord's Host was no other than the Word this was plainly the sense of the ancient Jewish Church as appears by what remains of it in their Paraphrase on Josh x. 42. xxiii 3 10. which saith It was the Word of the Lord that fought for them and v. 13. which saith It was the VVord which cast out the Nations before them And indeed this very judgment of the Old Synagogue is to be seen not only in their Targums till this day but in their most ancient Books as Rabboth fol. 108. col 3. Zohar par 3. fol. 139. col 3. Tanch ad Exod. 3. Ramb. ad Exod. 3. Bach. fol. 69. 2. The learned Masius in Josh v. 13.14 hath translated the words of Ramban and he hath preferred his Interpretation which is the most ancient amongst the Jews to the sense of the Commentators of the Church of Rome Of Divine Appearances in the Book of Judges we read of one to Gideon that seems to have been of an Angel of God for so he is called Judg. vi 11 12. And again v. 20 21 22. In this last place it is also said that Gideon perceived he was an Angel of the Lord i. e. He saw that this was an Heavenly Person that came to him with a Message from God And yet that he was no created Angel it seems by his being oftner called the Lord v. 14 16 23 24 25 27. And Gideon in that whole History never address'd himself to any other but God The Message delivered from God by this Angel to Gideon ver 16. is thus rendred in the Targum Surely my Word shall be thy help and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man The Word that help'd Gideon against the Midianites was no other than he that appeared to Joshua with a Sword in his hand Josh v. 13. That was now the Sword of the Lord and of Gideon Judg. vii 18 20. And what the Ancient Jewish Church meant by the Word of the Lord in this place one may guess by their Targum on Judg. vi 12 13. Where the Angel saying to Gideon The Word of the Lord is thy help he answered Is the Shekinah of the Lord our help whence then hath all this happen'd to us It is plain by this Paraphrase that they reckoned the Word of the Lord to be the same with the Shekinah of the Lord even him by whom God so gloriously appeared for their deliverance And indeed they could hardly be mistaken in the Person of that Angel who saith that his Name is Pele the Wonderful which is used Isaiah ix amongst the Names of the Messias which Name the Jews make a shift to appropriate to God exclusively to the Messias The Angel that appeared to Manoah Judg. xiii could seem to have been no other than a created Angel but the Name which he takes of Pele the Wonderful shews that he was the Word of the Lord or the Angel of the Lord l. lxiii 8. In the first Book of Samuel we read of no other such Appearance but that which God made to Samuel 1 Sam. iii. 21. and that was only by a Voice from the Temple of the Lord where the Ark was at that time ver 3 4. The same word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth a Temple and a Palace and so the Tabernacle was called in which the Ark was then in Shiloh There it was that God revealed himself to Samuel by the Word of the Lord ver 21. But that in the Opinion of the Ancient Jewish Church the Word of the Lord was their King and the Tabernacle was his Palace where his Throne was upon the Ark between the Cherubims and that from thence the Word gave his Oracles all this has been so fully proved before in this Chapter that to prove it here again would be superfluous and therefore I take it for granted that in their Opinion it was the Word of the Lord from whom this Voice came to Samuel In the Second Book of Samuel we read how upon David's Sin in numbring the People â—â—d sent the Prophet Gad to give him his
me to Thee Oh Zion Here are plainly two Persons called by the name of Jehovah namely one that sends and another that is sent So that this second Person is God and yet he is also the Messenger of God So likewise in the next Chapter v. 1. the Angel that used to talk with the Prophet shewed him Joshua the High Priest standing before the Angel of the Lord and Satan standing over against Joshua as his Adversary And v. 2. the Prophet hears the Lord say unto Satan twice over The Lord rebuke thee for being so maliciously bent against Joshua that was come out of the Captivity as a brand pluckt out of the fire He that was called the Angel v. 1. is here called the Lord v. 2. and this Lord intercedes with the Lord for his Protection of Joshua against Satan That which gave the Devil advantage against Joshua was his Sins which as the Targum saith were the Marriages of his Sons to strange Wives His Sins whatsoever they were are here called filthy Garments and Joshua standing in these before the Angel v. 3 4. The Angel commands them that stood about him saying take away the filthy garments from him Here again by commanding the Angels he sheweth himself their Superior Afterward when the filthy Cloaths were taken off this Angel saith to Joshua Behold I have caused thy Iniquity to pass from thee words that if one Man had said to another the Jews would have accounted Blasphemy Mat. ix 2 3. For who say they can forgive Sins but God only But here was one that exercised that Authority over the High Priest himself This could be no other than he that was called of God a Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek Psal cx 4. of whom the Jewish High Priest even Joshua himself was but a figure But he goes farther adding I will cloth thee with change of raiment that is according to the Targum I will cloth thee with righteousness ver 5. And he * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And he said Jon. Targ. said again commanding the Angels Let them set a fair Miter on his head and they did so and clothed him with Garments and the Angel of the Lord stood by Here again he is called an Angel at last as he was at first ii 3. It is an Angel's Office to be the Messenger of God and so he often owned himself to be in saying The Lord sent me And yet this Messenger of God commands the Angels ii 4. iii. 4 5. and himself stands by to see them do his commands v. 5. This Angel calleth Israel his People and saith he will dwell among them ii 10 11. He takes upon him to protect his People v. 5. and to avenge them on their enemies v. 10. He intercedes with God iii. 2. He forgives sin and confers Righteousness iii. 4. If all these things cannot be truly said of one and the same Person then here are two Chapters together that are each of them half Nonsense and there is no way to reconcile them with sense but by putting some kind of force upon the Text whether by changing the words Socin in Wiek 1. ii p. 565. or by putting in other words as Socinus honestly confesseth he has done in his Interpretation And he saith they must do it that will make sense of the words It is certain they must do so that will interpret the words as he would have it But he and his followers bring this necessity upon themselves They that will set up new Opinions must defend them with new Scriptures For our parts we change nothing in the words and in our way of understanding them we follow the Judgment of the ancient Jewish Church that makes all these things perfectly agree to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This we see in Philo who often calleth the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * De Somn. p. 466. B. Eus praep vii 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Philo L. 1. Quaest Sol. as Philo calls the Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 De migr Abr. p. 416. B. 418. C. Quis rer Divin haeres B. p. 397. G. De Somn. p. 457. B. Quod Deus sit immut p. 249. B. Quis rer Divin haer p. 397. G. God and yet as often calleth him an †De Somn. p. 463. F. De Prof. p. 364. B. Angel the Messenger of God and ‖ our High-Priest and * De profug 466. B. De Somniis p. 594. E. Quis rer Divin p. 397. G. Vit. Mos iii. p. 521. B. our Mediator with God The same hath been shewed of the Word elswhere out of the Targums And here in this Targum though no doubt it hath been carefully purged yet by some oversight it is said ii 5. That the Word shall be a wall of fire about Jerusalem And if the Modern Jews had not changed the third Person into the first it would have followed that his Shekinah should be in the midst of her as himself saith afterward v. 10 11. He would dwell in the midst of her meaning in the Temple where the Word of God had his dwelling-place always before its destruction as has been abundantly shewn in this Chapter and as we shewed from Ezekiel it was promised he should dwell there again after its Restauration CHAP. XVI That the Ancient Jews did often use the Notion of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Word in speaking of the Messias I Hope what I have said upon the Appearances of the Word in the Old Testament proves beyond exception that the Word which is spoken of in the ancient Books of the Jews is a Person and a Divine one From thence it is natural to conclude that St. John and the other Holy Writers of the New Testament who made use of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 could not rationally give to that word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 any other Idea than that which was commonly received in the Jewish Nation Nothing more can be required from me than to refute fully the Unitarians who pretend that the Word signifies no more than an Attribute or the eternal vertue of God and who to confirm this assertion of theirs observe that in the Targums the term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is never employed when they speak of the Messias The Socinian Author who wrote against Wecknerus insists very much upon this observation Let us therefore examine how true that is which he affirms and supposing it true how rational the consequence is which he draws from thence in opposition to it I lay down these three Propositions which I shall consider in as many Chapters The first is that in several places of the Ancient Jewish Authors the Memra or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is put for the Messias And so that it is certain that St. John hath followed the Language of the Jews before Jesus Christ in taking the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for a Divine Person that in the fulness of time as it was foretold
