CHAP. I. Why the Iews are under the wrath of God.

I Desire (O Master) my conscience may receive some satisfaction by thee, out of the Testimonies of the Law, the Prophets, and other Scriptures, about this point, namely, How it comes to passe that we Jews, our whole Na­tion, have a generall great stroke of God upon us in this Captivity, which now holds us, and which we may well call Gods perpetuall [Page 60] wrath, because it findes no end. The Wheel of time hath now spun a thousand years, and more, compleatly, since that Titus first led us Captives. We are not ignorant that our Fa­thers worshipt Idols, and slew the Prophets, and cast away the Law of God; yet for all these transgressions, the smart of Gods smi­ting hand did vexe them but with a seventy years Captivity in Babylon, and when that set term of time was runne out, he was appeased with them, and brought them back into their own Land again. And at that time, according to the suffrage of the Scripture, Dan. 9. 12. the anger of God had then the bitterest and strongest Ingredients of his wrath mixt with it above any precedent times reckoned in that holy Vo­lume; notwithstanding, as is already said, the punishment of so great sinnes laid upon them no longer then seventy years. But now, O Master, that wrath which at this present pu­nishes us, is a sentence without a period, nei­ther in all the Prophets is there any end of it promised. If we would thus shift it off, and say, That the wrath in which we are now deep plunged, is a continuance of that wrath, which brought the seventy years misery upon us, seeing that served to satisfie for the fore­mentioned sins of our Fathers; in so doing we should go about to charge God with a Ive, [Page 61] which be farre from us to attempt, knowing that the true and glorious God did by his pro­phets stint that Captivitie, within that num­ber of years. Whereupon such an answer would prove a nullitie, a meer evasion and excuse, not fit to be propounded before those who have any intellectuals. Further, if we shall go on to say, That God in that transmigration made a division of mercy and justice, had pitie on one part of our Jewish generation, shewed no pitie to the other part, and those on whom he had mercy, he brought backe to re-edifie the Temple, Ier. 25. [...]29. as saith the Prophet Jeremie: and if we shall say, that we are that unhappy remnant, to which he shewed no mercy, then will the Christians say to us, That because God shewed mercy to them that worshipt Idols and slew the Pro­phets, therefore he should have mercy on us also that have not so sinned. Besides, when our Fathers sinned, the punishment of Divine Re­venge kept within the bounds of certain years, wherefore then is it, that we, who have not so sinned, have a punishment without bounds and limits? It is a long and undated punishment in which we lie fast bound, it is now a thou­sand years old, and yet neither in the Law or Prophets can we finde an end of it, or spie any grave wherein it shall be buried. Wherefore [Page 62] I O Master, laying these grounds, that God hath punished our Fathers for Idolatry and Pro­phet-killing, and in the Scripture their sinne and punishment are both recorded; seeing God uses not to punish the same sin twice, then the seventy years captivity must be the punishment of the foregoing sins.

II Again, it not being usuall with God to lay on an universall Rod, but where there hath been an universall sin, it must needs follow, that after that captivity we have generally committed some greater sin before God, than either their Idolatry or Prophet-slaughter, weighing and proportioning their 70 years punishment and no more, with our thousand years captivity and more, who are still a wretched dispersion thorow the the four quar­ters of the world. Yet what ever falls out, we are Gods people, and belong to him. Now be­cause no excuse can evade what I have said, answer me directly to it.

CHAP. II. He proves they are thus dispersed for some grie­vous sin in which they are, and argues against observation of their Law.

SUppose, O Master, that wee are in some great sinn, yet now I request thou [Page 63] wouldest certifie me in this, if after God scattered us out of Jerusalem, and sent us in­to this long and lasting captivity for that sin, why do we of our own authority, and pro­per motion of our own will, without any spe­ciall mandate from God, He blames their ob­serving of Circumci­sion, Sab­hath, &c. for their traditions and addi­tions, more then they finde in Moses his Law. observe some Legall Rites, and do not keep Circumcision, the Sabbath, and other Ceremonies that we hold, according to the Law of Moses? We know that from the time in which Titus destroyed the holy Citie, and by combustions turned our Temple and Libraries into ashes, dispersing us in that Captivitie, that ever since Sacri­fices, Oblations, and whole burnt-Offerings have quite ceased, God not making promise to us by any Prophet, in any Prophecie, or by any certain revelation, that we should any more return to our forsaken Ierusalem, to be in our former state, nor giving us any precept [...]o keep and hold our former Observances. Hence it seems by due consequence to follow, [...]hat these foresaid observances which we keep, we received them not of God, but of them that were under the wrath of God. Yea, thus [...]ur Adversaries (the Christians) shall justly [...]ay unto us, Like as you observe Circumcisi­ [...]n and the Sabbath, and do read in your Sy­ [...]agogues the Books of Moses, without any [...]ommand from God, why do you not as well [Page 64] in like manner take up again your sacrificing, and make to your selves a Priest, a King, a Prince, why use you not holy Unctions and Incense? why build you not Altars, and keep your Ceremonies, and many other things contained in the Law, as well as Sabbath and Circumcision, and many other things, which by your own Traditions and Will-worship, not commanded of God, you do retain? Thus both wayes is the Lord offended by you. These aforesaid Rites, if you observe them contrary to the Will of God, or if you say it is Gods Will and his good pleasure that you should do them, (which is more than you can mani­fest) why omit you those aforesaid Rites, which you may use as well as these? Let it be granted, that the Kings of the people, to whom you are subject, do not permit you; yet seeing they permit you to retain Circumcisi­on, your Books, Synagogues, and other things, they would suffer you in many other things as well as these.

To these Arguments, O my Master, a suf­ficient answer is farre to seek amongst us; yet in all events we belong to God.

CHAP. III. All the Iews observance of the Law is unaccep­table to God for the sinne in which they are.

WEE have found, O Master, what the Lord speaks by the mouth of his Pro­phet Zacharie, concerning that first short cap­tivitie: Zach. 7. 5. These things saith the Lord God to the Priests and people of the Land, when you fasted and mourned in the sixt and seventh moneth, the whole time of your seventy yeers, you understood that you fasted and mourned to me, but I would not have any such fast from you. The words of the first Transla­tour, Al­phonsus the Spanyard. [Our Transla­tion hath it otherwise, but I purpose to set out in writing the authorities which Rabbi Samuel brings, as they are in the Arabick, not as we finde them in our Bibles] In the fore­mentioned words, O Master, the Lord inti­mates, that while we Jews were in that seven­ty years Captivitie, we were without his Law, because in the Law we neither had nor have any Fast, as we have other observances; yea, in like manner we were without Cir­cumcision, and Sabbath, and doubtlesse all these things are nothing worth, whiles Gods wrath abides upon his people. Isa. 54. 7, 8. That first wrath of God was short, extending to 70 years onely; but this, in which we now are, is a thousand [Page 66] years long, and upward, and none of the Pro­phets let us see and end of it. This causes my fear, O Master, that as the Lord cast our Fa­thers into that short Bondage and Captivity without any Legall Observances, their Fast­ings and all other Rites being abhorred of the Lord, till the set time of their punish­ment was expired; so in this our last Cap­tivity, we may be devout in observing all our Legalities, and yet the Lord will not accept any of our Works. Greater therefore for cer­tain is our sinne, than that which carryed our Fathers into Babylon: and thence it is, that the wrath of God is greater which is upon us, and consequently our works are lesse accepta­ble, and we in the eyes of the Lord more abhominable. The slaughter of Prophets, the worship of Idols procured them their seventy years captivity and no more, but we are cap­tives for a great sinne, yea, surely ours is the greatest sin, which is thus punished with a chili­ad of years and makes us miserable millenaries and more. Without doubt, O Master, the Pro­phet Daniel speaking from the Lord, means of our Captivity, when he calls it the Desola­tion, He shall make it desolate, even till the Consummation, Dan. 9. 27. and that determined shall bee powred upon the desolate. The first Captivity is called but a transmigration, because after a [Page 67] short time they were brought back with ho­nour to Ierusalem; but this is called a perpe­ [...]uall Desolation, in which for certain God will [...]ot have mercy on us, as he had on our Fa­thers in Babylon. And this is two wayes evi­dent. I 1. The Prophets ceased not to comfort [...]hem, and give them promises of deliverance. II 2. Though they were in captivitie, yet were [...]hey all together. (and company alleviates an [...]vill.) Now for the first, we finde not a syl­ [...]able of any Propheticall promise for us. And for the second, our case is aggravated, to make [...]s higher graduates in misery, we are not [...]ondslaves in company of one another, but [...]e are a dispersion thorow all the Kingdoms of the World. Notwithstanding we are in [...]ll events the Lords.

CHAP. IV. He sheweth the Jews are blinde.

A Marvellous thing to me is this, O Master, that all of us are brimm full with con­tinuall hopes of our freedome from our capti­vitie, our Lipps doe alwayes mention it, our Tongues know no vacation, but are ever talk­ing of our return to Ierusalem, wherein we are [...]o other than blinde men, or meer deceivers of [...]he simple. For look to the time since our [Page 68] dispersion by Titus, and where did any Pro­phet appear with any prediction or promise of our return? nay, did any Prophet since that seventy years hard apprentiship, name any other end of our Captivity than the Worlds end? The consummation of the World must onely consummate our Captivity, and Daniel to that purpose names it an endlesse desolation Dan. 9. This, this, o Master, is still my fear, our sin [...] is the greatest, because our smart is the sorest▪ a sin which farre exceeds Idol-worship, and Butchering of Prophets, for which our Fa­thers before were punished. And if God will shew no mercy to us living, we persevering in the same sin, so will his mercy be farre from us dying also. Yet this nothing can prevent, that we belong to the Lord in every event.

CHAP. V. The Iews deceive themselves and others.

ME thinks, O Master, we notably gull both our selves and others, because in the Books of the Law and the Prophets, we have the Lords promise frequently of freeing our Nation, and of gathering us together a­gain from all our scatterings. Now these pro­mises lookt into with a well advised minde, it will appear they were all, I 1, Either com­pleat [Page 69] before, and in the seventy years; or, II 2, that these promises were totally hindred from ful­filling, the sins of them, to whom they were made, being an impediment to their impleti­on. An instance, O Master, I give in those few words spoken by Ezechiel, If ye will do my judgements, and keep my Commandements, then Will I gather you from the foure corners of the earth, I will lift you up, and bring you thorow the Sea, yea I will make you return unto your ho­ly House. Behold, that which the Lord pro­miseth us by Ezechiel in these words, and o­ther places of his Prophecie, it was many times fulfilled before the seventy years capti­vitie, as all such promises of the Lords, whe­ther greater or lesser contained in divers pla­ces of the sacred Volume, were compleat and fulfilled, before we fell into this last captivity, which has no bottome, though we have been more than a thousand years in it, yet in none of the Prophets can wee finde it has a bot­tome. And where any promise of God treats of freeing and gathering together, it is not to be understood of this perpetuall bondage, but of those tribulations and dispersions before the seventy years, but after them there is not the least inkling of a promise, to gather us from our scattered estate. Of necessity therefore we must take it to us, that we have commit­ted [Page 70] that great sinne since the forementioned years, in which sin we now are and obstinately persist, for which the Lord so endlesly punish­eth us, else the Lords wrath could not so long time have held in his mercy from us. Psal. 76. Through the course of Scriptures, we may perceive our forefathers punisht for their sins before seven­ty years, out of many I select these few exam­ples. Our Elders sinned (before that time) who came out of Aegypt, the Promise therefore made to them, had no place in them, for they perisht in their sins in the wildernesse. Exod. 32. Moses sinned at the Waters of strife, Numb. 20. and that sinne bolted him out from entring the promised Land. Deut. 9. Aaron sinned, and he bore his punish­ment. 1 Sam. 4. Eli the Priest sinned, and he broke his Neck for breaking Gods Command, and his Posterity lost the Priesthood, though God had promised it them for ever. Such promises as these, are to be understood with this caution alwayes, they shall be fulfilled, unlesse for their sins they promerit another reward, as is plaine in the Kingdome of David, when his Posterity after the flesh fell short of the Scepter, even as the true and glorious God promised Abra­ham and his Seed they should possesse the Land for ever, Gen. 17. yet they often were at a losse of it for their sins, and the Lord often resto­red it to them again, untill this last great losse [Page 71] of it. Now a thousand years and above are gone over our heads, and our hopes of recove­ry are vanisht with them, because we still a­bide in that sinn, by which our Land is lost and forfeited. This is among wonderfull things, a grand one, O Master, that all of us with one Lip consent to this, that since the sore Servitude in Babylon, it must needs be, that we have sinned against God some great sinne, and yet none can pick out what this great sinn is, for which we have been laden with such a masse of misery: Or if any of us have know­ledge of the cause, and our sin which hath thus engulphed us in these deep evils, yet what are we the better? The secret sticks in his owne breast, he doth not declare it to his neighbour. Or what is himself the better for knowing it, whiles he turns it not to his own profit, for we all do still lie flat upon the ground. Clear­ly we do all see, that in the foresaid Capti­vity God remained with our Fathers in his Prophets, Ieremie and others, he gave them Salathiel for a Leader or Captain; they had both Princes and Priests, which went with them out of Babylon, after the time of their repentance (or doing Penance) was finisht, and having got their God appeased, they built Ierusalem, the Temple, and other Cities, and the Lord powred upon them his mercie [...] plen­teously. [Page 72] In this our Captivitie all appears with a stranger face, it is manifest that both God and Prophet hath forsaken us, neither of these are with us. Wherefore, O Master, this will I make my task, I will exactly enquire, and uncessantly search out what that great sin is, which hath cast us into this thousand years slavery and more, (in which we are cloathed with desolation) being without Prophet, with­out King without Priest, without Altar, with­out Sacrifice, without Oyntment, without In­cense, without our Purifications; yea, in one word, we have ingrossed to our selves the ab­horring of God in heaven, and the contempt and abomination of us with the whole world, and all men on earth. Yet for all this misery that reignes in our estate, pride reignes in our heart, in our own conceits we preferre our selves before all the world besides. Concerning which thing what my judgement is, O Master, I will make known to thee. Neverthelesse▪ what ever fall out, from God we cannot fi­nally fall off.

CHAP. VI. What that sin is, for which the Iews are in Captivitie.

NOw, O my Master, I am in great fear, that that sin, for which we are in this deso­lating Captivitie, is that of which God speaks by his Prophet Amos, Amos 2. saying, For three trans­gressions of Iudah, I will turn or translate Israel. [note that our Bibles have it, The words of the first Transla­tour, Al­phonsus the Spanyard. I will turn away, here he hath it, I will transfer or translate, and it is better so for his purpose] and for the fourth I will not translate them, because they sold the righteous for silver. We indeed, O Master, according to our Doctrine, make this righte­ous One to be Ioseph the son of Iacob, Gen. 37. who was sold by his Brethren into Aegypt; and this would I hold for true also, but that the Sacred Writ makes this sin of selling, the fourth for number among the sins, or transgressiōs of Israel. The Christians themselves (to whom the stu­die of Sacred Volumes seems to be delivered & committed of God) do answer to our foresaid interpretation, that the selling of Ioseph by his Brethren, is the first, and not the fourth of Israels sins or transgressions. The second sin they make the worshipping of the Calf in Ho­reb. The third transgression is the slaughter [Page 74] of the Prophets, for which we served as slaves seventy years in Babylon. But the fourth trans­gression of Israel, the selling of the Righteous, this they say is plainly meant of JESUS, who was, according to the very letter, sold af­ter that aforesaid transmigration. And we, O Master, if we mean to maintain as Authenti­call our own Doctrine, and stop the Christi­ans mouthes with a sufficient answer, this of us must be undertaken, and made good, that divers transgressions of Israels did precede this of Josephs selling, so as to make it fall in the fourth number. Which thing we cannot up­hold, the testimony of the Book of Genesis making sore against us, which sets the sel­ling of Joseph, as the first transgression of the Children of Israel. The Prophet Amos also expressely makes appear, that the fourth sinne was the selling of the righteous One, for which we have been Captives, and of which the Lord with a fearfull Commination speaks, that he will never bring us backe again into the Land of Promise, saying, And for the fourth I will not translate them, because they sold the righteous for silver. To me it is more then ma­nifest, that for the selling the Righteous, the fourth sin, we are righteously punisht: and now more than a thousand years are past and gone, in all which time we do no good, nor [Page 75] prosper at all among the Gentiles, nor remains there any hope, that we shall do any good at all.