by the Prophets did assume our flesh Joh. i. 14. The second is that the Jews of old did acknowledge the Messias should be the proper Son of God The last is that the Messias was represented in the Old Testament as being Jehovah that should come and that the ancient Synagogue did believe him to be so I begin with the first of these three Articles And upon this I must put my Reader in mind that it should not be a just subject of admiration if we could not prove such a thing by many of the Jewish Books It is clear that when the Jewish Authors did consider the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they considered him as the true Lord of Heaven and Earth and chiefly of their own Nation Whereas the Messias is often represented to the Prophets as one that should appear in a very mean condition and whatsoever glory is attributed to him in other places of the Ancient Revelation which brought them to believe till the last times that the Shekinah was to be in him there were some Characters which could hardly be applied to him as being Personally the Word himself Such are his Sufferings described Psal xxii and Isa liii Such is his riding upon an Ass and coming to Jerusalem which they refer constantly to the Messias as you may see in their Ceremonial Book or Aggada of Pesach But altho we should suppose that the places we are going to cite cannot expresly convince the Reader of this truth yet we might establish it by necessary consequences from them For example It is universally received that Jacob speaks of the Messiah Gen. xlix 10. Onkelos Paraphrases it the People shall obey him And yet Gen. xlix 24. he makes the Word the Governour of the People The ancient Jews hold that the Word delivered Israel out of Egypt and to the Word they apply all the Appearances ascribed to the Angel of the Lord. Does it not follow from hence that they understood the Messiah by the Word since they confess the Messiah is called the Angel of his Presence Isa lxiii 10. the Angel of the Covenant Mal. iii. 1. which words they refer constantly to the Messias The ancient Jews affirm that it was upon the motion of the Word that their Ancestors were to move and that He ordered them to prepare themselves for a sight of God Onk. on Exod. xix 17. And is not this it which Amos demands of the People with respect to the Messiah ch iv 12. The Jews relate that the Temple was built for the Word as was also the Tabernacle where the Majesty of the Word resided After this whom could they understand but the Word of the Lord of whom Malachy promised that he should come to his Temple chap. iii. 1. which words relate constantly to the Messias The Jews thought him to be the Messias that is spoken of by Zech. ch vi 22. And whom else could they think him but the Word who is named by Zechariah the East and the Sun of Righteousness by Mal. iv 2. Especially since Philo interprets that place of Zechariah of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 De Confus Linguar p. 278. where he speaks of him as of the first-born of God and of the Creator of the World The Jews held that it is said of the Word God is a consuming fire Onk. on Deut. iv 24. which renders it natural to understand him what is to the same sense spoken of the Messias Mal. iii. 2. iv 1. The Jews believed a promise of the Messias Deut. xviii 15. But Onkelos notes here that the Word shall revenge himself of them that disobey the Messias They maintained with Philo de Agric. p. 152. B. de Somn. p. 267. B. that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was the first begotten of God Could they then imagin that any other but he was meant in the places where the like Titles are owned even down to our times to be given the Messias as Psal ii 7. lxxxix 28. lxxii 1. They held as did Philo that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 led the People through the desert and referred to him Psalm xxiv wherein he is called the Shepherd And could they do this without reflecting how often this Title of Shepherd is given by the Prophets to the Messias They held that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was adored in his Appearances to the Patriarchs and could they doubt whether the Messias whom all the Kings of the Earth must adore Psal lxxii 11. had any affinity with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They assert that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the great High Priest Phil. de Somn. p. 463. F. And how could they deny that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should be the Messias when they constantly ascribed to the Messias what we read of his Priesthood Psal cx 4. Whom did Isaiah see in that Vision ch vi but the Messiah And yet the Targum there calls him the Word of the Lord. When Isaiah speaks of the Messias ch viii 14. that the Lord shall be a stone of stumbling the Targum reads the Word of the Lord using it as one of the Names of the Messias The like it does on ch xxviii 16. where it is manifest the Messias is spoken of Isaiah saith ch xii 2. Behold God my Saviour I will trust in him Jonathan renders him I will trust in the Word of Salvation i. e. in the Word the Saviour The same Prophet ch xli 4. having called Jehovah the First and the Last he attributes to the Word the Title of Redeemer v. 13 14 16. which Title properly belongs to the Messias And so the whole is applied by Jesus Christ to himself Rev. i. 8 17. xxii 13. God is called Isa xlv 15. the Saviour of Israel and the same thing is said of the Word v. 17 22 24. where the Messias is treated of But I foresee these consequences will not seem strong enough to a Socinian Let us therefore produce out of Philo and the Targums some places where the Notions of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Messias do appear positively the same For Philo 1. He declares that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the first begotten of God in Euseb Praep. vii 13. p. 323. which he had from Prov. viii 25. Psal ii 7. But this proves unanswerably that in the judgment of the Old Jews the Messias should be the same Person with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seeing the Messias is called the first-born Psal lxxxix 28. 2. He explains the last Zech. vi 12. by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Text runs thus Thus speaks the Lord of Hosts saying behold the man whose name is the Branch or as the Greek has it the East he shall grow up out of his place and he shall build the Temple of the Lord. This is understood by the Jews of the Messias But Philo plainly says that this East here spoken of is the Word the first-born of God the Creator of the World
De Confus Ling. p. 258. A. This place of Philo deserves a very particular consideration For it teaches us what Notion the Jews had of the Messias before our Lords Ministry and discovers the Tricks and Fopperies of the modern Jews who having a mean opinion of the Person of the Messias have invented quite another sense of the Memra so frequent in their Paraphrases than what the ancient Jews had of it Nor is it of less use to confound the Socinians For it is a proof not to be denied of St. John's following the Language of the old Synagogue when he speaks of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the first Chapter of his Gospel and shews that they have no other answer to the many Testimonies of the Targum objected against them but what they borrow of the Jews 3. Another place of Philo in the same Book p. 266. F. is much to the same purpose where he calls the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Man We know the Messias is intimated to be a Man in many places as Psal xxii 22. I will declare thy name to my Brethren Psal lxix 9. I am become a stranger to my Brethren Psal cxxii 8. For my Brethrens sake For these Psalms do all regard the Messias So also where he is called David Ezek. xxvii 25. as the Targum and the Modern Jews do own he is Hos iii. 5. and where he is called Solomon as in the Targum on Canticles But saith Philo the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is called a Man which must be understood either upon account of his frequent Appearances as a Man and so he is called Exod. xv 3. or to his intended manifestation in human shape as a Servant This latter is the Notion of Psal xxii above quoted and of Isa xlii 1. Behold my Servant which Jonathan refers to the Messias And again of Isa liii where the Messias is represented as a Man afflicted and tormented which has been their sense so constantly that from hence the Jews since Jesus Christ have taken occasion to assert that the Messias was Leprous As for the Chaldee Paraphrase it is visible from Isa xlix where the Messias is spoken of throughout that the Memra should become the Messias These are the words of Isaiah v. 1 2 3 4 5 6. Listen O Isles unto me and hearken you people from far The Lord hath called me from the womb from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name and he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword in the shadow of his hand hath he hid me and made me a polished shaft in his quiver hath he hid me and said unto me Thou art my Servant O Israel in whom I will be glorified Then I said I have laboured in vain yet surely my judgment is with the Lord and my work with my God And now saith the Lord that formed me from the womb to be his servant to bring Jacob again to him tho Israel be not gathered yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord and my God shall be my strength And he said is it a light thing that thou shouldst be my Servant to raise up the Tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles that thou maist be my Salvation unto the end of the Earth Now as Philo hath observed that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not only called a Man but Israel De Confus Ling. p. 266. which hath a natural relation to this place of Isaiah so the Targum expresly ascribes v. 5. as also v. 16. to the Word which speaks of the calling of the Gentiles And so every Jewish Writer confesses that the Restauration of the Ten Tribes which is foretold there shall be the work of the Messias We read Isa lxiii 14. As a beast goeth down into the valley the Spirit of the Lord causeth him to rest so didst thou lead thy people to make thy self a Glorious name Where notwithstanding the Text hath the Spirit of the Lord the Targum reads the Word whom it treats as Redeemer v. 14. that guided them through the Wilderness that is in the Heavens v. 15. and hath the name of Redeemer from everlasting v. 16. Indeed that the Word should become the Messias i. e. should reveal himself in him according to the judgment of the old Jewish Church may be gathered from the method of the Jews in explaining certain places of the Messias which they referred to the Word of the Lord. Till now they do agree that Moses spake of the Messias Exod. iv 13. Send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send R. Meyr Aldabi so interprets it as he treats of the Messias in his Book Sevile Emunoth ch 10. But the Jews formerly referred it to the Word of the Lord as we see in Onkelos on Exod. iii. 12. And God said certainly I will be with thee and this shall be a token unto thee that I have sent thee when thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt you shall serve God upon this mountain On which words Onkelos observes that God promised Moses to assist him by his Word in the trust committed to him and repeats it on Exod. iv 12 15. from which it is to be concluded that it is whom he intends v. 13. The like remarks are made by Jonathan's Targum on the same Texts from whence the like inference may be drawn I shall only mention a few more places as 1. It was the Word that promised to march among the Israelites and to be their God Philo de Nom. mutat p. 840. this saith Philo in an 100 places it was the Word that promised Israel his Presence saith Onkelos on Levit. xxvi 9 11 12. But it is certain the Word was to manifest himself in the Messias 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the middle of him as saith Rashi whom I have quoted before 2dly The Ancient Targums acknowledge that the Messias should be a Prophet So Jonathan owns on Is xi 2. The same Isaiah declares liv 13. That they shall be all taught of God which is explained by Jonathan of the Messias as also Is liii 5.10 11 12. From whence it is evident that they took the Messias and the Word of God to be the same 3dly You see that God having said Hos i. 7. that he would save his people by Jehova their God which is translated by the Targum by the word of the Lord the Jews kept always for a Maxim that the Eternal Salvation was to come to them by the Messias Rashi refers to that which we read in Isaiah ch xlv 17. and he follows in this the Targum of Jerusalem upon Gen. xlix 18. where the Salvation by the Messias is called by Jacob the Salvation by the Word of the Lord. 'T is upon the same foundation that they refer to the Messias which is spoken Isai xliv 6. that the Messias shall be the last
which God hath founded the Earth as David tells us Psal ciii 24. is the same which is spoken by Solomon Prov. iii. 19. 't is the sense of all the Targums Midrashim and Cabalistic Authors upon the first of Genesis as you see in R. Mardochay and in Menachem de Rakanati upon the 1st of Genesis 2dly They take indifferently this Wisdom and the Shekinah or the Memra or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the same Person referring to it the same Actions the same Power the same Worship the same Majesty 3dly They understand the Wisdom which rules the World as it is said Prov. viii to be the same which is spoken of Prov. iii. 19. and to be the Son of the living God the same who spoke by Ezek. xxii 2. see R. Menach in Pent. fol. 1. col 2. from Bereshit Rabba and from Zohar Ibid. fol. 2. col 1. fol. 35. col 1. fol. 44. col 1. And fourthly They refer many Places to that Wisdom which is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Shekinah and the Son to the Messias for example it is clear that Psalm xlv belongs to the Messias as being the Bridegroom of the Church Now they suppose that the Shekinah is the Bridegroom of the Synagogue R. Menach in Pent. fol. 15. col 1. and they refer to the Shekinah the place of Isaiah chap. lxii 3. which is nothing but the same Idea of Psalm xlv So they refer the Song of Solomon to the Shekinah or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 R. Menach de Rekan in Pent. fol. 58. col 4. fol. 76. col 1. col 3. which is manifestly to be understood of the Messias and so they pretend that the Kiss which is mentioned there Cant. i. 1. signifies mystically the Shekinah R. Menach fol. 44. col 1. It is notorious that the Goel that famous Redeemer which is promised in so many Prophets to the Synagogue is the Messias Now the constant Idea of the Jewish Writers is that the Shekinah is to be that very Redeemer Rab. Menach de Rekanati in Pent. fol. 58. col 4. fol. 59. col 1. fol. 83. col 4. fol. 97. col 4. So that nothing is more evident than that the Jews who took the Wisdom to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the proper Son of God and look upon the Shekinah or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as being to be the Messias must have lookt upon the Messias as being the proper Son of God In Isaiah iv 2. the Messias is called the branch of the Lord no doubt as properly as he is called the branch of David Jerem. xxiii 5. In that day saith he the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious which is in Jonathan's Paraphrase interpreted of the Messias From which it is natural to conclude that the proper Son of God was to be the Messias and the Messias was to be the proper Son of God In Isaiah ix 6 7. we read of a Son given and what are the Characters of this Son they follow His name shall be Wonderful Counsellor the mighty God the everlasting Father the Prince of Peace The Jews long after Christ understood this place of the Messias and Solomon Jarchi who dyed in the Year 1180. is perhaps the first after R. Hillel that fell from the common Traditional Sense of his Nation in referring these Titles to God and not the Messias But I have taken notice before in speaking of the several appearances of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Angel who appeared to Gideon and who was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 did take the same name of Wonderful which is given here to the Messias Jeremiah keeps to the same notion of a branch to denote a Son Jerem. xxiii 5. xxxiii 15. and the Targum explains it of the Messias Zachary ch vi 12. doth also call him the branch which not only the Jews before Christ as we have shewn from Philo but those after Christ Echa Rabbathi p. 58. col 2. interpreted of the Messias as being the Word And here let me remark to you a few of Philo's Notions which may serve for a Key to the right understanding of the Sentiments of Philo concerning divers Prophecies in the Old Testament One while he saith Lib. de conf Ling. 267. that God is one but without excluding his Word who is his Image and first-born from being one with him Another time he calls the Word an Archangel a Man he that sees Israel c. Whence comes this but that he saw the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was sometimes represented as Head of the Angels in respect of his Divinity and at other times as a Man with regard to his intended coming in the Flesh To this coming he seems to apply the Promise Levit. xxvi 11 12. I will walk among you and be your God De nom mut p. 840. C. I am sure the later Jews as Ramban upon that place after the Author of Torath Cohanim do build here the opinion of a real habitation of the Divinity amongst them in the times of the Messias and that they derive from one of their most ancient Traditions that the Salvation of Israel shall be made by God himself which they prove by Zech. ix 9. where it is spoken of the Messias by the confession of the Jews till this day Again Philo calls the Word of the Lord the Shepherd and quotes for it Psal xxiii 1. The Lord is my Shepherd De nom mut p. 822. 823. A. De Agric. in Euseb p. 323. Now the Word being the same with the Messias c. 13. it is plain this Psalm was in his days applied to the Messias who consequently is the Lord Jehovah and the people his sheep I have before observed the rules by which the Jews were led to the knowledg of this Truth and therefore it is unnecessary to touch again on them It suffices to remark here first that the Synagogue in Philo's time held it a Maxim that the name Jehovah express'd the Essence of God Philo Lib. Deter pot in s p. 143. C. Secondly that the name Jehovah was the proper name of God the name of the first Cause and consequently communicable to no Creature Philo de Abrahamo p. 280. a Truth of great moment which is confessed also by Manass ben Israel q. in Exod. 3. Thirdly that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whom he takes to be meant by the Branch in Zech. vi 12. was to become the Messias and therefore that the Messias is justly called in this respect the Son of God And now it is easie to judge of the sense the ancient Synagogue had of the Person of the Messias It acknowledges this Son and this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a Person subsisting from all Eternity Of this if we had no other the Text of Mic. v. 2. is a good proof which the Jews in Christ's time expounded of the Messias Mat. ii 7. Joh. vii 42. But the Notions of Philo