CHAP. VII. That the Just Jesus, the God of the Christians, was unjustly sold.

A Marvellous horrour, O Master, hath sur­prized me, and I quake to think, that this Righteous one sold for silver, according to the Prophet Amos, is JESUS, whom the Christians worship. And further I fear, that the testimonies, which I meet withall in the Prophets, are concerning him, and the Chri­stians in their Doctrine do very apertly, and aptly apply them to him. Isa. 1. 4. Esay the Prophet saith, Ah sinfull nation, a people laden with ini­quity, a seed of evill doers, they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the holy One of Is­rael to anger, they are gone away backward. The same Prophet saith, Isa. 53. As a sheep led to the slaugh­ter is dumb, Hierome after the Hebrew so reads it, oblatus est quia ipse voluit. vers. 7. so he opened not his mouth. He saith, hee was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; he was despised of men, and (for this) we esteemed him not; he was offered up, because so his will was. He was taken from prison and judgement, and who shall declare his generation? For the transgression of my people have I smitten [Page 76] him, [and he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death] and he shall give those that injured him for his burying, and the rich for his death. I fear, O Master, that these injurious doers were our Fathers, and these rich ones were Pilate and Herod, Annas and Caiaphas, according to that the Prophet Da­vid saith, Psa. 2. 2. The Kings of the earth set themselves, and the Rulers take counsell together against the Lord, and against his Anointed. By the Kings we understand the aforenamed; by the Rulers, our Fathers and Ancestors. I fear, O Master, this JESUS is he who was sold, and chopt, and changed for Silver, Zach. 11. of whom Zacharie, Amos 2. A­mos, Esa. 53. 12. and other Prophets write. Of him Esay the Prophet speaks, He bare the sinns of many, and made intercession for the transgressours. I fear, O Master, that this JESUS is that righ­teous One, of whom David speaks, They gather themselves together against the soule of the righ­teous, The Au­thor hath it, Dele­ctati sunt. and condemn the innocent blood, and for this God shall cut them off, yea, the Lord our God shall cut them off. Psa 94. 21, 23. Again, I fear, O Master, JESUS is that Just One, Jer. 17. 9. of whom Jeremie speaks, The Sep­tuagint reads the last part of the Verse thus, Ho­mo est quis cognoscet [...]um? saying, He is the man, and who is there that understands him; or knows what he is? In his Lamentations also, The beautie of our coun­tenance, Christ our God, was taken for our sins, [otherwise with us, The breath of our nostrils, [Page 77] the Anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits] of whom we said, Vnder his shadow we shall live among the heathen. I fear this is that Just One, of which Zacharie speaks, Zach. 13. 6, 7. It shall be said in that day, VVhat are these wounds in thy hands? And he shall answer, Those, with which I was wounded in the house of my friends, and my shep­herd lift up his sword upon me. [With us it is, Awake O sword against my shepherd.] Zac. 12. 10 The same Prophet hath, They shall in that day look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his onely begotten sonne. I fear, O Master, this is that Just One, of whom Habakkuk speaks, Hab. 3. 4. He had hornes co­ming out of his hand, and there was the hiding of his power. And the Gospell of the Christi­ans, where the death of JESUS is related, a­grees with this, Ioh. 19. where it is said, When they came to JESUS, they found him dead, and they pierced him with a spear. Hab. 3. 13. O Master, I fear this is that Righteous One, of whom Habakkuk speaks, Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people with thine Anointed, or, with thy CHRIST.

CHAP. VIII. How the dispersion of the Jews, according to Da­niel, came to passe after the death of Iesus.

FEar hath seazed on my spirit, O Master, about those words of the Prophet Esay, Esay 53. who that righteous One should be, that is without sin, Amos 2. and who that righteous One is, that in the Prophet Amos is said to be sold for silver, as is above testified, that for their fourth sin hee will not bring them back into the Land of Promise any more. It seems, O Master, the Prophecie of Daniel in his ninth Chapter is fulfilled, Dan. 9. 26, 27. where he saith, After threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, (but not for himself) and the people of the Prince that shall come, shall destroy the Citie and the Sanctuary, and they shall condemn it, and the Sacrifice shall cease, and the perpetuall destruction shall have its consummation. All doubting set apart, O Ma­ster, this destruction and perpetuall desolati­on is nothing else but our long lasting Capti­vitie, which is now a thousand years standing. And very full of mark is it, that the Prophets words have a Candle of plain indigitation and pointing it out, saying, This perpetuall Desola­ [...]on shall be after that Messiah is cut off. Just so comes in our Desolation, assoon as Jesus [Page 79] was put to death; neither did God threaten us this everlasting destruction till after Christs death. But suppose we would fain prove, that before Christs death the Deluge of our de­solation had drowned us, this the Christians with their answer will easily take away, say­ing, That which is but for seventy years is not perpetuall, but before Christs death the deso­lation had but a seventy years perpetuity, and after those years were worne out, wee were carryed backe into our own land of Promise, and were highly both favoured and honoured of God. Verily, Master, my eyes fail me, nor can I spie any evasion, whereby we can either slip out, or slip off that Prophesie, seeing it is proved that 72 weeks and a year a­bove, which are 433 years, are compleat from the re-edifying of the Temple, at that term of time was Jesus cut off by our Fathers, after came Prince Titus and the Romanes, and they dealt with us according to the tenure of that Prophesie. Now at this day we lie under the waves of a thousand years misery, and more; neverthelesse though we be under the wrath of God, yet still we fixe our hopes on him.

What if we argue thus for our selves, That our Messiah will come, though he be not yet come, and when he comes he will re-estate, and re-possesse us of our Land of Promise, [Page 80] then shall our Citie rise out of her ruines, and be re-edified, God will bestow both favour and honour upon us in our Land, and this desolation shall not be perpetuall? To this allegation the Christians will answer, that this Assertion must bring from us this confession, that then the Messiah is yet to be cut off, that Titus and the Romanes are still to come, and these things performed, that there is a worse desolation will ensue it, that has more degrees of misery in it than this, in which we have continued a thousand years. Wo is me, O master, for us, our excuses and evasions are addle, and want all consonancy to truth.

CHAP. IX. That there are two Advents, or commings of Christ.

MUch am I possest with fear, O Master, that Christ the Messiah is already come, and hath fulfilled his first Advent, be­cause in Scripture we finde a double com­ming of his. This first comming of Christ is described by the Prophets to be in great po­verty and humility; the second in glory and Majestie. Of both these commings of Christ I will propound what occurs in Sacred Writ. Of the first comming by Zacharies mouth [Page 81] God speaks thus, Rejoyce greatly, Zach 9. 9. O daughter of Zion, For Rex tuus, thy King▪ hee hath Prae­ceptor tu­us thy ma­st [...]r. behold thy King commeth unto thee, poore and riding on an Asse. In this first comming Esay sets him out as a man despised, Daniel as one cut off or slain▪ Zachary and Amos, as one that was sold. And these things were even after this manner fulfilled in Christ, Dan. 9. as I have in this little Booke declared, Zac. 11. and will further declare. Amos 2. We did not esteem him, Psa. 97. that is, Esay 29. we knew him not, as saith the Prophet E­say, yea, we despised him, and prevailed against him. But his glory and Majestie shall be ma­nifest enough in his second comming, when flaming fire shall go before him, and shall burn and lick up his enemies that are round about him, as God by the mouth of the Pro­phets David and Esay hath spoken. I fear, O Master, that Christ will judge us with fire un­to death, because we have slain all the Pro­phets, who spoke of him to us, God himselfe so testifies against us by the mouth of his Pro­phet Elias. 1 Kings 19 10.

Thus did we slay that Just One, for whose death we lie thus bound under the Lords end­lesse wrath: Notwithstanding all this, still we are Gods people.

CHAP. X. Of the first comming of Christ.

I Fear, O Master, God describes two com­mings of Christ by the mouth of the Pro­phet Esay, Esay 51. 9. saying, Arise, arise, put on strength O Arme of the Lord. In that he saith twice Arise, arise, he saith surely of purpose to de­note Christs double comming. In the fiftieth, and through the whole Bodie of the 53. chap­ter, he particularly and perspicuously makes a Declaration of the first comming of Christ, so farr as concerns his Passion, and extreame dejection to the lowest ebbe of misery; Esay 53. espe­cially when he saith, He hath no form or come­linesse, and when we see him there is no beautie that we should desire him. His first comming is set our in that of Esay, To us a Childe is born; [...]say 9. presently upon that his second comming is subjoyned, in which he calls him A migh­ty God, who shall sit upon the Throne of David to order and stablish it for ever. Zachary with his Propheticall Pencill effigiates him in form of a poor one riding upon an Asse; Zach. 9. and what else by any deduction can we draw hence, but that the Prophet by it understands the first appearance of Christ in marvellous debase­ment and humilitie; and his second that is in [Page 83] Power and Majestie, according to Daniels de­scription, I considered and beheld in a Vision of the night, and one like the Son of Man came in the Clouds of Heaven, Dan. 7. and came to the Anci­ent of dayes, and they offered him before him. And he gave him Dominion, Glory, and a Kingdome, and all people, Nations and Languages shall wor­ship and serve him. The Hebrew hath it, Tribes and Languages shall honour him, his dominion shall be everlasting, and not passe away, his King­dome shall not be destroyed, [Our Translation hath it, Tribes and Languages shall serve him, his Power shall be an everlasting Power, The words of the first Transla­tour, Al­phonsus the Spanyard. which shall not be taken away, and his Kingdome shall not be corruptible; otherwise, his Power shall not fail; otherwise, his Power shall be for ever, and his Kingdom remain for ever] Out of all which these things appear with evidence, O Master, that Christ in his second comming shall sit before the Ancient of dayes, as a God come to judgement, contrary to that of his first comming, where he stood before our forefa­thers the Jews, and received their judgement against him. To these two commings of the Messias, that is Christ, the Prophet David hath respect in that Psalm, where he saith, For he commeth, for he commeth to judge the world. Psa. 97. His first comming was but simple and mean, to which purpose those words are barely set [Page 76] down, for he commeth, without any addition; But as the first was poor, so the second will be powerfull, and therefore is added this clause to the second, for he commeth to judge the world. His second comming is mentioned by the Prophet Zacharie, Zach. 14. His feet shall stand in that day on the Mount of Olives, &c.

You know well enough, O Master, none of us are so grosse-witted, as to hold that God, considered in his divine Essence and Nature, hath either flesh, or feet, or any corporeall Members; for to have feet is proper to corpo­rietie. Psa. 97. David, alledged in the place before, saith of his second comming, A fire shall burn before him, and round about him. For all this O Master, we do not say God is circumscrip­tible for place, that any thing may be said to stand about him, as he is God; but therefore it is thus written, because these authorities have a literall veritie in that Righteous One described by the Prophets, when one while they speak of his Humilitie, another while of his Majestie. Malac. 3. The Prophet Malachie saith, Behold, Our Tran­slation is a little o­therwise. the Lord commeth, and who may abide the day of his comming? For he shall sit as a re­fining fire, and shall melt the silver and gold. Here behold how that Just One, once judged, shall appear at his second comming. Attend O Master, and marke how in the same chap­ter [Page 85] the Prophet further expresses the glorie of his person; I will come near to you in judge­ment, and be a true witnesse against adulterers, &c. Ezek. 34. In the same sort doth Ezechiel describe him, speaking of the Shepherds and Sheep, I will separate between them, that is, I will sepa­rate the transgressors from the Righteous, and the unbeleevers. [It is not thus in our Translati­on, The words of the Translator Alphonsus. but the Arabick reads it so] Lo here how in his second comming he will separate the unrighteous from the righteous, as Malachie and Ezekiel are both clear in this point. Matth. 25. At his first comming none of us knew him, for hee went beyond the limits of humane nature, as God by Esay saith, Esa. 53. He was reckoned with trans­gressors, and we therefore esteemed him not. And Jeremie saith, Ierem. This is the man, and who knows him?

Wherefore, O Master, this fear dwels up­on my soul, that our Fathers, in the first com­ming of the Messias, fell off, and rann into er­rours, and because of this we groan under our endlesse Captivitie: Yet what ever fall out, we belong unto God, and in him we hope.

CHAP. XI. Of the second comming of Christ, that he then will judge with Power.

THese two things, O Master, I am in no small fear do agree to him. 1. That he was manifested as a Saviour to all them that beleeved in him at his first comming. 2. That he shall be a just Judge, to judge all with power at his second comming. Psa. 97. David the Prophet speaks of him; The Lord hath made known his salvation, he hath openly decla­red his righteousnesse in the sight of the heathen. Esay doth not dissent, Ye shall draw water out of the wells of salvation, Esay 12. or, of the Saviour; which so far as my eyes serve, Psa. 97. I can interpret those Wells of salvation to bee meant of nothing else but Baptisme. Thus his double Advent hath a double Element; his first comming in water to save by Baptisme, his second com­ming in fire, to trie all by judgement; a Sa­viour by water, a Judge by fire. Of this Sa­viour do those words mean, Iob 19. I know that my Re­deemer liveth, and that in the last day I shall rise from the earth, and my eyes in my flesh shall see my God. Observe here, O Master, how he calls this Just One both Saviour and God. It is confest and manifest, that God being a Spi­rit, [Page 87] cannot be seen with any eye of flesh. Esay 53. Scrip­ture gives it out, that the Saviour is the Righ­teous God, and he alone challenges the name of that True Iust One, 1 Pet. 2. of whom that saying is, He did no sinne, Zach. 9. neither was guile found in his mouth. Esay the Prophet testifies this of him. This cannot be said of Moses, or any of the Prophets, that he is a Righteous Saviour, and without sinne; you Master know well enough that both Moses and the Prophets were sin­ners: which the Scripture makes plain, in that none is called the Righteous One, but Christ, and that name is reserved as onely proper to him. And this without all doubt is to bee held, John 3. that none are saved but those that be­leeve his first comming, and those that beleeve not, there is no ground for them to hope for salvation at his second comming. This argu­ment has a marble reason to lay the founda­tion strong for it, for I reason thus, If they were worthy of death that beleeved not Mo­ses, who was two great degrees below Christ, for Moses was but a temporary Saviour, and a sinner, how much more are they worthy of this judicatory fire, that beleeve not, nay and worse, that blaspheme this Righteous One, the Lord, that never knew any sin.—Yet nothing can so fall out as to take this from us, our relation and belonging to God.

CHAP. XII. Of the Ascension of Christ.