1. That the Targum plainly owns on Psal xlv 6. Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever And ver 7. O God thy God hath anointed thee with the oyl of gladness above thy fellows That the Messias is God This Truth is yet more clear in Isa ix 6. applied to the Messias by Jonathan and the present Jews cannot satisfie themselves with any answer they make to it as appears by their different ways of evasion and their changing the very Text to avoid the evidence of it 2ly The Targum on Isa xxviii 5. hath these considerable words In that day the Messias of the Lord of Hosts shall be crowned with joy instead of the Lord of Hosts as it is in the Text. 3ly The Targum on Jer. xxiii acknowledges the Messias to be there treated of and yet he is called in this place the Lord of our Righteousness See to the same purpose the Targum on Jer. xxxiii 14. The learned M. Edzardi has proved that the same Interpretation of these words of Jeremy hath continued among the Jews from the time of Jesus Christ without interruption till these latter days and this he hath done from a great number of Jewish Authors and even their Liturgies themselves which I have no mind to transcribe His Book was Printed at Hamburgh A. 1670. 4ly They have been so sensible that the Messias is represented by the Prophets as God that in Psal cx where it is said of the Messias that he shall be a Priest according to the order of Melchisedeck they refer the Priesthood of the Messias to God or to the Shekinah which is Jehovah So doth R. Menach fol. 18. col 1. fol. 31. col 1. Without that it is hard to conceive how Philo should so often mention the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a Priest and Prophet of God and at the same time believe the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be God unless he gathered it from Psal cx 1. where the Messias that is represented as sitting at the right hand of God and equal to God is also described as an High Priest of a new Order and from Isa xi 2. where the Messias is promised to receive the Spirit of Prophecy in the highest degree I need not cite the Paraphrasts any further on this Subject What I have already quoted out of them is more than enough to shew how common this Idea was among their Nation For the Jews in the Ages next to these Paraphrases I ought to observe this one thing of Pirke Eliezer ch xiv There they assert that God descended nine times and that the tenth time he shall descend in the Age to come i. e. in the time of the Messias The first time was in the Garden of Eden The second at the Confusion of Tongues The third at the destruction of Sodom The fourth at his talking with Moses on Mount Horeb. The fifth at his appearance on Sinai The sixth and seventh where he spake to Moses in the hollow of the Rock The eighth and ninth in the Tabernacle The tenth will be when he shall appear in the times of the Messias Such is their ancient Opinion The Prophecies that speak of it as one end of the coming of the Messias to judge his People and the Nations do constantly ascribe the Name of God or of Jehovah to the Messias We see it in Psalm lxxxii 8. Arise O God and judge the earth for thou shalt inherit all nations Which is followed by Daniel ch vii 13 14. in these words I saw in the night visions and behold one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven and came to the ancient of days and there was given him dominions and glory and a kingdom that all people nations and languages should serve him His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed The Jews confess three things one is that Psalm lxxii is to be understood of the Messias The second is That in the Vision of Ezech. ch i. that form of a man sitting upon the Throne signifies the true God the third That the Vision of Daniel ch vii is the same in substance with that of Ezek. i. So that the Messias as a Man receives an absolute Empire upon all Nations and sits upon a Throne as God Now it should be the most absurd thing in the World to conceive the Messias as only a Man when he is invested with such an Empire which cannot be governed but by a true God and by Jehovah whose Character is represented so often as the Ruler of all Nations See Gen. xviii 25. The Prophecies that speak of Jehovah as the King and Bridegroom of his Church are constantly interpreted of the Messias For example where God said to his People Hos ii 19 20. I will betroth thee unto me for ever I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness and in judgment and in loving-kindness and in mercies I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness and thou shalt know the Lord. This the Jews generally understand of the Messias 'T is the judgment of R. Menachem in Genes fol. 15. col 1. where he reflects upon Isaiah ch lxii 3. And it is agreeable to what is said Psal xlv 7 9 10 11. Thy throne O God is for ever and ever the scepter of thy kingdom is a scepter of righteousness thou lovest righteousness and hatest iniquity wherefore O God thy God hath anointed thee with the oyl of gladness above thy fellows Kings daughters were among thy honourable women upon thy right hand did stand the Queen in gold of Ophir Hearken O daughter and consider forget thy own people and thy father's house So shall the King greatly desire thy beauty for he is thy Lord and worship thou him Whereas the Targum v. 2. interprets it all of the Messias so R. Meir Arama says all agree that that Psalm is to be understood of the Messias We cannot have a better proof that the Messias should be Jehovah than Zech. xii 10. which the Targum also interprets of the Messias and the new Jews would refer to the feigned Messias Son of Joseph The words are these I Jehovah will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and supplication and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son In Malach. iii. 1. we find this expression Behold I will send my messenger and he shall prepare the way before me and the Lord whom you seek shall suddenly come to his temple even the messenger or the Angel of the Covenant whom you delight in Now take notice that whereas it is said after in the Hebrew here he is coming the Greeks have read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now since it is certain that he is the Jehovah to whom the Temple is here said to be built and dedicated and who is
that Christ was God according to the Prophecy in Hosea ch ii 19 20. I will betroth thee unto me for ever This John's Disciples well knew and that the Messias was spoken of Psal xlv in which he is expresly named God That Solomon's Song did speak of him And the Jews believe to this day that God was spoken of there by Solomon And this has obliged the Holy Writers to give to the Messias the name of Bridegroom and to the Church that of a Bride as may be seen in St. Paul and in the Revelation John the Baptist further tells his Disciples that Christ was before him in Dignity because he was in being before him Joh. i. 15 30. and yet John was born six Months before our Blessed Saviour Jesus tells them that he came from above whereas himself though inspired and a Prophet was only of the Earth That Christ was come from Heaven and above all That God was his Father and that he had given all things into his hand Joh. iii. 31 35. shewing thereby that it was he whom God spoke of Psal ii 8. Ask of me and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession Christ said Luk. v. 20 21 24. to a man sick of the Palsie thy sins are forgiven thee which the Pharisees taking ill because as they told him God alone could forgive sins he cured the poor man to shew that he had power to forgive sins and consequently that he was God by their own confession And he performed that according to the Prophecies which attribute to God and to the Messias the forgiveness of sins Jer. xxxi 34. The Jews being angry with him because he had cured an impotent man on the Sabbath-day Joh. v. 16. he tells them to justify what he had done My Father works hitherto and I work v. 17. At which words they sought more to kill him because he had not only broken the sabbath but said also that God was his Father making himself equal with God v. 18. What would a good man have done in this case one that had been only Man as we are He would certainly have declared his abhorrence of such Blasphemy as was contain'd in these words But then he would have told them these were not his words but theirs He would have them understand him aright by saying he did not make himself equal with God but that in working a Miracle on the Sabbath he only acted as the Prophets did to whom say the Jews it was lawful to break some one Precept of the Law But instead of making any such Interpretation he goes on in the same tenor of words and a second time gives himself the title of the Son of God and tells them that whatever his Father did he might do likewise v. 19. That he would raise the dead to prove himself equal with God That as the Father raised up the dead and quickens them even so the Son quickens whom he will v. 21. That that extraordinary Power was given him by his Father it being his will that all men should honour the Son even as they did the Father v. 23. He proves again that he was the Son of God by the power he had to raise up the dead As the Father has life in himself so has he given to the Son to have life in himself And has given him authority to execute judgment also because he is the Son of man v. 26 27. He applies to himself what was said in Daniel xii 2. concerning the Resurrection of the Dead v. 28 29. The hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth They that have done good unto the resurrection of life and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation He appeals to John the Baptist who had testified he was the Son of God v. 33. At last he bids them search the Scriptures v. 39. in which they would find that he was that Son of Man described Dan. vii 13 14. and consequently equal with God For who can sit on God's Throne besides the true God as it is declared Psal cx 1. The Lord said unto my Lord sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool Which words the Jews understood of the Messias agreeably to other Prophecies in which he is so often called Jehovah and the Son of God He justified his curing Sick People on the Sabbath-day because he the Son of man was Lord of the Sabbath But how could he be so but because he was that Word which had given the Law to the Jews that Son of God equal with his Father who consequently was Master of his own Laws He opened the Eyes of the Blind and made the Lame to walk to fulfil the Prophecy Is xxxv 4 5 6. Behold your God will come he will come and save you then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopt Then shall the lame man leap as a hart and the tongue of the dumb sing He multiply'd the Loaves in the Desert to shew that he was that same Word to which the Jews attributed the Miracle of Manna in the Wilderness He tells the Jews to the same purpose that he was the Bread come down from Heaven Joh. vi 51. upon which it may be observed that Philo maintains that the Word was Manna or at least Manna the Type of the Word Lib. quod deterior p. 137. Having wrought so many great Miracles before the Jews he askt his Disciples what People said and thought of him To which St. Peter answering according to the People's various Opinions and at last confessing the Faith of himself and the other Disciples that he was Christ the Son of the living God he commends this Confession in Peter though he had before refused to receive it from the Devil and tells Peter that God even his Father had revealed it to him and therefore it must be true Matth. xvi 16 17. And so it was for God had spoken of it by many of his Prophets as I shewed before by the very confession of the Jews He shews his Disciples how Elijah was come in the Person of John the Baptist Matt. xvii That therefore himself to whom John had born witness was the Messias the true Jehovah whose Fore-runner Elias was to be according to the Prophecy Mal. iii. 1. Behold I will send my messenger and he shall prepare the way before ME and the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his Temple even the Messenger of the covenant whom ye delight in saith the Lord of hosts He gives his Disciples the power of Binding and Loosing that is of forbidding some things which Moses had permitted and permitting some which he had forbidden reserving still to himself the power of directing them infallibly by his Spirit in those Acts of their Ministry To shew that he was that very God
Doctrine it was natural to conclude that the Messias being the same with the Word was to be the High Priest of the New Testament as St. Paul explains it at large in his Epistle to the Hebrews Philo says that the Word is Mediator between God and Man Lib. Quis divin rer haer pag. 398. A. That he makes Attonement with God Lib. de Somniis p. 447. E.F. From this it was easie to see that the Messias was to be indued with a Noble Priesthood especially David having mentioned it Psal cx representing the Messias whom the Chaldaick Paraphrase often calls the Word of God as being a Priest after the order of Melchisedec And this St. Paul affirms likewise in his Epistle to the Hebrews Philo says that God having appeared by the Word to the Patriarchs and to Moses spoke by the same Word to the Israelites and that he was the Prince of Angels Lib. Quis rer divin haer pag. 397. F. G. And the Light and the Doctor of his people Lib. de Somn. pag. 448. calling the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dei de Nom. Mutat pag. 810. E. It was therefore but agreeably to these Notions that the Apostles applied to the Messias those places of the Old Testament where God promised to speak to his new people by the Messias as Deut. xviii 15 16. which St. Peter Act. iii. 22. and St. Stephen Act. vii 37. apply to our Saviour and that St. John calls him the Light of the World Joh. i. It is necessary to take notice of these Principles of the Old Jews First that we may well understand the reason for which Jesus Christ and his Apostles quoted several places as relating to the Messias which are meant of Jehovah in the Old Testament Secondly That we may see for what reason they supposed as a thing owned by the Jews for whom they writ that those places related to the Messias though the Jews applied them to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Thirdly That we may understand how naturally they applied to the Messias those places of the Old Testament which by the confession of the Old Jews related to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And certainly the meanest capacity may apprehend that if under the Old Testament God acted by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though that Dispensation was much below that of the New much more he was to act under the New by that same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by his own Son as St. Paul concludes Heb. i. What I said of the Apostles and the other Writers of the New Testament that they exactly followed the Doctrines of the Old Jews which followed the Divine Revelation in the Old Testament may justly be said of Justin Martyr and of those who both before and after him writ in defense of our Saviour's Divinity I need not quote many of them to shew that they went upon the same Grounds with the Jews before Christ It will be enough to examine Justin's Writings for he disputed with a Jew who received no other Scripture besides the Old Testament and therefore he could not convince him but by the Authority of those Books And if his method be well examined it will be found that he argues all along as the Apostles did viz. from the sense received by the Jews supposing that such and such places of Scripture from which he draws consequences were applied to the Messias by them Justin having proved that nothing certain can be learned from Philosophy by Plato's example who entertained gross Errors about the Nature of God and of the Soul And declared that he came to the knowledg of the Truth only by the help of Divine Revelation He affirms in general that the Christian Religion which he had imbraced is all grounded upon the Doctrine of Moses and the Prophets He does particularly instance in that of our Saviour's Person and Office though the Jews lookt upon it as impious that Christians as they reckoned trusted in a Man Crucified He lays for foundation that the Scripture speaks of two Comings of Christ the one indeed Glorious mentioned Dan. vii and Psal cx and Psal lxxii But to be preceded by another altogether mean and despicable as David had also foretold Psal cx at the end He maintains that the Messias is clearly described as God Psal xlvii where he is called the Lord our King and the King of all the Earth Psal xxiv where he is called the Lord strong and mighty and the King of Glory Psal xcix where it is said that he spoke to the Israelites in the cloudy Pillar And Psal xlv where he is named God's anointed the Lord God and proposed as the object of our Adoration He affirms that Christ was to be God and though the same in nature yet a different person from him who made Heaven and Earth He proves by the several Apparitions where a true God is mentioned appearing to Abraham in the Plains of Mamre Gen. xviii 1. To Jacob in a Dream Gen. xxxi with whom he wrestled in the figure of a Man Gen. xxxii and assisted him in his Journey to Padan Aram. And to Moses he appeared in the Burning-bush Exod. iii. He maintains that he was to be God because he executed the Counsel of God Hence he is named by Joshua the Prince of the Army and an Angel which is the Lord. And because the Scripture describes him as begotten of God and called the Son the Wisdom of God and the Word Prov. viii He affirms that God spoke to the Word when he said Let us make Man in our image Gen. i. 26. And Behold the Man is become as one of us Gen. iii. 22. which also clearly argues a Plurality He proves from Psal ii This day have I begotten thee that his Generation is from all Eternity And from Psal xv that the Church ought to adore Christ because it is said He is thy Lord worship thou him He repeats the same things towards the end of his Dialogue where he proves that the Messias appeared to Moses Exod. vi 2. To Jacob Gen. xxxii 30. To Abraham Gen. xviii 16 17. To Moses Numb xi 3. and Deut. iii. 18. and to all the Patriarchs and Prophets He prevents an Objection that this was not a Person but a Vertue from the Father which is called sometimes an Angel sometimes his Glory sometimes a Man sometimes the Word By shewing that the Scripture makes out first a real distinction between the Son and the Father as between Jehovah and Jehovah Gen. xix 24. 2ly a true Plurality as Gen. iii. 22. the Man is become as one of Us. 3ly a true Filiation as Prov. viii whence he concludes that he that is begotten is different from him who begot him He answers Mr. N.'s Objection borrowed from the Jews who quote those words of Isaiah where God says He will not give his Glory to another By saying that the Son is the Glory of the Father and that in this respect he is not another Being