DIgging into the precious earth of the Scriptures, we have found, O Master, that Christ shall be exalted from earth to Heaven, and hence arises my fear, that this was fulfilled in him whom our Fathers But­chered, and that the Prophet Davids accla­mation is of his exaltation, Open the gates of your Principality, So reads the Trans­latour. O ye Princes, and be you lift up, O ye everlasting doors, and the Prince of glo­ry shall enter in. Psal. 24. To which words I intreat your attention, O Master, that you mark how the Angels in Heaven make answer; Who is the Prince of Glory? and he will answer again to them, The Lord of Hosts, mighty in battell, is the Prince of Glory. Certain and plain it is, O Master, that this righteous Lord of Hosts had no battell but in his first comming, for in his last comming who shall dare fight with him? Psa. 97. for when he shall sit on his Seat of judgement, and a fire round about him shall flame and burn up his enemies, and shall pu­rifie the righteous by fire, as it were silver, and all this in his last comming: then none shall fight against him, no place shall there be for any to resist him by battell. Of the exaltati­on [Page 89] of this Righteous One the Prophet Esay speaks, Esay 63. 1. Who is that that commeth from Edom, with garments dyed red from Bozrah, this that is glorious in his apparell? And the righteous One thus makes answer, I that speak righteous­nesse, [a Defender to salvation] mighty to save. The Angels then say unto him, Why are thy garments red like him that treadeth the Wine­fat? The Tran­slator turns the Future Tense into the Preter Tense. He answers them again, I have trodden the Winepresse alone, and there was not a man with me. See here, O Master, how properly Esay speaks, yea, I fear, the answer of this righteous one much toucheth us, and none but us, when he saith, I have trod them in mine anger, and their blood is sprinkled upon my gar­ments, and I have stained all my raiment. For the day of vengeance is in my heart, and the yeer of retribution is come. O where have we any hopes in that Righteous One, when we see that he complaines of us to the Angels in Heaven, and makes knowne to them that he trod the Winepresse alone? Whom as it that he trod in his wrath but us? who, after the Battell in his first comming, hath thrown us down, and we lie prostrate, and trampled under foot now a thousand yeers, and still there is a black day of vengeance waits for us in his last comming, and a year of retributi­on is in his heart. I would to God, O Ma­ster, [Page 90] when we with murderous hands slew the Prophet Esay, wee had laid hands upon this Prophecie also, and quite blotted out this fair authoritie out of his Booke, that no eye might ever have beheld or read it against us. And you may observe, that which David cals a Battell, The Lord of Hosts mighty in Battell, Esay calls a Wineptesse. Alas for us, O Ma­ster, we drink that new sweet Wine, of which Iacob, the Patriarch and Prophet, speaks in the Book of the Generation of the Creatures (that is Children) of Judah, Gen. 49. 11 He washed his cloathes in the blood of the Grape, as it is falne out in us at the first comming of the Messiah. [that is, We washed our garments in his Blood.] But what shall we wretches do in his last comming, when all men shall stand before this man, comming to judgement, and a furious fire shall be ready to devour them round about him, against whom he shall pronounce sen­tence? Then is the time of Battell ceast, he shall be no more then trod in the Winepresse; then shall there be neither place nor time for repentance, all refuge shall then fail, onely Justice shall remain; that as he was unjustly judged, when they found no sinn in him, so he shall justly judge all sinners. For God saith in the Prophesie of Salomon, Pro. 11. 31 If the righ­teous receive judgement, where shall be the wic­ked [Page 91] and the sinner? Salomons Proverbs are called his Pro­phecie; so the Catechisticall instructions of Salomons Mother are called the Prophecie that his Mother taught him, Prov. 31. 1. If the righteous scarcely be saved, what shall then become of the ungodly?

CHAP. XIII. He more strongly proves the corporall Ascension of Christ.

FEar, as a Furie, haunts me, O Master, and possesses me with this, that those Testi­monies, recited by me out of the Prophets, are all as points drawn from the Circumference, and meeting all in that Just One, as their Center, viz. That he was sold for silver, as the Prophet Amos avouches; That he trod the Winepresse, as Esay averrs; That he was in battell with our Fathers, as David affirms; That he was caught, as in a Net, by our sins, as Jeremie alledges; That he was wounded in his hands, as Zacharie asserts; That upon his Vesture they cast Lotts, as David assents; That he ascended into Heaven, as the same Prophet, and others with an unanimous testi­monie give up: Which is not compatible, nor can it stand with meer God considered in his Divine Essence and nature; for the Deitie has neither Resurrection, Exaltation, Descension, or Session properly. Out of what [Page 92] hath been said this must issue with a necessary consequence, That this Righteous one is al­ready come, to whom all the foresaid things very aptly agree, and are fitly accommodated to his corporeall and humane nature, which he assumed. Now because [O Master] I know how hardly this enters into thy beliefe, as a most improbable paradox, that a man should bodily ascend into Heaven, ponder these au­thorities and examples, which we meet with in Scripture, which underprop and confirm this truth. In the first place I rank the Prophet David, Psa. 68. 18. who saith, God hath ascended on high, he hath led captivitie captive, Psa. 68. 4. and given gifts to men. Again he speaketh of his Ascension, Sing unto God, and glorifie his name, make way for him that ascendeth from the Western parts, the Lord is his name. Again, David speaks of him in that Psalm, which thou hast in thine heart, Sing praises to God that ascends above the hea­ven of heavens to the East. Psa. 68. 32, 33. After him the Pro­phet Amos in like manner saith, It is the Lord that hath built his Seat on high. Of him again the Prophet David, God is gone up with a shout, See the Annotati­ons to this Chapter. the Lord with the sound of a Trumpet. Likewise the Prophet Aser in his second Chapter saith, I saw a man descending from the midst or heart of the Sea, and he came up to heaven. But because we want that Prophecie [Page 93] I omit to write many other things, which that Prophet hath concerning this. The words of the first Transla­tour, Al­phonsus the Spanyard. [And yet wee have that Prophet, but he knew not then, that he who is Aggaeus in Latine, is the same with Aser in the Arabick tongue.] Moses in his Song saith, I lift up my hand to Heaven. So Esay, Awake, or, Arise, arise, O Arm of the Lord. Hannah, the Mother of Samuel, sings, The Lord shall give strength unto his King, and exalt the Horn of his Anointed. David again, The Lord ascended upon the wings of the winde. These authorities have I met with in Scrip­ture, serving to prove the corporeall Ascension of Christ into heaven. Many more there are to this purpose, as thou, O Master, very well knowest. Now will I annex some examples out of our Law, to follow these Authorities, being a thing so convenient for the establish­ing our belief in the point of Christs bodily ascent into Heaven. This in the first place must be taken into consideration, that the true and glorious God hath assumed, and translated to himself out of the earth, many holy men among our forefathers, as the Law and Pro­phets will witnesse; and if we doubt not of the ascent of these, induced to beleeve it for the sanctitie of the men, and for the veritie of Scripture testifying it, why do wee doubt of the ascent of this Righteous One, both in his [Page 94] Body and Soul, the witnesse of Scripture con­firming this more, than the testimony of ho­linesse confirms it for the other? And may not this be one reason, because the Prophets set him out strugling and fighting in a har­der Warre of miseries than others, and ac­quainted with an harder bondage, and soret service of the World than others? Further­more, this, without any exemplification, thou knowest well enough, that Methusalem and Henoch, those righteous men, and Elias the Prophet, were assumed by God in their bo­dies to Heaven, and translated out of this World. As for Moses, it is a thing out of the reach of all question and doubt, that he now is in Heaven both in body and soul, as is said in Deuteronomie, The Au­thor quotes Deut. 34. but the last words are there onely to be found. Go up into the Mount this night, and he went up into the Mount and died there, and no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day. What doth this signifie, that his Sepulchre is unknowne upon earth, seeing he was a Prophet in greatnesse and holinesse, sur­passing others, but that thereby we should un­derstand, that God hath raised him up, and assumed him in bodie and soul, as he did o­ther righteous men, and elevated him to that place, where they are now? Neither need we puzzle our Brains, with marvelling how it can stand with reason, that grosse and ponde­rous [Page 95] bodies should ride, and be born upward on the light and subtill Element of Aire; this we need not question, if we do but call to minde, how it pleased the Almightie Power to work the like in the Israelites egresse out of Aegypt, where the Water, an Element in [...]aritie and thinnesse like unto the Aire, did bear their heavy bodies without sinking. And when the Lord gave a sign of an accepting welcome to a Sacrifice, the Fire (though an Element lighter then the rest) descended from heaven, and, returning up again to hea­ven, carryed with it aloft the bodies of the sa­crificed Beasts, and Bullocks offered to God. As for this Righteous One, Moses, Elias, and other Prophets prophesied of his elevati­on. From the premisses I collect, that we [...]eing credulous, and ready to beleeve the cor­porall ascent of the aforenamed Saints, there is no reason remains, why we should let in­credulitie lurk in us, and suspend our beliefe about the elevation of this Righteous One in­to Heaven, when Scripture and Prophets do testifie it. And that of the foresaid Saints is [...]ade so manifest, to exclude all doubts, for [...]ood purpose; 1 First, that the hearts of men [...] the end of the world might be turned to God. 2 Secondly, that other righteous men [...]ight have good hope of their own ascent, be­ing [Page 96] incouraged by these examples. But our Nation are lockt up under many doubts con­cerning Christ, by the Key of his secret and occult comming at first into the world, The Au­thor names Esay, but he forgets himself, for he himself hath be­fore in his [...]. chapter quoted Ie­remie for it Ier. 31. it be­ing an unusuall and unwonted way. Of this the Prophet saith, He is a man, and who shall know him? Esay saith, A Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son. Where it is to be noted, that there is no mention, but deep silence of any Father of his, according to the Flesh. Else­where he saith, VVe esteemed him not. And Je­remie hath, The Lord shall create a new thing up­on earth, Mic. 5. 3. a woman shall compasse a man. Micah also saith, Therefore the Lord will give them up, till the time that shee which travelleth hath brought forth. In these words is to be obser­ved, the Prophet has not a syllables men­tion of [...] the Husband of her that brings forth, it being the Nativitie of that Righteous One, who onely was born out of the wonted path, and common carnall course of men, who come by man as the active, and woman as the passive principle of Generation. But this knows no carnall Father, as Esay's mouth fore­told it, Esay [...]. Give ear, O ye house of Iacob, the Lord shall give you a signe, A Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son. All these other holy men spo­ken of, were born of man and woman, carnally conceived in sinne, yea, and they themselve [...] [Page 97] were sinners. Moses himself, though holier than the Prophets his Parents, yet he sinned, and his own mouth publishes his own sinne; but of this Just One it is said in Esay, Esay 53. he never sinned, nor was there a lie found in his mouth. God by the mouth of Iob hath proclaimed, Iob 25. there are blemishes in all the Saints, Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints. Ierem. 17. And Ieremie joyns with that judgement, The hearts of men are wicked.

CHAP. XIV. Of the Iews blindnesse, who neither beleeve, nor understand that Christ is come.

WHat Esay from the Lord hath said, O Master, I shake with fear, lest it be our lot to have it fulfilled in us, Blindnesse is fallen upon Israel, Rom. 11. till the fulnesse of the Gen­tiles become in. And again he saith, Hearing they shall hear, Esa. 6. and shall not understand; seeing they shall see, and not perceive, because the heart of this people is waxen fat. And in the same Chapter, Make the heart of this people blinde, and stop their ears, least they should learn, and be converted to me, and I should heal them. Esay then said, Esay 5. How long, O Lord? and he answe­red, Vntill the Cities be wasted, and the house bee left without an inhabitant. You have [Page 98] Daniel also saying, Dan. 12. Shut up, and seal up, or wrap up the Prophecie. Ierem. 17. Jeremie follows with his testimonie, The sinne of Judah is written with a Pen of Iron, and the Point of a Diamond, it is graven on the table of their heart. Esay likewise in his first Chapter saith, The Oxe knowes his owner, and the Asse his Masters Cribb, but my people doth not understand. Jeremie to that pur­pose, The Stork, the Crane, and the Swallow know the time of their comming, but my people know not me. All these speeches, O Master, are Gods Arrows shot at us, and do shew our condi [...]ion, because we had eyes lockt and bol­ted up, that we could not discern the first comming of that righteous Lord. Of us do the Lords words in Esay mean, Elongate saith the Translator, Esay. 3. T [...]anslator reads [...] have no ey [...] and th [...] have no ears. when he saith, Bring forth (or, cast far off) the blinde people, that have eyes, and the deaf people, that have ears. Behold, they are all gathered together, or rather, Let all the Nations be gathered together. These words carry no other meaning, but this, that the Prophet saith, The Lord hath rejected us, because we knew not soon enough the time of that Righteous Ones comming, and in stead of u [...] he hath gathered the Gentiles to him by faith. This is it which made that admira­tion break out of Davids lips, Psa. 118. The right hand of the Lord bringeth mighty things to passe. Yet for all this we belong to the Lord, though [Page 99] thus sore in an haplesse estate, and deepe de­pressing Captivitie, wherein, as in a labyrinth, we are, and can finde no end, or out-gate, though a thousand years we have runne with wearied foot-steps in this amazing Maze of miserie; neither did ever our Fathers smart thus, though they did fully transgresse the Law, worshipt Idols, and slew the Prophets, yet drunk they not of such a Cup of Indigna­tion, and Judgement, as we their Children.

CHAP. XV. The Jews blindnesse and incredulity, about Christ, was foretold by the Prophets.

THis, O Master, dives me deep under the waters of fear, that our not belee­ving in that Righteous One, hath caused that to be fulfilled, and to fall upon us, which the Lord spoke by the mouth of Esay, Esa. 29. 11 12. The vision shall bee as the words of a Booke that is sealed, which shall be given to one that is learned (to a Reader,) saying read this, I pray thee; and hee saith, I cannot, for it is sealed. And the Book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee; and he saith, I am not learned. What greater and closer sealing up of the Book can there be found, O Master, than this, wherewith the Lord hath sealed, and fast [Page 100] closed up our blinde hearts, and we have now been a thousand years, and more, (as misera­ble Truants) in learning this one lesson of the comming of this Righteous One, propounded to us in the Prophets, and yet we know it not, nor have taken it out. This is it, which blows the Prophets Trumpet with that threatning blast, Esa. 1. 7, 8 Ierusalem shall be desolate, and their holy house shall fall down. He further said, Our Countrey is desolate, and their holy house shall fall down. He further said, Our Countrey is deso­late, our Cities burnt with fire, and Zion is left as a Cottage in a vineyard. This, this is the evill, O Master, which has now the age of a thousand years, and more, on the back of it. According to this Esay further saith, O Lord God, Esa. 25. 1, 2 I will exalt thee, for thou hast made a Ci­tie an heap, (an house to be confusion) a de­fenced Citie to be a ruine for ever. Esa. 30. 14. He shall break the people in pieces, like the breaking of the Pot­ters Vessell, which shall be broken, so as there shall not be found a sheard to take fire from the hearth, or to take water withall out of the pit. Daniels words are also fulfilled, that after the Messias is cut off, there shall follow a perpetuall de­solation, in which desolation we now are, and have been cast deep into this flood of miseries a thousand years, and more. Esay goes on to spinne the thred of our wo, Esa. 24. Solitarinesse shall be [Page 101] left in the midst of the City, (or desolation) and their Land shall hisse with a perpetuall hissing. After him Jeremie saith, Ier. 6. 30. Call ye them reprobate silver, for the Lord hath rejected them. Esay again, Walk you in the light of your own fire, and in the flames & sparks which you have kindled. In these flames we (as miserable Salamanders) have now lain a thousand years & more. Amos comes with like threats, The house of Israel shall fall, and none shall raise her up. To me, verily O Master, it seems we are falne indeed, and ruine is come on us since the comming of that Righteous One, yea, God hath brought it on us, seeing since that time no Prophet has ri­sen amongst us, neither shall there be any, as is foretold and prophesied of us, for we re­main still in our incredulitie, we maintain an obstinate negative of that Righteous One, and do not beleeve in him. Hos. 1. Hosea therefore saith, When the woman conceived, and bare a daughter, God said, call her name, Loruhamah, without mercy, for I will no more have mercy on the house of Is­rael. And if thus it be, that the Lord hath quite cast us off, and will have no mercy on us, as we have felt by the miserable experience of a thousand years, and upward, to what end, or what profit is it for us to retain our old Ordi­nances, the Law, Sabbath, and Circumcision? E­say saith, Bring forth the blinde people, as the [Page 102] true & glorious God hath now brought us forth of our Land, Esay 26. 3. and made us strangers to it more than a thousand years. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace; this Hierome according to the He­brew, tran­slates, Ve­tus error ab [...]it. See Hierom. in Comment. on Esay. Besides all this he saith, The old errour is gone away; what can we pick out of this, O Master? what is the old thing but our Law, which is gone away from us? yea, we have lost King, Sacrifice, Incense, Al­tars? Was there any worse thing in the whole predicament of calamity, that could have befaln us? What prey or bootie of hope have we, for our winged expectations to flie after? Do we not see, (wo unto us that wee see it) that the Lord hath scattered and dis­perst us thorow the four quarters of the world, as Moses, Jeremie, and other Prophets foretold us? Yet for all, God, we are thine; and to this God we have our recourse in every event.