to St. Athanasius's meaning Jesus Christ himself speaks of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when he saith John v. 8. Ye have not the Word of God remaining in you And 't is true that it cannot be understood of the Law and Prophecy which St. Paul affirms to have been trusted to the Jewish Nation And 't is mighty probable that St. John taking the Shekinah and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the same saith that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by an opposition to his Absence from the Jews who had rejected his direction and conduct I answer 3dly That many of the Ancient Doctors of the Church did remark that St. Luke Luk. i. 2. Acts i. and St. Paul Heb. iv 12. used the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the same sense to denote the Second Person of the Trinity and that therefore it was not peculiar to St. John to do so 4thly I say that the word Davar in the room of which the Jews since the Babylonian Captivity do ever use that of Memra to express the Second Person of the Trinity was in use even in David's time as appears by Psal xxxiii 6. where the LXX have render'd it by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Version being common among the Jews and generally received St. John could not use a term more proper to express the Divinity of the Second Person taking our Nature upon him And if it is no matter of wonder that the other Evangelists should give to our Saviour the Name of the Messias or that of the Son of God which were first given him by David it ought to be none that St. John has given him that of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which likewise was given him by David and does withal so well express the Author of the Creation who was this very 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who said Let such or such a thing be and it was For which reason St. Paul says that God made the Worlds by him Heb. i. 2. and St. Peter 2 Epist chap. iii. 5. where he ascribes the Creation of the World to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Word as it is acknowledged by Grotius The reason why St. John is more particular in his Expressions about the Second Person whom he makes to be the Creator of the Worlds and then represents as being made Man was because the other Evangelists had given so full an Account of his Birth and Genealogy and every thing else that was needful to prove the Truth of his Human Nature against the Simoniani and other Hereticks that would make him a Fantasm that this Evangelist found himself obliged to be the more express in asserting his Divinity against the Ebïonites who abused some places of the other Gospels to maintain that Christ was a mere Man and against the Cerinthians who affirmed that the Word was not inseparably united to the Flesh Lastly St. John used the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to express the Unity of God tho there be Three Persons in the Divine Nature Therefore he says that the Word was with God and that he was God He observes that Christ said that he was in the Father and the Father in him That he and the Father were one as he had before express'd himself in his first Epist chap. v. 7. These Three are One to shew the Unity of the Divine Monarchy after the manner in which the Jews did apprehend it wherein he was followed by the first Christians Another Objection which seems very plausible and therefore is confidently made by the Socinians is grounded upon those places in the Jewish Writers where they attribute to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what is affirmed in Scripture to have been said or done by an Angel in very many Apparitions as Exod. iii. 2. and Acts vii 30. where St. Stephen after Moses affirms that the Angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in the bush In which places of Scripture a created Angel not the Son of God seems to have appeared to Moses Whereas the Jewish Writers take this Angel to have been the Word as I shewed before Which Mistake must invalidate their Testimony in this case Accordingly some Interpreters as Lorinus the Jesuit and others Papists suppose him to have been a created Angel but which represented the Person of the Son of God and therefore acted in his Name and spoke as if he had been the Lord himself This Opinion they ground upon two things First Because he is expresly distinguish'd from the Lord both by Moses and St. Stephen who call him the Angel of the Lord. And Secondly Because the Son of God never took upon him the Nature of Angels as he did that of Men and therefore can't be called by their Name This has been thoroughly considered before to which I might refer the Reader for an Answer But to save him trouble we shall here shew him reason enough to believe that those Texts speak of one that was more than a Creature First Because the Angel is presently named the Lord or Jehovah both by Moses and St. Stephen even as Gen. xxxi the Angel which wrestled with Jacob is called God Secondly Because he declared formally that he was the Lord when he said to Moses I am the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob which can never be said of a mere Creature under whatsoever Commission or Dignity The Prophets did formerly represent God and they acted as well as spake in his Name but for all this they never spoke as the Angel mentioned by St. Stephen They said barely Thus saith the Lord or Jehovah I am God c. Likewise Christ represented his Father as being his Ambassador and his Deputy and yet he never took the Name of Father We read of many Apparitions of Angels in the New Testament yet no man can pretend to shew that any of them either spoke or acted as God though sent by him and speaking to Men in his Name It had been as absurd and as great a crime for them to have done so as for a Viceroy to tell the People whom he is sent to govern I am your King tho' he does represent the King's Person It is true the Angel mentioned by St. Stephen is named the Angel of the Lord and as true that Christ did not take the nature of Angels on him He did this favour only to Men for them only he humbled himself and was made like them in all things sin excepted and for this reason he is truly named Man and the Son of Man as well as the Son of God For Apostate Angels he forsook them and left them for ever in their Rebellion But it must be observed that the word Angel signifies properly a Messenger and denotes rather the Office than the nature of those blessed Spirits sent forth to Minister And consequently their Name may well be given to the Son of God who ever had the care of the Church committed to him and by whom the Father
has communed with Man ever since his fall into sin Upon this Ground Malachi ch iii. v. 1. names the Son of God the Angel or Messenger of the Covenant Which Prophecy is owned to this day by the Jews to speak of the Messias Isaiah ch lxiii v. 9. names him the Angel of the Presence of the Lord who saved and redeemed the Israelites According to what the Lord said to Moses Exod. xxiii 23. My Angel shall go before thee And Exod. xxxiii 14. My presence shall go with thee The Primitive Christians never doubted but that the Angel which appeared to Moses in the Desart and guided the Israelites was the Son of God St. Paul says expresly thus much 1 Cor. x. 9. when he affirms that the Israelites tempted Christ in the Wilderness by their Rebellions Lorinus himself quoting some places from the most Ancient Fathers is forced to acknowledge it on Acts vii And I shewed before that St. Paul has affirmed nothing upon this Point but according to the common Notion of the Jews It ought not therefore to seem strange that St. Stephen does distinguish the Angel of whom he speaks from the Lord himself when he names him the Angel of the Lord For the Son is distinct from the Father and the Son was sent by the Father But because they so partake of the same Divine Nature that they are in reality but one and the same God blessed for ever the Son in this regard might well say I am the God of Abraham c. and be called the Lord Jehovah If it be askt why Moses did rather call him an Angel than otherwise I answer that he did so for these two reasons First because the distinction of the Divine Persons was not so clearly revealed under the Old Testament by reason that it did not so well suit that Oecomy Secondly because God since he created the World commonly imploying Angels in those works which were not above their power and capacity It may very well be that the Son of God when he appeared to Men used the Ministry of Angels either to form the voice and the words which he spoke to his Prophets or to make the Body or the Figure under which he appeared It is objected in the last place that St. Paul seems to suppose that an Angel gave the Law upon Mount Sinai and not the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Son of God and that that Angel is called God because he spoke in God's Name Thus Gal. iii. 19. he says that the Law was ordained by Angels Heb. ii 2. that it was spoken by Angels And Heb. i. 1 2. making opposition between the Law and the Gospel he says to elevate this last above the former that God having formerly spoke to Men by his Prophets has in these last days spoken to us by his Son which could not be true if he had before made use of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to give his Law to the Jews The Socinians look upon this Argument as unanswerable And the truth is it has imposed upon many Learned Writers as Lorinus Grotius and others But it will be no difficult business to answer it if it be observed First that it hath been always the opinion of the old Jews that the Law was given by Jehovah himself Secondly that it was likewise their opinion that Jehovah who gave the Law was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And 3ly that 't is affirmed by Moses Deut. xxxiii 2. That when the Lord came from Sinai and rose up from Seir He came with ten thousands of Saints from his right hand went a fiery Law I say that 't is enough to