CHAP. XVI. He shews the Jews reprobation for perfidiousnesse, and the Gentiles election by faith.

MY soul is not free from this fretting fear, O Master, that whereas you and I be­twixt our selves can boldly say, and affirme, that we are the sons of Jacob and Israel, that for all this God may have fulfill'd that, which he spoke by Esay, God shall slay thee, O Israel, and call his servants by another name. I quake to [Page 103] think, that we should be of those servants, on whom that name shall be imposed, as Moses writes in Deuteronomie, The Nations shall be the Head, and the unbeleeving people the Tail, as we now are, and have been the hindmost, the very Tail of all the World for 1000 years and more. Of these Nations Jeremie speaks, The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of God, 2 Chro. 6. 32, 33. as the waters that cover the Seas. Salomon hath of them this, O Lord God, when a stran­ger, which is not of thy people Israel, shall come to thy holy house, and call upon thy blessed Name, then hear thou, O Lord my God, that all the earth may learn to fear thy Name, as doth thy people Israel. What have wee, O Master, wee proud beggars of the Jews, that we can boast in? Why should we contemne and hold the Gentiles in scorn, seeing Salomon the Prophet hath joyned them as partners with us in the fear of God, and in his holy House? And peradventure God hath shut us out of his House, as unworthy ones, and hath given our room to them, as more worthy; as Moses hath spoken of them, Thus saith the Lord God, the whole earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord. Psa. 22. 27. After him David, All the ends of the world shall remember, and turn unto the Lord, and all the kindreds of the Nation (or, a thousand generations) shall worship before thee.

[Page 104] Of them spoke Esay, O holy house of David, thy light is come, Esay 60. 1, 3, 4, 10. and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. The Gentiles shall come to thy light, and Kings to the brightnesse of thy rising. Lift up thine eyes round about thee, and see, all they gather themselves together, they come to thee; thy sons shall come from frare. The sons of strangers shall build up thy walls, and their Kings shall minister unto thee. And who, I pray, O Ma­ster, are these sonnes of strangers, which came to the house of God, but the Gentiles? who, serving Idols, were meer strangers to God, they, their Princes, and their Kings▪ of whom God said, They shall walk in the light of his ho­ly house, and we thrust out shall remain in dark­nesse; and we indeed are in darknesse, and have beene fearfully benighted a thousand years, Esay 55. 5. and upward. Still that Prophet of that people, Behold, thou shalt call a Nation that thou knowest not, and Nations that knew not thee shall runne unto thee. Now our eyes de facto do testifie it, a thousand years and more have worne out themselves, since the Christ came, that was sent according to the Law given to us, And the Gentiles which knew not the Law, they came to him, and he has given them a new, a pure, an holy law. Besides this, in the five and fortieth Chapter, Esay 45. 20▪ They agreed together, and their Kings were gathered together in the beliefe [Page 105] of God. I much fear, O Master, that is meant of them, Esa. 65. 1. Assemble your selves, come, and draw near ye that are escaped of the Nations; and, I am found of them that sought me not. Ier. 3. 17. Jeremie speaks of them, The Nations shall be gathered to the Name of the Lord in his holy House, nor shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evill heart. The same Prophet, To thee shall all the Gentiles come from the utmost ends of the earth, saying, Our fathers have inherited in­iquitie, and lies. Zephanie the Prophet fol­lows this stream, The Gentiles shall all call on the name of the Lord, Zeph. 3. 9. and shall serve him with one shoulder, every man from his place, and all the Isles of the Nations. Zacharie brings his part to this truth, Sing and rejoyce, O daughter of Zion, lo I come, and will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the Lord: and many Nations shall be joyned to the Lord. Zach. 8. 2 [...] ▪ Again in the 8. Chap­ter, Our trans­lations have it otherwise. Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, many nations shall come from many places, and every man shall say to his neighbour, Let us go and seek the Lord our God for good. All these things, O Master, are now fulfilled, and the effects of them abide plainly before our eyes; you see people and languages brought home to God, and studying the Law, all the Prophets, and Book of Psalmes, to which they were stran­gers, and have left their Idols to imbrace the [Page 106] Truth. None of them are brought to this belief by the hand of Moses or Aaron, or any of our Prophets. And since their hearts were turned to beleeve in that Righteous One, Habac. 3. ( of whom Habackuk saith, Thou wentest forth, for the salvation of thy people, with thine Anointed) they have utterly abdicted, and abandoned all their Idols, no Idolatry since that has remai­ned amongst them.

CHAP. XVII. Of the quickning and giving life to Gentiles, and slaying the Jews.

MY fears, O Master, beat as continually as my Pulse, and in this I tremble to think, that the powerfull and glorious God, as with one hand hee gives life to the Gen­tiles by faith, so with the other hand he slayes us in our incredultie. Doth not Esay indigi­tate and point out this? Because when I cal­led ye did not answer, Esay 65. 12▪ 1 [...], 14, 15. when I spake, ye did not hear; therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, my servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry; be­hold, my servants shall drink, but ye shall be thir­sty; behold, my servants shall sing for joy of heart, but ye shall crie for sorrow of heart, Our trans­lation hath [...]. and howle for vexation of spirit; and God shall slay thee, O [Page 107] Israel, and shall call his servants by another name, in which he shall blesse them who is blessed upon the earth, Amen, for in truth. And alas, we see, how exceedingly they are blessed upon the earth by God, who have received this new name, but for us, we flie like dispersed dust before the winde of Gods wrath, scattered through the four quarters of the world in a sad Captivitie. Zach. 2▪ To this day a thousand years have [...]unne over us, and trod with heavy feet upon our heads. In us expressely appears the deep impressions of the footsteps of Gods wrath, not for chastisement onely, and instruction, [...]ut to our destruction. This is that slaying, which the Lord threatned, that he would slay Israel, and the nations which he would keepe [...]live, whom he calls his servants, shall receive that good name he hath promised; but yet [...]he order is thus, wee must first lose our [...]ame, and then they shall receive their new [...]ame. The funerals of our name must make [...] way for the resurrection of theirs, as the ve­ [...]y order of Esay's words declare. And as for [...]e hunger and thirst, the Lord threatens wee shall be vexed withall, it is not that common [...]amine of bread, and thirst of water, but that [...]orse sterility, and spirituall barrennesse, which torments the souls and hearts of us, a [...]amine of the Word of God, Amos 8▪ as Amos makes [Page 108] appear in his eight Chapter. Amos 8. But you my Ma­ster Plough with a more skilfull Heifer in these mysteries, than I, and better understand these things. However in all these storms of wrath, and what ever falls on us, we belong unto God.

CHAP. XVIII. How the Gentiles quickned by faith have pur [...] observances in their new Law.

I Cannot but fear, O Master, that the Gen­tiles are quickned and brought to life. The Annuall circlings of the Sunne have made up a thousand years, from the time that Jesus dy­ed at Jerusalem, and we know there was no [...] good thing at all to be found among the Gen­tiles, before they came to beleeve in God, i [...] Christ, and the Apostles, so as they seemed to be the Prophet Habackuks fishes, Hab. 1. 14. and creep­ing things, that had no Ruler: But now these Gentiles being purified by faith, are ruled by fastings and other observances of their new Law; yea, they want nothing pertaining to cleannesse and purity, so much spoken of in the old Law. You see how in every language and place, whether you look to the Orientall, or Occidentall, (utmost Fringes of the world wide garment) that the Gentiles confesse the [Page 109] Name of the Lord. Neither do they beleeve in him through Moses, or any of the Prophets, although they bee studious in the Law, and the Propheticall Writings; but God hath called them to himself another way, even by the Disciples of that Righteous One, who went forth with God for the salvation of his people, as the blessed and glorious God hath foretold by the mouth of the Prophet Ha­backuk; yea, those very Disciples of his, who by another name are known among them, be­ing called Apostles, they were Children that sprung out of the same Root with us, and were the sons of the sons of Israel. Ah, how my poor heart is Palsied through fear, when it judges, that these same Apostles are they, of whom God means in Davids Psalm, when he saith, Psa. 19. Their sound is gone out into all the earth, and their words into the ends of the world. The Prophets words carry an expresse demonstra­tion in them against us, that he speaks of them, and not of us, when he saith, There is no Tongue, or Language, wherein their voyce is not heard; and this cannot be taken of our Hebrew Language. For what Gentiles are there, which obey the precepts of Moses and Aaron, seeing they slew the Gentiles, put them to flight, and drove them from them? But these Gentiles at this day are acquainted with [Page 110] Moses, and the Prophets, they know God, they keep their new Law, after the prescript form of the Apostles teaching. Notwithstan­ding all this, yet we belong to God

CHAP. XIX. Of choosing the Apostles in place of the Prophets.

MY soul converseth in the region of fear, and I am troubled about that place of Zacharie, Zach. 13. I will smite the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered; I fear that was fulfilled, when wee smote the Shepherd of those holy Children the Apostles, for ever since that time, we, like miserable sheep, run dispersed and stragling thorow the whole world, and the Apostles, which were our chil­dren, are risen up in stead of our Prophets. This appears, as a Noon-tide truth, seeing from that time God hath not sent us one Prophet, nor given us any Divine notice, or heavenly provision, by the way of Vision. O Master, I fear that the Apostles are those Children Ioel meaneth of, Your old men shall dreame dreams, and your young men shall see visions. For a certaintie, O Master, our Prophets are the Old men, that dreamed of the faith of the Gentiles, which these young men, the Apo­stles, have attained unto, and seen it more [Page 111] clearly, even in plain Visions. Of these Chil­dren spoke David the Prophet, Psa. 34. Come ye Chil­dren, hearken unto me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Besides this, when God speaks of us, [...]e doth not name us commonly Children in [...]he Plurall number, Exod. 4. but he stayes in the Sin­gular, naming us Israel his first born. In ano­ther Psalm these young men are called Chil­dren, Psa. 128. Thy Children shall be like Olive Plants [...]ound about thy Table. Esay 5. 4. Of Israel; O Master, God spoke by the mouth of Esay, The Vine­ [...]ard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, I [...]ooked it should bring forth Grapes, and it [...]rought forth wilde Grapes: therefore I will break down the wall thereof, and it shall be troden down. Of these aforesaid Children of God, by Esay he further saith, Esay 29. 22, 23. Iacob shall not now be [...]shamed, neither shall his face waxe pale. But it shall be then, Our Trans­lation hath it other­wise. when he shall see his children, the [...]ork of mine hands, sanctified before his eyes. Now if those Children, O Master, were sancti­fied in our sight, according to the way of our Law, it could not be said of us, that we were [...]shamed, and our Faces Vermilion'd with [...]lushes, and for that cause we should hide [...]hem, but rather would it shape for us glory, [...]nd resplendency of face. But hence comes [...]his confusion of the faces of Iacobs children, [...]nd this is the desolation; that those Children, [Page 112] the work of Gods own hand, were sancti­fied in our sight, and yet they have this ho­nour another way than we, it comes not as our sanctification by the Law. Thus God would give us to understand, that our Law is not their Law. So much imports he by the mouth of Ieremie, Ier. 31. In that day they shall not say, Our fathers have eaten sowre Grapes, and their Childrens teeth are set on edge: as if he meant thus. The infidelitie of the Jews doth no way hurt the faith of the Apostles, nor shall it hurt. For this is added for that cause, As I live saith the Lord, this shall be no more a proverb in Israel. And this is observable, ne­ver any of the Apostles, after they had received the faith of Christ, did returne backe to im­brace our faith. Esa. 63. 8, 9 Thus are they free from ta­sting the bitternesse of our infidelity, This strangely differs from our Translati­ons, and strangely lacerates, and tears in pieces both the sentence, and the sense of words, to make them fitt his pur­pose. not­withstanding, our teeth are set on edge with the sinnes of our Fathers. Further, O Master, God, by Esay, delivers more concerning these children the Apostles, From whom shall I passe away, but from my people, the children that are unfaithfull, but God shall be their Saviour in all their afflictions, his face and countenance shall keep them in his love, in his pitie he hath re­deemed them, and shall be mercifull unto them for length of dayes. This hath all truth in it, O Master, that these Children, of whom we [Page 113] speak, doth alwayes abide firm, and stedfast, neither hath God at any time left them, and passed away from them, since that Righteous one their King and Master hath redeemed them: but he hath gone away from us, though he abide with them alwayes. Of these children the Apostles, that wise Jesus, the sonne of Sirach, Ecclus 3. 1, 2. hath spoken in his book, Hear me, your Father, O dear children, and do thereafter, that ye may be safe; for the Lord hath given the fa­ther honour over the Children. After what man­ner this honour is understood, God declareth by the mouth of the Prophet Malachie, Malach. 3. God shall send Elias, who shall turn the hearts of [our] Fathers to the Children. O Master, seeing this turning is to be understood of beleeving, and turning to the faith, if God would have turned the hearts of the Children, viz. the A­postles, to the Fathers, that is, to us, then the Apostles had moved with us in the same fearfull orbe of miserie, and should have been companions with us in this Captivitie, that knows no end, as we and our Fathers are in­volved in it: But now seeing Gods Ordi­nance turnes the wheele another way, that the hearts of the Fathers shall be turned to the Children, what good is there, O good Master, for us to expect, or what glasse of hope can we look in, to see a face of comfort? If wee [Page 114] shall go about to affirm, that these must bee other Children, not the Apostles, of whom these aforesaid things are meant, then must they be in Captivitie, as well as we, because they did not follow the way of that Righte­ous One, whom the Apostles not onely have stedfastly followed, but have also earnestly taught this way should be followed, herein attaining to the honour, to be named and ac­counted Fathers, in that it is said, The fa­thers should be turned to them. Wherefore, O Master, seeing our Children attained to faith in God before us, if our hearts were turned to the Children, then the hearts of the children should be turned to us also, as the most high God saith, Esay. 51. They shall be one people, and one heart in the glorious and powerfull God. For this is to be confessed, that we are not to understand it of any other conversion, then of turning from infidelitie to the faith, and do­ctrine of that Just One, who is the Teacher of salvation to all that beleeve in him. As Da­vid hath said of him, that his Priesthood is an everlasting Priesthood, He gives the mean­ing of the word Mel­chisedech, a Lord or King of Righteous­nesse. after the Order of Mel­chisedech, who offered a Sacrifice of bread and Wine: and this Melchisedech was the Priest of the most High God, before Aaron. Now here, O Master, I would have you per­pend and consider, what a main difference there [Page 115] is betwixt the sacrifice of Aaron, and the sa­crifice of this righteous Lord. I 1. The Lord said unto my Lord, thou art a Priest for ever, not for a small time, as was Aaron, who dyed at an hundred and twenty years of age. II 2. Aa­rons Sacrifice was but flesh, the Sacrifice of the Just and Righteous Lord was bread and Wine, according to the Order of Melchise­dech. By these words the Lord manifestly shews in his Prophet, that Aarons Sacrifice should be at an end, when this Sacrifice of Bread and Wine would begin, which should know no end, but last for ever; an eternall (or unpassable) Priesthood, not being given to Aaron, as is given to Christ the Priest. Of these Children God speakes by his Prophet Moses, Deut. 3 [...]. He will avenge the blood of his children, (or servants) and will be mercifull to his land. From Ara­bick, La [...]a­bit terram populi sui. We, O Master, are the murtherers of the Prophets, and for that he took vengeance of us but with a 70 years Captivitie; but be­sides, we have murdered the Apostles, and that Just Master of theirs, and now God has avenged that blood of his Children more se­verely, bringing a Captivitie upon us, that hath lasted a thousand years, and beyond. By their death God hath washed the Land of his People, he doth not say it is the Land of the children of Israel, no, he doth not so name them. [Page 116] Of these Children speaks David, Psa. 127. As Arrows in the hand of a mightie man, so are his faith­full Children. Where the Prophet compares these faithfull Children to Arrows, shot forth by the hand of a mightie man: for the Al­mightie God hath sent them forth, being 12 Apostles, Matth. 28. into twelve parts of the World, through all the four Climates thereof, Mark 16. with the doctrine of the Law, the Psalter, and the Prophets. Moses and Aaron he never sent forth to teach any, beyond the bounds of his own holy House; from him they had neither Mis­sion, nor Commission to travell to India, o [...] trudge to Rome, nor to any other place, with­out the precincts of the Holy Land, to de­clare and preach to others the Doctrine Le­gall and Propheticall: Onely these faithfull Children have such a Calling, being sent forth through the whole earth, and are risen up be­fore God in our place, since God slew Israel, and tooke away our name, which David pun­ctually denotes in the Psalme, Psa. 45. saying, In stead of fathers thou shalt have Children, whom thou maist make Princes in all lands. By them is that first Law, after the Order of Melchise­dech, renewed, and brought in again, who in­stituted the Sacrifice of God in Bread and wine, of which he communicated to Abraham the friend of God. Thus hath God by their Mi­nisterie [Page 117] changed, 1. our Sacrifice, as he hath also 2. changed our name; yea more, he hath 3. changed our carnall Law into a spirituall. Had God said so much to our Moses, as he spoke by David to the Messias, Psa. 110. or Christ, Thou shalt be a Priest for ever after the law of Moses & Aaron, then had our law got a ground for a firm stand­ing thereof. But now he saith far otherwise, thou art a Priest for ever after the Order of Melchi­sedech. And for Abraham the friend of God, he communicated of the Sacrifice of Bread and Wine, not of the Sacrifice of Flesh. The word of Moses is hereto consonant, Lev. 25. 22 which saith, Ye shall eat of the old fruit, or, of the old store. By this old fruit he understands the Sa­crifice of Melchisedech. Again, They shall eat of the old till the new fruits come in; meaning, when the sacrifice of the new Law is publi­shed, your old things, that is, your old Sacri­fices shall you cast away. Howsoever, we look up to God, as ours in every event.