prove those three things to convince any Man that when St. Paul says that the Law was spoken by Angels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he means only that they were present as witnesses where it was given not that they represented God's person The first appears by Philo who affirms that it was God who spoke when he gave the Law de Migrat Abrah p. 309. D. E. F. And de Decal p. 576. D. C. and p. 593. F. he spoke by a voice which he created And Lib. de Praem p. 705. The Targum affirms the same that Jehovah revealed himself with multitudes of Angels when he gave his Law 1 Chron. xxix 11. The second is clear by Hag. ii 6. where the Lord speaking of the time when he brought his People out of Egypt saith that he had shaken the Earth which relates to his giving the Law as appears from Psal lxviii 8. and Heb. xii 25 26. where St. Paul applies that place to our Saviour And it is acknowledged also by the Jews as the Author of Rabboth fol. 135. col 3. Onkelos Deut. iv 33 36. the People heard the voice of the Word of the Lord out of the fire And also Deut. v. 24. And likewise Exod. xx 7. Deut. v. 11. and vi 13. where the third Commandment is mentioned in these words None shall swear by the Name of the Word of the Lord. The third Point is evident according to the constant Maxim of the Jews that the Shekinah or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is always accompanied with several Camps of Angels who attend him and execute his Judgments Those things being noted I maintain that when St. Paul saith that the Law hath been Ordained by Angels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gal. iii. 19. the Text must be rendred between Angels as St. Paul hath used the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Tim. ii 2. not to say by many Witnesses but among or before many Witnesses 2ly That when St. Paul speaks Heb. ii of the Word that hath been spoken by Angels he doth not speak of the Law but of the several threatnings which were made by the Prophets to whom the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sent his Angels to bring back the People of Israel from their wickedness And of the several punishments which fell upon Israel and were inflicted by Angels as Executors of the judgment of God It must be understood so necessarily or it is impossible to save St. Paul from having contradicted himself in the same Epistle For he supposeth ch xii 25 26. that 't was Jesus Christ that being the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shook the Earth in which he follows the words of Haggai the Prophet and of the Psalmist Psal lxviii 8. and who can reconcile that with St. Paul saying that many Angels Ordained the Law Did they all personate God in that occasion No body hath ever imagined such a thing It cannot be objected to me that St. Paul opposes the Person of Jesus to Moses as it hath been done by St. John ch i. where he saith that the Law was given by Moses but Grace and Truth by Jesus Christ The reason is clear and it is because he opposes the Ministry of Reconciliation to the Ministry of Condemnation Moses hath been the Mediator of the first Covenant but Jesus Christ is the Minister of the second although both
above the Heathens both as to Virtue and Knowledge In which he followed Aristobulus's Notions who had writ long before him and was a Jewish Philosopher And of this Opinion the Jews are to this day as may be seen in Cozri p. 29 and p. 131. And as the Egyptians lookt upon the Greeks as Children in learning which they were fain to fetch from Egypt so Philo calls often the Egyptians even of the most ancient times a heavy People and who wanted common Sense by reason of the many gross Errors they entertain'd unworthy of rational Creatures In a word I affirm that if Plato had any distinct Notions in Religion he most certainly had them from the Jews while he sojourned in Egypt as it is maintained by Josephus in his first Book against Appion As for the Chaldee Paraphrasts I do not see how they can be suspected to have had a Tincture of Plato's Doctrine It must be a mere Fancy to suppose it Let those Gentlemen read exactly the Books of Philo and find therein if they can such an Expression as we have in the Targum upon Hag. ii 4 5. I am with you saith the Lord of Hosts with the Word which covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt and my Spirit which abideth in the midst of you M. N. hath been sensible of that and therefore he does not accuse them of having been Platonists but he accuses the Orthodox Christians in general to have inserted in the Jewish Books whatever in them is favourable to the Doctrines of the Trinity and of the Divinity of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But certainly the Unitarians must have very little Correspondence with the Jews to fancy that they are so simple as to be thus abused How can it be imagined that the Jews should be such Friends to Christians as to trust them with their Books in order to falsify them And afterwards so sottish as to spread every where their Books and their Targums which they falsified This Supposition is so ridiculous that I cannot imagine how any Author can write such a thing or even conceive and suppose it What I said of the Gospel Notions in the 15th Chapter shews plainly that neither Christ nor his Apostles did adopt the System of Philosophy which was taught by the Platonists The Angel who declared his Conception used the word Lord or Jehovah to denote his being God But when he named him Jesus because he was to save his People from their sins which no other could do but God he intimated that it was he who was foretold not by Plato but by Habakkuk chap. iii. 8 13 18. I will rejoice in the Lord I will joy in the God of my salvation In which place the Prophet expresly calls God Saviour or Jesus by which Name Christ by Divine Appointment was named In short a man must be out of his Senses to find any thing in the Gospel that savours of Plato's Hypothesis When the Devils own Christ to be the Son of God were they Platonists When St. Peter owns him to be the Son of God had Plato told him this When he was ask'd in the Council of the Jews whether he was the Son of God was the question made in a Platonick sense It is true St. Paul has sometimes quoted Heathenish Authors he was brought up at Tarsus amongst Heathens he had read Aratus whom he quotes against the Epicurean Philosophers at Athens and he quotes a place out of the Cretan Epimenides in his Epistle to Titus who was Bishop of Crete But we never find that he quoted Plato or used his Testimony Christ chose illiterate men for his Apostles St. John who speaks of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had been a Fisherman about the Lake of Tiberias St. Paul only and St. Luke were Scholars St. Paul was brought up under Gamaliel a Doctor of the Law and St. Luke who had been a Physician and was a Learned Man followed St. Paul in his Travels and by his directions writ his Gospel But it does not appear that our Saviour taught his ignorant Disciples the Notions of Plato nor that the Learned ones as St. Paul and St. Luke ever used Plato's Authority in their Preaching This appears plainly in the Book of the Acts in which St. Luke gives an account of it If at any time St. Paul had a fair opportunity to make use of Plato's Testimony it was when he disputed at Athens against the Stoicks and the Epicureans These last laughing at Miracles St. Paul wrought none there to convince them But he might have quoted places out of Plato's Republick to prove the Resurrection and a Judgment in the Life to come yet he quotes never an Author and was contented to argue the Case by strength of Reason and this he did with that force that he converted one of the Judges of Areopagus who probably was an Epicurean and knew what Plato said in his Books and did laugh at it This Method of the Apostles was followed by the first Christians Plato was not mentioned amongst them till some Philosophers turned Christians Justin Martyr amongst others This Justin scorned all other Philosophers as mean-spirited Teachers but commended Plato as being one of a great Genius that made him think of God and the Immortality of the Soul in a more elevated manner than other Philosophers But when all is done How much did he value Plato But indifferently He declares that it was from the Gospel together with the Law and the Prophets that he had the true Notions of the Christian Religion He quotes Plato neither against the Heathens nor against the Jews If we had the Book he writ against Marcion who out of Plato's Writings had broach'd his detestable Opinions we might very probably have seen how little he valued Plato's Authority Tertullian who had read Justin's Book and who saw that both the Gnosticks and the Valentinians made much of Plato's Authority shews plainly how little he valued Plato when he says he was grown omnium haereticorum condimentarium the sawce which all Hereticks used to propagate their Doctrines by which they corrupted the Purity of the Christian Religion And much the same Opinion of Plato had they that opposed the Arian Heresy of which it is thought Origen was the first Broacher However I aver First That the first Christians were no more Platonists than the Jews that is did not use Plato's Notions in their System of Divinity They were so far from it that they declared that what they believed about the Trinity they had it from the Holy Writers Justin Apol. 2. Athenagoras p. 8 9. Theophilus of Antioch p. 100. Secondly It is false that any of the Ancient Christians made any other use of Plato than by shewing that Plato had borrowed from Moses the Doctrine he taught Justin in his Exhortation to the Greeks p. 18 22 24. Clemens of Alexandria Strom. l. 4. p. 517. and l. 5. p. 598. Paedag. l. 1. c. 6. Origen against Celsus l.