CHAP. XX. Of the casting off the sacrifice of the Iews, and choosing the Sacrament of the Christians.

THe Sting of Fear is fastned in me, O Master, and here it pricks me, I am afraid lest God hath sealed up us and our Sa­crifice, [Page 118] under a Writ of rejection, and hath accepted the Sacrifice of the Gentiles, as he spake by Malachie, I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of Hosts, neither will I accept an Offering at your hands. Mal. 1. 10, 11. For from the rising of the Sunne, to the going down of the same, my Name shall be great among the Gentiles, and there shall be offered in my Name a pure Sacri­fice. Therefore in Gods account, the summe is cast up thus, the sacrifice of the Gentiles is more clean and pure than ours. Further, God hath not onely taken from us our pure Offerings, and depriv'd us of all other Sacri­fices, but withall, he teaches the Christians to flie from us, and to avoid us, lest they should receive some soyle and defilement from us. Thus are we scourged with a rod, made of the Twiggs that grew on our own tree; for when we had a Sacrifice, which God received as pure and acceptable, then did we shun and detest the Gentiles, as some matter of abomination. yea, yea, Master, you know well enough what God speaks by the mouth of David, Psa. 50. concern­ing our Sacrifice, Think you that I will eat the flesh of Bulls, and drink the blood of Goats? In which, how can any thing be more manifest, than this, that God condemns and disallows our fleshly Sacrifice? Gladly do I covet to know, O Master, with what reason we are [Page 119] harnessed for our detestation of the Gentiles Sacrifice of Bread and Wine, which God himself hath instituted, & hath not disallowed it, as he hath disallowed our Sacrifice. Salomon speaks of the Aaronicall Sacrifice, It is not Salomon, but the son of Syrach. He stretched but his hands over the Altar, and offered the Blood of the Grape, and incense to the living God, Ecclus. 50. 15. and offered up our Sacrifice of the Corne of the earth, Our trans­lations have it otherwise. as Melchisedech offered for Abraham. God declares what the Gentiles Sacrifice is by Moses, Ye shall offer to God a Sacrifice of that is heaved from the Barn floore, and of the pressed Grapes, that God may blesse you, and all the works of your hands. We well know, O Master, that God at the beginning comman­ded Loaves to be set before the Arke of the Covenant of the Lord, not flesh: We know there was something concerning Shew-Bread, but nothing of Shew-Flesh: and Gods command, Levit 1. O Master, in Leviticus, by Moses and Aaron, was, That a man of the Seed of Aa­ron the Priest, that had any blemish, should not offer the sacrifice of Bread, nor any other sa­crifice. In divers other places of Scrip­ture God hath placed his Command, that they should offer to him bread, and a Sacrifice of fine Flowre, and that he will accept it; and such at this day is the Gentiles Sacrifice, even bread, made of fine Flowre. Of this Sacrifice [Page 120] of bread mention is made in the Booke of Kings, 1 Sam. 21. when David came to Abimelech the High Priest in Silo, That in the Paren­thesis the English Translator puts in. (or rather Nob) he desi­red some Loaves of him, who answered, Here is none but shew bread, which it is not fit thy sevants should eat, because it is holy. Howsoever Gentiles have a mixture of water with their Wine in their Sacrifice, yet with that are we not burdened with any inconveniencie, see­ing the Scriptures affoord an exemplary action for it, that a Sacrifice of water was not onely offered to, 1 King. 18. but accepted of the Lord. Three mightie men drew water from the Well be­fore the Gate of Bethlehem, 1 Chro. 11▪ which the Pro­phet David offered to the Lord for a Sacri­fice. It is not therefore contra-Scripturall that the Gentiles practise, in mixing water in their Sacrifice to God. We read of Aaron sacri­ficing to God with Bread and Wine, and Da­vid with Water, whence we collect, that a clean & pure offering, (not such as our flesh of fat Bullocks) must have a concurrence of these three in it, which doubtlesse contains some mysticall Kernels in it, though the dimm ver­tue of our intellectuall Opticks is not able to penetrate and spie it out. Our Prophet Eli­as, as is storied in the Book of Kings, powred water upon the Sacrifice, on which God sent down fire from Heaven, a signe of his accep­tation [Page 121] of that Sacrifice, which had the Wa­ters effusion on it: yea, and the Angel brought to Elias his food, Bread and Water, when he, in the strength of that food, which impotent nature cannot reach unto, travelled fortie dayes together, to Horeb the Mount of God. Fairly, and fitly has Salomon the Prophet, in his Pro­verbs described this commixed Sacrifice of Wine and Water, saying, The most High wis­dom hath made ready her sacrifice, she hath min­gled her Wine, she hath furnished her Table, shee hath sent forth her maidens, saying, Who so is simple, let him come in hither, and they that want understanding, and they shall eat of my Bread, and drink of my mingled Wine. What is this Ta­ble (O Master) the wisdom of the most High hath furnished, but the Altar? What is this bread & mingled wine, but the sacrifice of bread, Wine, and water which is offered on the altar? who are these without understanding, that the Maidens of Wisdom are sent to call in, but the Gentiles which know not God, whom the Apo­stles have by Preaching called? Wherein this is further remarkable, that it is called My Bread, and my VVine, which strongly intimates the acceptablenesse of that Sacrifice unto God. It also imports thus much, that wisdom called not our Fathers to this so high, and so spirituall a Banquet, who were learned and wise in the Law, and wholly taken up with [Page 122] the Legall Sacrifice. But now we have lost all, and are excluded, not onely from this spi­rituall, but we have lost the carnall sacrifice of the Fathers also. Time has now wound up­on her clew a thousand years complete, since all this miserie has falne on us, for our sinne against that Righteous One. Yet for all this, we are a people that belong unto God.

CHAP. XXI. God hath refused the Fasts, Sabbaths, and Sa­crifices of the Jews, and chosen those of the Christians.

MY soul wrastles with horrible fears, O Master, & out of that word the great and glorious God spoke by Malachie, my fears is­sue, where thus he treats of the Gentiles sa­crifice, From the rising of the sunne, to the going down of the same, the Gentiles shall offer a pure offering to my name. Where I note, that our sacrifice was not accepted, save in one place onely, in Gods holy house, and no where else▪ and it is plain, God hath rejected our sacrifice, because he hath deprived us of the very place, where we should sacrifice, the Land of Pro­mise, and now for a thousand years the whirl­winde of his breath hath scattered us over all Lands. Thus that is come to passe and fulfil­led in us, which God, by way of similitude, [Page 123] spoke, in the mouth of Esay, concerning us, Esa. 32. 10 The Vintage shall faile, the gathering shall not come. And that of Malachie, Mal. 1. 10. I have no pleasure in you, neither will I accept an Offering at your hands. Esay 1. And that of Esay again, Your sabbaths, and your feasts, Out trans­lations have it otherwise. and your sacrifice I will not ac­cept, because you are all under my wrath. Again, that in Esay is fulfilled in us, To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me? Esay 1. from 11. to 16. I am full of the burnt-offerings of Rams, and flesh of Goats, &c. Esay 66. 3. Bring no more vain oblations, Our Trans. otherwise. &c. All your sacrifices are like a stinking Carcase, and as the going out of the Court of the outer Gate. Hee that killeth an Oxe for me, it is as if he slew a man: he that sacrificeth a Kid, as if he cut off a Doggs neck, and he that offereth wine, as if he offered swines blood. All this abomination in our sacrifice, as God accounts it, signifies nothing else, but the Lords purpose of changing our [...]arnall and grosse sacrifice into the spirituall and pure sacrifice of the just Lord, Matth. 27. whose new [...]nstitution offers bread in stead of flesh, Mark 14. clean water in stead of the fat of Beasts, and pure Wine for Blood. Yea man himself is offered up, but in a spirituall manner, yet very accep­tably to God, not after that way of cutting off Beasts necks in our sacrifices, which the Prophet likens to a stinking Carrion. O Ma­ster, why do we not give credit to those words [Page 124] of God in the Prophets, which do so evidently describe, and set forth our sacrifices? God spake by Ieremie in the seventh Chapter, Ier. 7. 21, 22, 23, 24. In­vite your neighbours to your sacrifices, (put your burnt-offerings to your sacrifice, and eat flesh) I spake not to your Fathers, neither commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Aegypt, concerning burnt-offerings and Sacrifices. But this thing I commanded them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people, and walk you in all the wayes I have commanded you, that it may be well with you. But they hearkned not, nor inclined their ear to my command. Full well, O Master, do you know these things to be thus. Not­withstanding, in all these strange events we still belong unto God, and are his portion.

CHAP. XXII. He proves the abjection of the Synagogue; and the election of the Church, by the word of the Lord to Rebecca.

NOw new fear falls upon me, O Master, wherein I tremble at that word, which is written in the 25 Chapter of the first book of our Law, lest that be meant of the Synagogue and the Church, which the Lord God speaks to Rebecca the wife of Isaac, Gen. 25. Two Nations are in thy wombe, and two manner of people shall be [Page 125] separated from thy Bowels, and one people shall be stronger then the other people, and the elder shall serve the younger. O Master, Rebecca onely was the mother of Jews and Gentiles. The Elder people and first-born was our Synagogue, which was great and glorious, with a rich dowrie of honour, and the knowledge of God bestowed upon it. The younger and last-born people, and lesse in Gods account, were the Gentiles, drowned in infidelitie and ignorance. Yet all this notwithstanding, O Master, if God have slain Israel, as the Prophet Esay is plain in it, then was the totall subversion of the Synagogue, which was the elder, and it was brought to serve the Gentiles, which were the younger, that the word might be fulfil­led which God spake to Rebecca, One people shall be stronger than the other. For the glorie of the Church God spoke by the mouth of David, Psal. 45. The Kings daughter stands at thy right hand in a vesture of gold, wrought about with di­vers colours. The right exposition of this, O Master, begets this sence, that the Church of the Gentiles is here honoured with the name of a Queen, and the divers Colours of the gar­ment, wherewith she is adorned, signifie and set forth the diversitie of Languages and peo­ple, by which she is served. For all Tongues and Languages in the Church, conspire with [Page 126] a concordance of a true exposition of the Law, the Psalter, and the book of all the Prophets. As for out Synagogue it hath but one Tongue or Language, and her garment is not set out with many Colours, but onely one colour, that of her own Hebrew idiome and language.

CHAP. XXIII. He proveth the same thing by the words of the Prophet Malachie.

THose words of the Prophet Malachie so often brought, O Master, I cannot so shift as to rid my memory of them, & thence springs my fear, that God should say to the Syna­gogue, I have no pleasure in your sacrifices, for from the rising of the Sunne, &c. For Water, Wine, and fine Flour, the Elements of the Gentiles sacrifice, are clean things of their own nature, and need none of our cleansings, and purifying potions to prepare them, and make them ready. But our Synagogue must of necessitie have continuall imployments, in washing the Flesh of Sacrifices, and cleansing the Entrals of Beasts, which are to be sacri­ficed. Nay, and there must be many purify­ings of the Altar, and place of the sacrifice, to make clean from the fatt and blood of other sacrifices, otherwise it would breed a loath­some abhorring to see them, and meddle with [Page 127] them. This of Bread, and Wine, and Water, is a neat and cleanly sacrifice, subject to none of these indecencies, and loathsome turpitude. For my part, O Master, I must confesse that Gods meaning is of this sacrifice in Salomons Proverbs, Pro. 15. Better is a morsell of bread with love, then a stalled Oxe with hatred. This Morsell of love, O Master, is that morsell of the Go­spell commended to us, meeknes, that is, recipro­call and mutuall forgiving of injuries, one to pardon another; & the fat Ox with hatred, is our practise of eye for eye, & secret slaying of our enemies. And from these premises I draw this conclusion, that the Churches bread is better than the Synagogues Oxe, the one being a sa­crifice of love, the other of hatred, of which God saith, Better is a morsell, &c. Another way God fitly likens the Church to a loving Hinde, Pro. 5. 19. by the mouth of Salomon, Let her be as the loving Hinde, and pleasant Roe, let her breasts satisfie (or inebriate) thee at all times, and bee thou ravisht alwayes with her love. The Church is this Hinde so beloved of God, of whom it is written, she is the most dearly beloved Hinde, and hath no equall in nobilitie and fa­vour. He adds, O Master, Let her breasts sa­tisfie thee at all times, and be thou ravisht al­wayes with her love. In which words is delive­red a plain significancie of the lastingnesse of [Page 128] the Churches sacrifice for all times, and that it shall abide for ever. Here also God com­pares the Church to a mother, giving suck to Children; and in this that he saith, Let her Breasts at all times satisfie thee, and make thee drunken, he clearly denotes the matter of the Sacrament, in one of the Elements, which is Wine, though in a spirituall way. And by Breasts he notes the rest of the substance of the Sacrament, that it contains pleasant nou­rishment, and is a sufficient Sacrament, (as the Mothers Breasts are sufficient for the Childe) which sacrifice the Church at this present en­joyes, and is ravisht with it. As for us, our Synagogue has remained a widow this thou­sand years, quite deprived of her sacrifice. This dear respect which God bears to the Church, comes from Christ the Lord; His are the breasts, from whence run those streamy fluents of Wine, and from thence flows everlasting joy. Here is not a word or title of giving flesh, or fat, or blood, the ingredients of our laborious ahd toilsome sacrifice. The Syna­gogue, as a miserable widow, had another hus­band, even God himself; but now she hath lost both her holy house, and her holy husband. The Church on the other side, like a straying Hinde, ranged in the Desart, and had no hus­band, yet God has found her, and is become [Page 129] in stead of an husband to her. As the strong and glorious God speaks by the Prophet Esay, Esay 54. 1 Moe are the children of the desolate, than the Children of the married wife. Esay 43. That Prophet again saith, I will make rivers in the wilder­nesse, to give drink to my chosen people. But thou hast not called upon me, O Iacob, but thou hast been weary of me, O Israel. Even thus, O Ma­ster, have we shaken off all obedience: we have been earlesse, and would not hear; eyelesse, and would not see, which hath produced this Captivity, that with a drowning flood hath runne over us a thousand years. I am afraid, O Master, for our Law, which gives way to revenge, and has furious anger made ready, in calling for eye for eye, &c. whereas the beloved Hinde, having one dear Lover, is ruled by a sweeter rule, which he hath given her in his glorious Gospel, the fift Chapter by Matthew, If any smite thee on one cheek, turn to him the other also. Psal. 31. David speaks in the Psalm, O how great is thy goodnesse, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee, and which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee, before the sons of men. It is clear, O Master, that the people of the Synagogue stood in fear of those Legall penal­ties, Exod. 21. an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, be­cause execution did presently w [...]it upon the Offender. How much better do the people of [Page 130] the Church, that trusting in the goodnesse of God, being smitten on the face, they do not answer with their Fist, smiting again? where­fore God hath graciously laid up for those Gentiles, his abundant goodnesse, which he altogether hideth from the Jews. Notwith­standing, we are Gods people.