with the Generality of Papists though they cannot be ignorant they therein dissent from the Divinity of the ancient Jews and the Fathers of the Christian Church and even the more Learned and candid Romanists such as Masius was I might add which perhaps they have not considered though they therein contradict the whole strain of the New Testament See Mercerus ad Pagnini Lexicon p. 1254. The intended shortness of this Treatise will not permit me to enlarge on this Head However one thing I must not pass over which is worthy the examination of the less cautious Divines It is very certain that the God that appeared to Jacob in Bethel was the very God that fed Israel in the Desert and against whom the Israelites in the Wilderness did rebel Now the Apostle is express 1 Cor. x. that he was Christ whom the Jews tempted in the Wilderness i. e. that he was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not a meer Angel The Apostle takes it for granted it was a thing undisputed by the Synagogue in his time And indeed unless this be allowed St. Paul's reasoning in this Chapter is trifling and groundless Well! what can Bellarmine say to this he who asserts a created Angel to be spoken of Gen. xlviii 16. He has forgot what he said on that Text when he is come to this place He here strenuously urges it against the Socinians to prove that Christ was then in being when the Jews tempted him in the Wilderness And since hereby he owns that Christ in his Divine Nature was he that led Israel through the Wilderness who is sometimes called God and sometimes an Angel he inconsiderately grants what he had denied before that the Angel who redeemed Jacob from all evil being the same Angel that conducted Israel was also God SECT VI. You see what Contradictions Bellarmine falls into out of his zeal to promote the Doctrine of Invocation of Saints I wish there were not something as bad in our Divines that carries them in the like Contradictions The best I can say for their excuse is only this They have not carefully attended to the Stile of Holy Scripture Two or three things therefore I will mention which occur frequently in Scripture that methinks would have suggested higher thoughts of this Angel to one that considered what he read He that considers how often our Lord Christ is called in the New Testament the Spouse or Husband of the Church and compares it with the same Title that God appropriates to himself under the Old Testament Estate will make little doubt that it was the same Christ who was then married to Israel By the same rule one may infer that our Lord Christ in calling himself a Shepherd had a respect to that Title by which he is so often ascribed in his dealings with Jacob and his Posterity This the ancienter Jews were sensible of and therefore both here Gen. xlviii 15. and ch xlix 24. where God is mentioned as a Shepherd they understand it of the Shekinah or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 R. Menachem de Rekanah from the Book Habbahir in Pent. f. 84. c. 2. Of this also the Jews in Christ's time were not ignorant who hearing Christ in one of his Sermons likening himself to the good Shepherd Joh. x. did presently apprehend that he would be thought the Messias and therefore took up stones to stone him And then in the process of his Discourse to maintain this Character he made himself one with the Father As Christ called himself a Shepherd to shew that he was the God that had fed Jacob and his Posterity like sheep so also is Christ most frequently represented in the New Testament under the Notion of a Redeemer intimating thereby that he was the same Redeeming Angel of whom Jacob had spoken It was he that was called * Isa lxiii 9. the Angel of his Presence by whom God redeem'd his ancient People And he is also called the Angel of the Covenant †Mal. iii. 1. in the promise of his coming in the time of the Gospel Here I should have put an end to this Tract but for two Objections that lye in my way and seem to require some kind of Answer The first is taken from the Jews who many of them expound this Redeeming Angel by Metatron and Metatron according to them being a created Angel or as some say no other than Enoch that was Translated there seems to be as many Authorities against us as for us But let it be observed 1. Though the Jews have several Names of Angels which are not mentioned in Scripture yet they are all formed out of the Names of God according to the Rules of their Cabala and that with respect to the Ten Sephiroth as Buxtorf has noted Lex Talm. p. 828. 2. This is plain from the word Actariel which is at the head of the Jewish forms of Excommunication * v. Bartolocci f. 4. 450. This is derived from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Name of the first of the Ten Sephiroth whence the Talmudists place Actariel upon the Throne Beracoth f. 7. c. 1. and distinguish him from the Ministring Angels that stand before the Throne But I refer the curious Reader that would know more of this to the ancient Jewish Book Intituled Berith Menucha c. 1. 3. This is no less plain of the Angel Metatron who as they say was he that discoursed with Moses Exod. iii. and the Angel in whom God placed his Name So that they acknowledge though it is framed from the Latin Tongue yet it expresses the same that the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does as R. S. Jarchi on Exod. xxiii confesses Now St. Hierome on Ezek. i. 24. notes that the Greek Interpreters sometimes render God's Name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which leads us into the meaning of those ancient Jews that accounted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Metatron to be the same 4. The Generality of Jews are so far from believing Metatron to be Enoch that they believe him to be the Messias the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before his Incarnation in our phrase but in theirs the Soul of the Messias which they look on as something between God and the Angels whom nothing separates from the Living God See Reuchlin l. i. de Cabala p. 651. where he proves Metatron to be the Messias from their Writings Or in short take the confession of Menasse ben Israel Q. 6. in Gen. § 2. And truly if one would compare all those places of the Old Testament that mention the Angel whom the later Jews call Metatron he would find such Properties belonging to this Angel as are incommunicable to a Creature And this shews that they who have departed in this point from the Tradition of their Fathers did it on this ground because they were loth to acknowledge the Divinity of the Messias which seemed to be clear upon allowing Metatron to be the Messias They were more
by what the Apostle saith Joh. xii 41. that this was no other than our Lord Jesus Christ For there the Apostle having quoted the words that Isaiah heard from the Lord that spoke to him Isai vi 9 10. tells us These things said Isaiah when he saw his Glory and spoke of him That the Apostle here speaks of the Word made flesh is clear enough from the Text. But besides it has been proved by our Writers beyond all contradiction See Plac. lib. ii Disput 1. In like manner that which the Prophet Ezekiel saw was an Appearance of God represented to him as a Man sitting on a Throne of Glory Ezek. i. 26 27 28. x. 1. Which Throne was then upon Wheels after the manner of a Sella Curulis They were living Wheels animated and supported by Cherubims i. 21. each of which had four Faces i. 6. such as were carved on the Walls of the Temple xli 19. In short that which Ezekiel saw though he was then in Chaldea was nothing else but the Appearance of God as yet dwelling in his Temple at Jerusalem but quite weary of it and now about to remove and to leave his dwelling-place to be destroyed by the Chaldeans To shew that this was the meaning of it he saw this Glorious Appearance of God first in his place iii. 12. i. e. on the Mercy-seat in the Temple ix 3. Next he saw him gone from his place to the Threshold of the House Judges use to give Judgment in the Gate so there over the Threshold of his House God gave Sentence against his rebellious people v. 5 6 7. Afterward from the Threshold of the House x. 4. the Prophet saw the Glory departed yet farther and mounted up from the Earth over the midst of the City x. 18 19. And lastly he saw it go from thence and stand upon the Mountain on the East-side of the City xi 23. That is on Mount Olivet which is before Jerusalem on the East Zech. xiv 4. and so the Targum has it on this place After this departure of the Divine Presence Ezekiel saw his forsaken Temple and City destroyed and his People carried away into Captivity xxxiii 21 c. After this he saw no more Appearance of God till his People's return from Captivity And then the Temple being rebuilt according to the measures given from God xl xli xlii the Prophet could not but expect that God would return to it as of old So he saw it come to pass in his Vision xliii 2. Behold the Glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the East where the Prophet saw it last at M. Olivet So again v. 4. The Glory of the Lord came into the House by the way of the Gate whose prospect is toward the East And v. 5. Behold the Glory of the Lord filled the House So again xliv 4. It filled the House now as it had done in Solomon's time 1 King viii 11. All along in this Prophecy of Ezekiel it was but one Person that appeared from the beginning to the end In the beginning of this Prophecy it was God that appeared in his Temple over the Cherubims and there we find him again in the end of this Prophecy But that it was no other but the Word that so appeared in the Temple according to the sense of the ancient Jewish Church has been proved so fully out of their Targums elswhere that we need not trouble our selves about that any farther though we cannot find it in the Targum on this Book In the Books of Chronicles there is nothing remarkable of this kind but what has been considered already in the account that we have given of the Divine Appearances in the Books of Kings And there is no mention of any such Appearance in any of the other Books that were written after the Babylonian Captivity except on the Books of Daniel and Zechariah Of Daniel the Jews have not given us any Targum therefore we have nothing to say of that Book They have given us a Targum such as it is of the Book of Zechariah which is the last we have to consider In this Book of Zechariah we read of three Angels that appeared to the Prophet The first appeared to him as a Man i. 8 -10. But is called an Angel v. 9. In Zechary's words The Angel that talked with me By which Title he is often distinguisht from all others in the same Book i. 13 14 19. ii 3. v. 5 6. vi 4. A second Angel appeared to him also as a Man with a Measuring Line in his hand ii 1. But whosoever compares this Text with Ezek. xl 3 4 5 c. will find that this who appeared as a Man was truly an Angel of God Next the first Angel going forth from the place where he appeared ii 3. Another Angel comes to meet him and bids him Run speak to this young man whether to the Angel Surveyor or whether to Zechary himself and tell him Jerusalem shall be inhabited c. ii 4. He that commands another should be his Superior And yet this Superior owns himself sent from God But he own'd it in such terms as shew'd that he was God himself This the Reader will see more than once in his speech which is continued from v. 4. to the end of the Chapter It appears especially in v. 8 9 11. of this Chapter First in v. 5. having declared what God would do for Jerusalem in these words according to the Targum The Lord hath said my Word shall be a wall of fire about her and my Glory will I place in the midst of her He goes on to v. 8. and there he delivers a Message from God to his People in these words Thus saith the Lord of Hosts After the Glory * After the Glory of his Shekinah being returned into the Temple when that was rebuilt they should soon after see Babylon it self taken and spotled by their ancient Servants the Persians hath he sent me to the Nations that spoiled you c. Here the sense is ambiguous for it seems strange that the Lord of Hosts should say another hath sent me But so it is again and much clearer exprest in v. 9. where he saith Behold I will shake my hand upon them and they shall be a spoil to their Servants This none but God could say But he addeth in the next words And ye shall know that the Lord of Hosts hath sent me which words plainly shew that though he stiled himself God yet he came as a Messenger from God This is plainer yet v. 11. where he saith Many Nations shall be joyned to the Lord in that day and shall be my people and I will dwell in the midst of thee Thee Thou Thee are all Feminines in the Hebrew and therefore all three refer to Zion Thee Oh Zion v. 10. This again none but God could say And yet it followeth Thou Oh Zion shalt know that the Lord of Hosts hath sent