CHAP. XXIIII. He shews the Christians manner of singing is acceptable to God.

I Stand in fear, O Master, of that speech of Esay, for he seems to speak it of the A­postles, They shall sanctifie the holy One of Ia­cob [they shall manifest] and they shall fear the God of Israel. Esa. 29. 23 [They shall preach or publish the God of Israel.] The Iew has mani­festabunt for sancti­ficabunt; & evangeli­zabunt for our time­bunt. In stead of murmu­rantes, he hath it Musici sci­ent Leges. They that erred in spirit, shall come to understanding, and they that murmured shall learn doctrine: [or the Musicians shall learn the Laws. We see it with mid-dayes clear­nesse, O Master, that now, for a thousand years, the ignorant Musicians are become Doctors, and Teachers of our Law. Who are the ig­norant ones, but the Gentiles? Who are these Musicians, but the Christians, who chant and sing our Book of Psalmes, and the Prophets, in their Churches? Of the Musicians and sin­gers, we have God speaking by David, Sing [Page 131] unto the Lord a new song, for he hath done mar­vellous things. What, I beseech you, O Ma­ster, is this new song, but the new Testament? and what is the old song, but our old Law? Of these Musicians God speaks more by the Prophet David, Sing unto the Lord all the whole earth, sing a Psalm of praise to his Name. Againe, All the families of the earth shall sing and praise thy Name, or, All the families of the Nations. Where this carries a marke of speciall note, that it is not singularly said, All the families of Israel, but the phrase univer­sally spreads it self to all the families of the Gentiles. Of this musicall and Psalm-singing people, are Davids words in another place, Blessed are the people that knows the song (ours [...]ath it, Psa. 89. That knows the joyfull sound) they shall walk in the light of thy countenance. That also is to the same purpose, The Gentiles, or Nations, shall sing a song to thee in the house of [...]y God. In this place he names a Song, by way of Antonomasia, naming a Song in generall, [...]ut intending their particular kinde of singing. As for us, we have lost our musick, it is now [...] thousand years, since we Jews sung a Song [...] our holy House. Of these singers speaks David, They shall sing praises in the house of God for ever. The 137 Psalm questioned our singing, How shall they sing the Lords song in a [Page 132] strange Land? Alas, O Master, for the vacuity and emptinesse of our vain hopes, who think of a name and a Countrey, when we have lost both. God himself tels us this by the Prophet Amos, Israel is falne, she shall rise n [...] more: the virgin Israel is forsaken upon he [...] Land, there is none to raise her up. The same Prophet in the ninth Chapter saith, Amos 9. There sha [...] come such tribulation, that he who escapeth sha [...] not be delivered; though they hide themselves i [...] the top of Carmel, I will search and take the [...] out thence; though they be hid from my sight i [...] the bottome of the sea, thence will I command the serpent, and he shall bite them. Though they go int [...] captivity before their enemies, thence will I com­mand the sword, and it shall slay them. And [...] will set mine eyes upon them for evill, and no [...] for good. This has the Lord said and done to us, and now, for a thousand years of miserie [...] we have hung by our Harpes, and left all ou [...] singing of Psalms, mourning befitting us more then musick. Notwithstanding, though we [...] cannot sing, yet this we can say, God is our God, and we are his people.

CHAP. XXV. The Jews unjustly finde fault with the Christi­ans practise of singing.

GOD hath spoken, O Master, of the Chri­stians singing, by the mouth of David, the sweet singer of Israel, Psa. 47. 1. saying, Clap your hands all ye people, Psa. 100. sing unto God in the voyce of melody. In another place, Make a joyfull noise unto the Lord all ye lands, serve the Lord with gladnesse, and come before his presence with a song. In another place, Psa. 96. Sing unto the Lord all the whole earth, declare his salvation from day to day. I am under great feare, O Master, by that which God speaks in the mouth of Ieremie, Teach your daughters wailing, and every one her neighbour lamentation, for death is come up into our windows. Together with this of our lear­ning that sad lesson of mourning, he speaks of those Musicall children by the Prophet Da­vid, Psal. 148. Kings of the earth and all people, princes, and all judges of the earth, young men and maidens, old men and Children, let them praise the name of the Lord. Psa. 50. And, who so offereth praise, he glo­rifieth me. As if he plainly said, The sacrifice of the flesh of Goats (such was our sacrifice) doth not honour me, but in the sacrifice of praise (such as is the Gentiles) am I glorified. [Page 134] The Prophet Esay agrees with it, when he saith, See above in chap. 24 concerning this place of Esay. The musicians shall learn the Scriptures, and all the Psalmes of David shall they sing in a metricall way, as it is varied by musicall Tones, some Acute and Sharp, some Grave. About all which, whiles I labour with the strength of my best consideration, me thinks I judge with the least errour, when I conclude we are in a great errour, about their Sacrifice of praise, which they offer up by singing in the Church of God. Especially, when I fur­ther discern, that there are precepts of, and examples for this singing, in the Law of Mo­ses, and in the Prophet David, who hath called for the praising God with Organs, and Harp, and with loud Cymbals; and, Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord Jesus Christ. Psal. 150. That for Precept. Lord Iesus Christ is not in the Psalme. Example is not awanting, for David danced before the Ark, with his Harpe, having his head uncovered, for which his rash-tongued wife Michol, was bold to re­prove him; 2 Sam. 6. 20. but she got this sharp and tart re­ply from him, O foolish woman, doth not the Lord see thee despising me, whiles I sing praises to him? The Children of Israel also sounded a Trumpet, whiles they bore the Arke. Now tell me, O Master, what parts act we? Are not we the foolish Michol, that mock and jeet at the Christians singing solemnities? And do [Page 135] not the Christians act Davids part, dancing and rejoycing before the Lord in their Humi­ditie, Especially, considering how God pro­pounds it, Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord. If it had been precisely thus written, let every Israelite praise the Lord, then our insultation over others might have had some better ground. Neither is that of Esay any disadvantage to them, that he saith, The Nations (or Gentiles) are before God as nothing. Esay 40. 17 For this is to be applyed to the Gentiles in their first estate, as they once were drowned in darknesse and ignorance of God, before the comming of the Just One. Then indeed they were Pagans, and Idolatrous people; and none of those Nations that have found the Lord, which offer unto him every day a pure offering in the East and West, as above out of the Prophet Malachie, hath been alledged. And certainly, O Master, we are heirs of a great errour about this thing. Not­withstanding all this, we belong unto God.

CHAP. XXVI. He proves the Apostasie of the Jews from God.

UNder an oppression of no small fear I fall prostrate, O Master, and this trou­bles me, that like wicked Apostates we fell [Page 136] off from God, at the first comming of that Just One, according to all those Authorities hi­therto alledged, & to which expressely do con­sent all that we finde written in the Books of the Law and the Prophets. From this out Apostasie is it that God stretches out our mi­serie to such a length of dayes, and hath brought upon us this Captivitie, whiles wee in vaine expect another Saviour, besides that Just One, which nothing avails, nor is any thing to the purpose. Herein we have a signe with plenary evidence, that this generall capti­vity is laid upon us, for some generall sinne, which all of us have had our hands in: which sinne, while it abides and sticks with us unre­pented of, fierce wrath must needs abide upon our Nation, and we remain hopelesse. Yet we look for some other Saviour. But oh the idle­nesse, and inanitie of our expectations, how little do they profit us? Suppose we go a­bout to affirm, that ours is not a generall Cap­tivitie, and that in some part of the world, we have a King and Prince over us, we shall quick­ly be proved worthy to be reproved for lyars, convict by our owne Law; for if we Jewes should have a King and Prince over us in any part of the world, go to then, let us see what he is; he must be descended of some one Tribe; if of any, it should be of the Tribe of Judah. [Page 137] Of Judahs Tribe it cannot be, God having de­finitively determined against it, that there should be no King of Judah out of that Tribe for ever. Ierem. 17. Whence Jeremie the Prophet saith, The sinne of Judah is writ with a Penne of Iron, and the Point of a Diamond, it is graven upon the Table of their heart. That which is written with such a Pen, as Iron, in such a Book as an Adamantine stone, how can we look that it should ever be expunged? It shall never bee blotted out, seeing the strong and glorious God hath thus spoken by the mouth of the Prophet Esay, Esay 3. 2. The Lord, the Lord of Hosts ta­keth away from Jerusalem and Judah the Judge, Our Trans. hath it, the Iudge and the Pro­phet and the Pru­dent. and the Prophet, and the Prince. Likewise the Prophet Hosea saith of us, The Children of Is­rael shall abide without a King, without a Prince, without a sacrifice, without an Image, without an Ephod, without Teraphim. We know well, O Master, that, from the beginning of the world, God had▪ alwayes some Saints of great account, and holy before him. Towards the beginning of the world the lives of men are reckoned up with many figures, and extended to many yeers, as M [...]thusalem, Enoch, and the rest, yet none of these ever came to be Mil­lenaries, either reaching to, or above a thou­sand years. Yet we have large reckoning a­mongst our selves, finding our Messias▪ or [Page 138] Christ promised to us, to out-strip that un­attained number. We please our selves with saying, that our Messias was born in Babylon, in the seventie yeers Captivitie, which by computation will arise to an higher number of years; for by this at this day, he must be a thousand and fiftie yeares old. This Fable and Fallacie, for it is no Prophecie, though we know not how with any weapons of rea­son to defend, yet with bold assertions we a­verre it for a truth in our Synagogues, when we are none but Jews together, and not a stran­ger among us. But you may hear the pub­lique doctrine of the Christians saying other­wise, Of Zion it shall be said, this and that Man was born in her, Psa. 87. and the most High shall establish her. In these words he names Mary the Ladie, under the name of the Citie, and saith, a man was born in her. He saith that man em­phatically was born in her, he doth not say, this or that Israelite. Whereby he gives light to us to understand, that the Son of Marie never was in the Loyns of any man. In the second Book of Samuel and the seventh Chapter, God manifestly declares this, when he saith to Da­vid, When thy dayes be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy Fathers, I will set up thy Seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy Bowels, and I will be his Father, and he shall be my Sonne. It [Page 139] was never among possibilities, O Master, that [...]ny should come out of the Bowels of his Fa­ther, therefore to this end is it here set down [...]o expresly, to shew that Christ was not to [...]e conceived in woman, after the ordinary [...]ay of other men, by any Seed, which should [...]roceed from the Loyns of man, as the rest [...]f men do, descending from David, or others. [...]o the same effect God speaks by David, [...]rom the Womb, Psal. 110. before the morning, have I be­ [...]otten thee. As if the great and glorious God [...]ould say, From the wombe, that is, of his [...]wn will he begot his Christ, the operation [...]f the Holy Ghost effecting, it without the [...]eed of man, not after the common regular [...]urse of humane generations. This is that doctrine of veritie of the Christians faith, [...]hich is hid as a mysterie from us, and our [...]ow apprehensions will not give it entrance [...]d beliefe. For our infidelitie in this point [...] all this falne on us, that we groan under; [...]his is the gate that lets in our miserie. Af­ [...]r the same manner doth David set forth Christ to be borne, Psa. 132. The Lord hath sworne in [...]uth unto David, Of the fruit of thy Body will [...]set upon thy Throne. Notwithstanding all [...]is, we belong to God.

CHAP. XXVII. He concludes with alledging some sayings of the Saracens, touching Iesus, and Marie his Mother.

VErily, O Master, though the Christian do not fight against us with swords ta­ken out of the Saracens Scaberds, and wha [...] the Alcoran and the expositions thereof hav [...] for their defence, (which they neglect to doe knowing our faith feeds not upon Saracen Chaffe, neither do they themselves give any credit to it) yet they might finde something which might much weary and weaken us, an [...] fortifie themselves by the allegation of the Sa­razens Doctrine concerning Jesus, and Mar [...] his blessed Mother. It is the generall voice [...] all the Saracens, that Jesus was the Messia [...] whom the foregoing Prophet foretold should come, and as touching his Genealogie and [...] degree, they preferre him before their own God Mahomet. They stick not to confesse [...] that the Parents of Mahomet were Idolaters an [...] wicked ones, and at the best blazon the [...] Arms, but among the Children of Hagar, th [...] Bond-maid, from whom they sprung. Yet wil­lingly they grant, that the Messias by a dire [...] Line draws his Pedegree from Isaac, who [...] [Page 141] Sonne he was, to the Prophets and just men, and so he descends to the blessed Marie his Virgin mother. In the Alcoran this testimo­nie of the Family of Adamar is found touch­ing Marie, The Angel Gabriel said to Marie, O Marie, God hath chosen thee, and taught thee grace, and hath in his choice preferred thee before all other women of all ages; and hath placed thee as a new medium or meane, dividing betwixt earthly men, and the Angels of God in the Paradise of delights. Moreo­ver, all the Saracens speak-it for a truth, That Christ, or the Messias, had power from God to work Miracles, to heale every disease, and infirmitie, to cast out Devils, raise the dead, to know the secrets of all hearts; yea, they beleeve all those Miracles to be done by him, which the Gospell records of him. This the Alcoran in the forenamed Chapter expressely testifies, That the Messias knew, & doth know all things, yea the very sectets of hearts. The words of Mahomet are just to this purpose, who saith, Eise (that is Jesus) knew every Book, and all wisedome, and the whole Law of Moses, he knew what men did eate and drink in their houses, and what they laid up in their Treasu­ries. Besides, they say of Christ, or the Messias, that whiles he was in the world he despised riches, and abandoned all carnall delights, nei­ther [Page 142] had he any Concubines, which are the occasions of sinne, and a cause of disobedi­ence. Withall their Alcoran has adopted and taken into it that speech of the Gospell, The Foxes have holes, Luke 9. and the birds of the aire have nests. These things, thought, I confesse, they carry no authoritie for their sakes who say them, being Saracens, yet are they conso­nant (as may appear by our former discourse) to those things the Prophets foretold, of the first Comming of the Messias. They say in their Alcoran, That Eise, that is Jesus, is the Word of God: and this to be called the Word of God, is accounted the proper name of Jesus Christ among the Saracens: in so much as no other man is thus named, but Jesus onely, whom in the Arabick tongue they call Eise. This we further finde in their Alcoran, God said to Eise, I am thy sufficiency, I will lift thee up unto my self, and I will purifie thee from the unbeleevers. Consider now, O Master, how the Jewish Nation are redacted and brought to such a paucitie and smalnesse of number, by their thousand years Captivitie, that they are become the fewest of any Nation on the earth. zach. 2. The Saracens are exceedingly multi­plyed, and daily increase. The Faith of Christ hath filled the whole world, onely we are ban­died and dispersed all over the earth by our [Page 143] angry God; we remaine the fewest of any people, Gen. 49. Reubens curse being fallen on us, which his father pronounced against him, Ne crescas. Thou shalt not excell, or increase. We increase not at all, but the Christians, whom we hate above all Nations, they increase above all others, and all our hatred of them is in vaine. A con­joyned testimony of many witnesses stand up against us: The Christians witnesse against us, so do the Saracens also: the Alcoran, and the Gospell of Christ, which we will not be­leeve. Which Alcoran, in my judgement, has no validitie or strength in it, seeing it con­tains manifest contradictions, as thou well knowest, and as it clearly is evident, the Com­posers of it were very ignoramusses in the matter both of the old and new Testament. But letting that passe, what shall wee say to the Gospell of the Christians, how shall we es­cape that, laying this down as a presupposed truth, that Christ, or the Messias is already come? The beliefe of this principle contains nothing in it, that it is contrary to Prophets, or to our Law; yea, of it we may affirme, that it is the Lamp, that gives light to all the Pro­phets, manifesting them, and fulfilling the promises contained in the Law, if we under­stand those promises aright to be meant of spirituall blessings, as the doctrine of the Chri­stians [Page 144] conceives of them spiritually. Never­therlesse, O Master, in all these my doubts, my anxious soul hath recourse to thee, espe­cially, that thou wouldest assist me with thy skill about those knots, which before have been excerpt, and alledged by me out of the Prophets, forasmuch as I know, thou, who art skilled in the Arabick, wilt account the testi­mony out of the Alcoran no stronger than a lye, and esteem it as a Rush. Thou perfectly knowest the vanitie of Mahomet, who called himself a Prophet, but he did not Prophesie, or foretell any things to come; he called him­selfe a Messenger sent from God, a good one surely he was, who being a corrupt and igno­rant fellow, (much unlike a Messenger of God) taught things contrary both to God, and his Scriptures.

CHAP. I. Annotations upon the Epistolarie discourse of Rabbi Samuel the Israelite, born in a Citie of the Kingdome of Marocco.

IN the first Chapter, and in many other, he mentions the continuance of their Capti­vitie, from the vastation of Ierusalem, to be in length a thousand years, and upwards, so that it seems the Booke being Translated a­bout the year 1239, Alstedius placeth him about the year 1090 in Chronol. Theol. So has the Note be­fore the Book in Micropres­beutico. had been hid and kept secret by the Jews, from comming into pub­lique light some 230 years, and above. It may appear, more then by conjecture, that it was first writ about the thousand years after the entrance into their Captivitie, and the Jews seeing it like a lightsome house, and full of Candles, clearly shewing Christ to be the Messias, and that he was already come, and by them had been Crucified, they fearing if it came into open view, it might pluck away the Jewish vail of opposition to Christ, from many hearts, as plainly demonstrating their [Page 146] sinne, and the hidden veritie of Christ the Saviour, they put this Candle or Torch un­der a Bushell, and kept it close many years, till this Translator lighting upon it, did publish and set it on a Candlestick, that it might give light to the whole house, both of Jews and Gentiles, in the Roman language, which is become almost oecumenicall, understood of all sorts. For they thought of this Book, as their wicked forefathers thought of Laza­rus, It were good to put him to death, because by reason of him (being raised from the dead by Christ) many of the Iewes would go away from them, Iohn 12. 10, 11. and beleeve on Iesus.

The Hebrew Doctors inquire earnestly what this sinne should be, few of them have so much flesh and softnesse in their heart, as to yeeld with our Samuel, that it was the sinne of slaying Christ, for they invent vaine effu­gia's, and wayes of avoidance of the thought of this sinne. R. Salomon runnes back to the Wildernesse, and sayes, The molten Calfe is still punisht, God is yet scourging them for that Idolatry. Hereupon one teaches the Jews, in every misery of theirs, to think of it. No pu­nishment lights on thee O Israel, in which there is not put an Ounce of the molten Calf. But this sin God had pardoned long before Christs time. Others of them do name some great sinnes of [Page 147] some Particular men, but looke not at the great sinne of the whole Nation. Some con­clude it to be a secret and hidden sin, which is not known, that brings all these knowne punishments upon them at this day.

The great Rambam, the Oracle of Jewish Learning, the excellent second Moses, speaks his minde, Iesus Na­zaretus visus est es [...]e Messi­as, ac sen­tentia lu­dicum in­terfectus, causa fuit ut dest. ue­retur I [...]rael glad [...]o. Marfil. Fi­c [...]n. in lib. d [...] Christ. Relig c. 27 as he is quoted by Ficinus, out of of his Book of the Ordinary Judges; Iesus of Nazareth seemed to be the Messias, and being put to death by the sentence of the Judges, was the cause why Israel was destroyed by the sword. But Ficinus is mistaken, for he meanes not honestly there, but as a Jew, hating Christ and Christians; his meaning is, That Christ was the Ring-Leader to rebellions and raising of seditions, stirring up the people to shake off the Romane yoke and Empire, which brought the Romanes to destroy them with [...]he sword. This was his poysonous meaning, [...]hough one of the best of the Jews. The lear­ned Coch in his Annotations to the Gemar. Sanhedrin, Chap. 11. sect. 37. thus senses it far from Ficinus his meaning.

This Jew rightly collects, The first Digression▪ and concludes, [...]hat that sinne which brings a longer plague, and heavier judgement, than any that went before, must needs bee a greater sinne than [...]hat which brought their 70 years Captivity, [Page 148] and what can be greater than Idolatry, and slaying of the Prophets, save their slaying of their Saviour Jesus Christ, the Sonne of God, the Prince of the Prophets, and the Center in whom all the Prophecies meet?

He saith further, that none of the Prophets do tell of their return out of this Captivitie, he is more to blame then, Nondum omnium [...]rum [...], occide­runt. that at the end o [...] every Chapter doth say, Notwithstanding what­soever fall out, we belong to God. If no Prophe [...] shew, that, being thus cast off, they belong to God, [...] quo (que) [...]. Ceci­disse [...]os, non ex [...]i­disse c [...]r­tum est. why doth he without the ground of Pro­phecies build upon such a thing? But herein he is in an errour; many, yea, all the Prophets d [...] speak of their return, and the Calling of th [...] Jews. As Moses, Gen. 49. 18, 19. Deut. 30. 3▪ 6, 8. Esay 11. 11, 12. Esay 45. 22. and 25▪ Esay 59. 20, 21. Vt el [...]gan­ter Cunaeus de Repub. Ierem. 16. 14. Ierem. 23. 3, 4▪ Ier. 31. 31, 32, 33, 34. Ezek. 36. 26. Hosea 1▪ last verse. Hebr. Lib. 1. cap. 18. Hos. 3. 4, 5. Mic. 2. 12. Mic. 4. 6▪ Mic. 5, 5, 6, 7. Medras sir Hassirim, Rab. Isaac ut habetur apud Por­cherum in victor. Zephan. 3. 11, 12, 13. & 19. 20. Amos 9. 14, 15. Zach. 11. 16. And among ou [...] Prophets, none so full as Paul, Rom. 11. Be­sides, as Paul speaks to them in Titus, One of themselves, a Prophet of their own hath said it. Cont. Heb. p. 2. c. 10. Upon these words in the Canticles, Open to me my Sister, my Love▪ my Dove, my undefi­led, they write thus, The holy and blessed God said to Israel, O my Children, set open to me [Page 149] but one little Cranie of repentance, though it be no bigger than a Needles eye, and I will so largely open a way to you, that shall let in your Chariots and Carriages with foure Wheels. Out of Rabbi Levi they have this also, If Israel would but repent one day, they should forthwith be redeemed, and presently their Messias the Sonne of David should come unto them. And indeed, their impeni­tency is their hardest Prophesie against them. Let them but repent, and it will turn the Cap­tivitie of Zion.

Note the Conclusion of every Chapter, The 2. Di­gression. and the beginning of every Chapter are the same. Every Chapter begins with I feare, O Master. Their great Rabbies were called Masters by the rest, who admired their learning, sat at their feet, received their instructions, as the Oracles of wisdome. About our Saviours time they be­gun not onely to inlarge their Phylacteries, but to inlarge their Titles of Dignitie also, and to advance their Doctors with great names, as Rab, Ribbi, Rabban, Rabbi, which makes our Saviour note their pride in it. Those that had taken degrees in learning, and were set into a Doctors or Teachers place to teach others, then had the name of Rabbi, their great Master, or learned Doctor of the Chair, for such taught in Chaires, and their Schol­lers [Page 150] sat at their feet, learning, and hearing their Documents, [...]hacha­nim. as Paul was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel. Sometimes they call them their wise men, sometimes Masters, some­times Fathers. Constan. [...] Emper. in Commen. ad [...]chia­dae Para­phras. in Daniel c. 1 Buxto [...]ff. [...]un. in vit. Mosis Mai­mon prae­fix. More Nevoch. Comment. in Middoth cap. 3. sect. 5. Rambam, Rabbi Moses Ben Mai­mon, & Ramban, which is Rabbi Moses Ben Nahman, these two famous ones were called duo Domini, The two great Masters. And this Moses Maimonides was so famous for learning, that they adde to his Titles, and some called him The Doctor of righteousnesse, and the great light of the Captivitie. A Doctor among them R. Judas is of such fame, that they call him, by way of eminencie, Ribbi, or Hannasi the Prince, Haccadosh, R. Judas the Holy. So among the Pontificians, they Idolize their great doctors, one must be the Master of the Sentences, another must be the Angelicall Doctor, a third the Se­raphicall Doctor, this the Profound, and that the Irrefragable Doctor, another the Doctor of Subtilties; one is called Gomestor, the great devourer of the Scriptures, as if he had eaten up the Bible for his many Quotations of it. another is called Speculator, as Durandus Ha­les, or Alensis the Englishman, the Master of Bonaveuture and Aquinas, he was (to his high praise in those times) called, Alstod. in Chronol. Fons vitae, The Fountain of life, and the irrefragable Doctor. So that to the praise of Englishmen, Scolast. ad cap▪ [...]7. by the con­fession [Page 151] of the Learned of other Nations, it is upon Record, that not onely Bonaventure and Aquinas, and the rest, carry all the glory of Angelicall and Seraphicall learning, but even our Englimen have been Tutors to the best of them, and have been as it were Fountains to their Seraphicall Streams: though Fons vitae be a Title too Hyperbolicall, and too near to Blasphemie.

Petrus Cluniacensis and Bede our Countrey­man too, go not in any Writings without their Title of Venerable Peter of Clunie, and Venera­ble Bede. Dionysius a Rickel, he is the Ecsta­ticall Doctor, Alanus he is the Universall Do­ctor. All Religions, Sects, and sorts of People are ready to get their Doctors and Teachers into too high Chairs of estimation and prai­ses, even to Homar and Hali among the Turks and Persians, Chud and Tzalet or Salech, Synaip and Hedres, Dualkiphil and Locman, of which last the Proverb is, He is as wise as Loc­man, Saracen. when they will name a second Salomon. Chatechis. The very deceived of our dayes do name their Teachers Apostolicall men, and men as full of new light as any, when it is indeed old darknesse and deliration: though their breath be poyson, and their doctrine blasphemie, and their visions made up of boldnesse and impu­dence, yet their deceived Proselites are ready [Page 152] to call and count them as that marble Statue of Rome, Io. Iac. Boisard. in Topogr. Romae. Buccam Veritatis, the very mouth and cheeks of Truth. Among the Jewish do­tages this is none of the least, that what their great Rabbins and Masters write, Buxtorff. in Syna­gog. Iud. cap. 1. ex▪ Tractat. Erubhin. and set down they must beleeve, as this hard Statute of theirs will make it appear. Thus they write, Whoso­ever mocks at, or despises what our wise men and great Rabbins have spoken, he shall be tormented in hote boyling dung in Hell. This is to make a Statute of doating. Some of them say, They that give themselves to the studie of the Bi­ble, there is some little vertue in it, or rather none at all; but they who studie Tradition, or the secondary Law of the Fathers, there is vertue, for which a reward is due, They who studie the Gemara, the Talmudick Writings, there is more excellent vertue for them than others. We are furnisht by them with Sto­ries for this: as that R. Eleeser being sick, his Disciples visiting him, said to him, O master, teach us the wayes of life, that we may obtain the life of the world to come. The sick Doctor an­swered thus, Be admonished to honour your fel­low-schollers, and draw back your children from the studie of the Bible, and place them betwixt the Knees of the wise masters. Aegroti somnia! We leave these dotages, and pray they may recover their right senses, which will lead [Page 153] them to these three Rules. I 1. Esay 8. 20. To the Law and to the Testimonie, &c. II 2. In vain do they worship me, Mat. 15. 9. teaching for Doctrines the Traditions of men. Iohn 5. 39. III 3. Search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternall life.

Yet would I not have any build upon this those bold and blinde out-cries, The 3. Di­gression. Away with the Rabbins and all Hebrew writings, it is lost la­bour and learning to studie them, there is no­thing sound, all is fabulous and vain in them, of no use for a Divine. Give that Head some Hellebore to purge folly. It is as if one should say, What should a man do sowing Seed, for there are much Straw, Chaffe and Weeds that grow up with it? Non coeco zelo in fans ipse, ut ai­unt, una cum lava­cri sordibus est effun­dendus. But a wise Husband­man will say, I get much good Corne, and therefore I will bestow some labour for the Cornes sake, to thresh and winnow it, and rid [...]it of straw, chaffe and Weeds. Though there be much Chaffe in the Hebrew Doctors, Schickard. apud Glas­siam. yet there is much good grain and fruit of profita­ble use; and why may we not, as husbandmen, learn to thresh, and winnow them, and read them with a fanne?

For that kinde of learning the lesse I know [...]it the more I admire it, and wish time and leasure to recover what former years have lost, Paul Fagi­us in prae­fat. Eliae Thisbi. [...]icking the glasse without, when I cannot come to the precious liquor within. I judge [Page 154] in the want of it, Iunius in Orat. de ling, Hebr. Antiq. & praest. one piece of a compleate Divine is awanting. Now we are subject to despise it, because Hebrew and Jewish learn­ing requires more studie and judgement, Tom. 1. then looking upon some common Latine and En­glish Authors, Glassius in Orat de Hebr. ling. util. an easie kinde of studie, and al­most vulgarly attainable. Good account may be given of this by some reasons, that will make it appear to be that which should bee above the contempt of ignorance. I 1. In other Authors, Schoolmen, Commentators, Jesuites we use to read and studie, in which there is Chaffe enough, yet there we use to separate the precious from the vile with an hic magi­ster non tenetur. Nihil aliud est Theo­logus, quā Gramma­ticus verbi Divini. II 2. Of all tongues and learning it will challenge superiority, as being more near neighbour to the Divinitie of the Old Testa­ment; therefore it is called lingua sancta, the sa­cred and holy Language, Drus in E­pist ad Se­nat. Ant­verpiens. as being used by God He was no Pamphlet nor triviall Doctor that said, A Divine was nothing else but a Grama­rian of the Word of God, the Bible being the Grammer of Divinity. III 3. There are many sound and rare Writings of great use among the Rabbins, among which especially the great Moses Maimonides carries the palme, Scaliger ad S [...]ph. Vbert. Bux­torf. in prae­fat. ad Mor. Nevoch. having freed himself from many Jewish dotages, fa­bles and Traditions. The Heroes of learning Scaliger, Casauben, and others, will tell us [Page 155] his Booke of More Nevochim, or Doctor per­plexorum, is as good as the weight in Gold, and is exceeding necessary for Christian Divines. IV 4. There are divers places both in Old and New Testament, cannot bee well understood, unlesse wee borrow Candle-light from the Hebrew Doctors, as Exod. 6. 3. Ruth 4. 7. Esay 1. 29. Esay 12. 13. Ier. 16. 7. Ezek. 8. 14. Ezek. 9. 4. Matth. 5. 22. Matth. 21. 9. Matth. 23. 7, 8. Matth, 26. 23. Mark 7. 11. Rom. 5. 7. Iohn 7. 37. Iohn 3. 29. 2 Tim. 3. 8. Revel. 3. 4. and an hundred more, in which a man shall stray & stumble, unlesse he use their help. Ask Ainsworth, Selden, Weemse, whether they borrow not much light from them. V 5. It is confessed in Jewish matters, Rites, Cu­stomes, Sacrifices, Syrian gods, we get best helps from them, and why may we not ra­ther chuse to have them at first hand, A saepius collectis, ac transfu­sis colle­ctaneis, ve­lut è deci­ma lacuna suffurari, ut pene nihil resipiant sui fontis. Eras. in compend. Theolog. R. Iose. then to take them at a second, or rather a tenth hand? Water in the very Spring is better had, then to bee glad of it after it runne thorow ten Chanels. It is better to see with our owne eyes, then to have our Spectacles hang at o­ther mens Girdles. We may to good purpose make use of that Jewish saying, Let my soule be among the Collectors of Almes, rather than among the Distributors of them. Or as Valla, I had rather be a Bee that flies farre to gather [Page 156] matter for Honey, then a Pismire, that gathers but from the next Corn field. VI 6. Were it not a rare thing (lastly) to be so skilled in the Jews Tongue and Writings, that one might be able to lay before them their owne vainest Fables, and confute them out of their own Books and Doctors, as many have done? This would put the Jew to a stand and admiration, Iulian a­pud Theo­doret. and to crie out with a friend of theirs, Proprijs calamis configimur. What a glory was it to those two Christian Divines, Vatablum & Merce­rum Lute­tiae docen­tes ipsi Iu­daei sunt admirati. Mercer and Vatablus, that when they were Professors at Paris, the very Jews did admire them for their great skill in the Hebrew, and being so perfectly ready and read in all their Writings?

Thus I have endeavoured to shew, Chamier. de Authen. edit Can. Panstrat. l 12. c 9. that Jewish questions and vanities, being avoided, their learning is of much use in Divinitie, whatsoever is said by some; Allo gla­ux, allo corone pthenge­tai. The Crow cries one thing, and the Owl another. Every Chapter also ends with this, Attamen Dei sumus, Yet we belong to God, in all estates we Jews are Gods pe­culiar people. There is a truth in it, they were Gods people by Covenant at first, and they shall bee called home to the Covenant of Grace at last, when they shall looke upon Christ whom they have pierced: but for the present state of them, standing out against God, and hating Jesus Christ, God calls [Page 157] them Loammi, Hos. 1. 9. Not my people. As concerning the Gospell they are enemies, Rom. 11. 28. but as concer­ning Election, they are beloved for the Fa­thers sake.

CHAP. II.

IN the second Chapter the Jew reasons the case, inquiring why they observe some Legalities, as Circumcision, Sabbath, and others, but omit Sacrificing, Altars, Unction and Incense. I He happily guesses, that they re­tain these Legall Rites now, as received not from God, but from their Fathers that were under Gods wrath. II 2. That God has given them no precept now to use them; for indeed the destruction of Jerusalem, and the Tem­ple, the place of their worship, the taking a­way of their Kingdome and Priesthood, is ar­gument enough to tell them God hath aboli­shed their Legall observances, and delights no more in them, nor in that kinde of Govern­ment. By this he rightly acknowledges all their Jewish service is against the heart of God, and his command, and is will worship; III not Gods will-worship, but mans will-wor­ship. [Page 158] 3. He takes away a reason that might be given by some, why they used not Altars, and Incense, because they were strangers, and under the Government of Kingdomes, and States, that would not suffer them to have that libertie. But this he answers to, that it is no good reason; for Kings and States that suffer them to have Syna­gogues and meetings, and communion in a Jewish manner, would permit them this also as well as the former: they who grant a grea­ter thing, in all likelihood will not deny them a lesser matter. So that the conclusion he would make, is this, God in his anger hath be­reft us of King, Priest, Temple, Altars, Sa­crifice, the great things of our Law, therefore he would have us leave all other our Iewish Rites also, because it is manifest for our sinnes he would have us deprived of all, and besides turn us to Christ, who hath put an end to all Iudaicall ob­servances. Many of the Jews acknowledge, that Sacrifices and Ceremonies were not to be perpetuall, but to continue for a time onely, and by the Messias to be abrogated. In their Talmud they have this to that purpose, Hieron. de S. fide in Hebraeom. l. 1. c. 9. Ex Berescit R [...]ba. In the world to come all sacrifices shall be annihila­ted, except the sacrifice of Confession, i. e. of praise. So the Aegyptian Moses writes, that in the time of the Messias all things shall be licen­sed, [Page 159] which were prohibited: According to that saying, The Lord looseth them that are bound up, and there cannot be a greater proof than this, that even mulier menstruata shall be li­censed by God at that time. In the Talmud, speaking of unclean things, as the Sow, it is questioned, Why is a Sow called Hazer? It is answered, Because God will return it once to Is­rael, that is, give them libertie to eat of it; Hazire signifying reversion or returning. Wherefore, by the judgement of divers of their Doctors, they doe at this day un­lawfully in counting any meats unclean by the old Rule of their Law, seeing the Messias was beleeved should set these very Creatures at libertie, that they should not be bound up from free use by any Bond of Ceremoniall uncleannesse, as they were heretofore. When the Vail of the Temple was rent, all Legall Ceremonies were to be rent also.

The Jews acknowledge they have nothing to do now with Sacrifices, The 4. De­gression. as their Ancestors had, because they are scattered from their own land, and their Temple is destroyed, which was the place destined for Sacrifices to be of­fered up to God, yet instead of Sacrifices they will do something, they redeem their Sacrifi­ces with words, and comfort themselves with this, as if God did accept it as well as any Sa­crifice, [Page 160] that they read over Gods precepts in the Law about the kindes and manner of Sa­crificing, and so they make use of, or rather abuse those words of the Prophet, We will of­fer up to God the calves of our lips; Hos. 14. Wofgang. Which were a good Sacrifice, Capito in Hos. 3. if they were good lips, confessing Christ, and guided by holy hearts, onely relying, and trusting in the all-meriting Sacrifice of Christs blood. Their R. Simeon saith, they despised three things, and cast them off in that speech, 2 Sa. 20. 1. We have no part in David, nor have we inheritance in the sonne of Iesse: 1. The Kingdome of Heaven. 2. The house of David. 3. The Temple of the Lord. But the later Jews have cast off these three things farre more despitefully, in casting off Christ; And having thrown off God and his Temple, why may he not throw away them and their sacrifices?—The conclusion is against the Jews, that they do against ground and reason retain some part of their Jewish service, and let other parts be lost; as that of Altars, oynt­ment and sacrifice. If one be good, all is good, because all is of the same root. If God have abolished some, he would have them abolish all; and he grants the Jews are non-plust, and have nothing to say in this argument, when it is urged by the Christians.

CHAP. III.

IN this Chapter the Translator tells us he findes much diversity in the Phrases of the Scripture, as they are in the Originall Hebrew, and as he findes them quoted by his Rabbi Samuel, who being among the Turks follows the Arabicke Bible, and therefore he would have the Reader note, that he quotes the Scriptures according to R. Samuels Book, that he may prove himself a faithfull interpretour.

It is a pretie note of R. Samuel, that the first Captivitie is called but a Transmigration, or a passing over into another Land; which seems to be a word of hope, that promised them they should come back again. But this last is named by a hopelesse name, a desolation, to let them see it is a perpetuall Captivity. That of transmigration or removing, may bee seene 2 King. 17. 23. 2 King. 24. 3. But this is a desolation, Dan. 9. 27. and the abomination of desolation.

A twofold misery he findes to pursue this Captivitie more than the other.

1. In the other they had Prophets in Ba­bylon, to comfort them, Ezekiel, Haggai, Za­charie; but in this Captivity, no true Pro­phets preach deliverance: Prophecie and Vi­sion ceaseth.

[Page 162] 2. Again, in that other Captivity they were all together in one Kingdome, and com­pany of known friends & Countrey-men, breaks the strong waves of an evill; but here they are dispersed into all Countries, and can converse with few of their own, but meer strangers, both by Countrey and Religion. And this is a sad thing, that they sit solitary like a Sparrow upon the house top. This the Lord threatned, to make their Chaine heavy: The Lord shall scat­ter thee among all the people from one end of the earth even to the other, Deut. 28. 64. &c.

This Samuel acknowledges, The 5. Di­gression. and calls Da­niel a Prophet of God, which divers of the great and learned Jews will not admit, yet he all over honours him, and quotes his Prophe­cie in this matter of the Messia. It seems this man had rather cleave to Christ, who calls him a prophet, Matth. 24. 15. then to his great Talmudists and Rabbies, who will needs be great, by lessening some of Gods greatest Prophets. Porchetus, a great and deep inquirer into Hebrew Learning, proves by Jewish Tra­dition, that Daniel was held by them a Pro­phet; and be further faith, that among the Jews none could be found so strangely foolish, to deny the Spirit of Prophesie to Daniel, but onely one wicked Sadduce, called Porphyrius; who being convict with the clearnesse of his [Page 163] Prophecie concerning Christ, he falls like a bitter Dogge a barking against the truth and sanctitie of Daniels Propheticall testimony. Of this Porphyrie Hierome speaks in his Epistle proaemiall to the Comment on Daniel, Porchet. victor. con­tra Hebr. part. 1, c. 3. to Pam­machius and Marcella, where he saith this Por­phyrie writt his twelfth Book against Daniel, whom Eusehius confuted in three Volumes. But besides Porphyrie, Porchetus might have seen some more denying Daniel properly to be called a Prophet of God, as the great Mo­ses Ben Maimon, who saith, our Nation with an unanimous consent hath placed the book of Daniel in Kethubhim, among the holy Wri­ters, More Ne­vochim. part. 2. c. 45 but not among the Prophets. And the same account and reckoning they make of Davids Psalms, Salomons Books, Esther, Iob, and the Books of Chronicles. In annotat. ad Rab. They say these were writt as they were moved by the holy Spirit, Iacchiad. in Paraphr. in Daniel, cap. 1. an­notat. 1. but it was not vera & pura Prophetia. But who will may see against this, Daniel proved to be a Prophet of God, out of Moses Ben Maimons own Characters of a Prophet, by Constantine L' Emperour.

Against this opinion, which makes Daniel a Prophet, but metaphorically, or by way of Translation, Guil. Vorstius may be lookt after also, in his Annotations on Maimonides de fundam Legis ad cap. 7. Cunaeus de Repub. Hebr, lib. 3. cap. 7.

CHAP. IV.

HE rightly speaks of the blindnesse of the Jews, so their estate in the new Testa­ment is called: Ioh. 9. 39. For judgment am I come into this world, saith our Saviour, that they which see not, might see, and that they which see might be made blinde. God hath given them the spirit of slum­ber, eyes that they should not see, &c. Blindnesse in part is hapned unto Israel, Rom. 11. 8. & 25. untill, &c. That which is here said, that it is perpetuall, Paul saith better for them then R. Samuel, It shall not be alwayes, but till the fulnesse of the Gen­tiles be come in, and then all Israel shall be saved.

CHAP. VI.

IN this Chapter he is very earnest to ap­ply that prophecie of Amos, the selling of the Righteous for Silver, to be Israels sinne, in selling Jesus the Righteous Sonne of God for thirty pieces of Silver. Micronym. Our Christian inter­pretors and Expositors, Carthus. do not go that way, to apply it onely to Christ, Parcus Tarnovius. but make it to be the sin of injustice, & cruell oppression against the poor and needy, selling away their person and Cause for Bribes. Some have a glance at this Jewish exposition, A lapide in loc. yet cannot fully like it: [Page 165] though this Jew found the Christians in his dayes much bent to expound it as he does, and let him be wittie this way, to apply all to the Jews sinne, if so be it may heal their sore.

CHAP. VII.

THe seventh Chapter arises out of his for­mer discourse, and he layes it downe, that the Prophet Amos his Just man sold for silver, is Jesus the Just, the Saviour of the Christians, he beleeves it is meant of no other, This indeed is true, I 1. That Jesus the Just was sold for silver. II 2. That this was the Jews sinne. III 3. That this sinne of selling and mur­dering Jesus is the Gate, that lets in all their miserie. IV Onely here the Jew in a fourth thing has us not so fully agreeing, that the Prophet Amos doth directly and especially point at this sin in this place. Here the Jew is more against his own Jews, than the Chri­stians are, and it shews his pious intention, to finde out the grievousnesse of their sinne, that takes up any Scripture, that may seem to in­digitate it, to bring his people to repentance.

In this Chapter he admirably, and with a Beam of Christian light, applies the 53 of E­say to Jesus Christ, & as a Christian Expositor, opens divers things in it. As likewise that ex­cellent [Page 166] and Torchlike place of Zacharie, which gives clear light in this truth, Zach▪ 12. undenyably looking at Christ. The Chal­dee Para­phrast and Gen [...]ara. For other Scriptures look at his good meaning, and pardon his Appli­cation. Babylon. That 53. of Esay exceedingly straitens the learned Jews, Grotius de veritat. and puzzles them in their Expositions, Christ Re­lig. in an­notat. ad lib. 5. to make it fit for some other, ra­ther than Christ Jesus, but divers of them are enforced to apply it to Christ.

Of the Application of the 53 of Esay to Christ the Messias, The 6. Di­gression. Hieronymus de sancta fide, a converted Iew, gives us his sure word, that di­vers of their Rabbins go that way; Hieron. de sanct. fid. in Hebraeo. as R. O­sua in Sanhedrin, and R. Jose Galiaeus in a Book called Zifrat. Mast lib. 1. cap. 11. Lord Morney brings in others of their Doctors, fitting this Chapter to him, as R. Ʋla, veniat, sed absit ut videam, Let him come, but farre be it from me that I should see him, meaning, his wounds and suffe­rings will be so grievous, as men will hide their faces from him. Mornaeus in cap. 30. lib. de ve­rit. Christ. Relig. And upon Ruth, on these words, Dip thy morsell in the Vinegar, their Midrasch, or Commentary hath it, The morsell is the bread of the King Messias, who shall be broken for our sinnes, and shall indure great torments, Porchetus. as was foreteld by Esay. To stop the mouthes of all Iewes, R. Simeon the sonne of Johni, a chiefe one of them, writes as if he were cloathed with the Sunne: Wo (saith he) [Page 167] to the men of Israel, for they shall slay the Christ. And, God shall send unto them his sonne, cloath­ed with mans flesh, that he may wash and cleanse them, and they shall slay him. R. Iohanan pitches truly upon the very time of Iesus Christs ex­ercising his Ministery upon earth, agreeable to the Historie Evangelicall of his life: Three years and a half (saith he) the presence of God did crie upon Mount Olivet, Seek the Lord while he may be found, and call upon him while he is near. Which is [...]ust the common computation of the time of Iesus Christs preaching, from his Baptisme to his Passion.

Here let it be noted once for all, The [...]. Di­gression. that this Doctour doth altogether call Christ the Iust or Righteous One, Postel. de Orb. Ter. concord. an excellent name agreeing with the Scripture, that calls him so, proving, in him there was no sinne, no unrighteousnesse, [...]o guile, and therefore he was fit to be Jehovah Tsidkenu, The Lord our Righteousnesse. Acts 3. 14. Peter preaching to the Iews concerning Christ, saith, They denyed the holy One, Acts 7. 52. and the Iust; and Ste­phen in his Sermon calls him the Iust One. So Ananias called Christ that Iust One. Acts 22. 14 Among the Iewish Doctours it is ordinary, to call Christ by this name, Vide Por­chet▪ in Vi­ctor contr. by way of excellency. The earth (saith one of them) standeth but upon one Pillar, Hebr [...]. 2. cap. 11. and the Iust One is his Name; as it is in the Book of Proverbs, Chap. 10.

[Page 168] In the end of the Chapter the Iew alled­ges the agreement of the Gospels relation to the Prophets prediction, concerning Christs death, wherein like a Christian he flies from the Iews, and cloaths himself with the Chri­stians Armour of light, beleeving the Gospell, which professed Iews hate with an indeleble hatred.

CHAP. IX, X, XI.

IN these Chapters he proves that Christ shall have a double comming; First, in basenes and humility; then secondly, in Majesty and glory. Sometimes onely he teaches Scrip­ture to speak more then is intended; as in that place of Esay, because it is said, Awake, Awake, twice, he will have it to mean Christs double Comming: And that of David, For he com­meth, for he commeth, is twice repeated, because Christ shall twice appear, saith R. Samuel. But the truth is clearer, then that he need these witty (though sometimes weak) allegations.

That Christs second comming shall be to judgement, and with Fire, and glorious Maje­stie, he rightly and Orthodoxly holds and proves. It is a rare Testimony to the credit of our Christian Baptism, that he calls it the Well of salvation, Esay 12. spoken of by Esay the Pro­phet. [Page 169] Nay further, behold this Jew turned perfect Christian, for he confesses the summa­ry of the Gospell, the chief sentence of it, to be very true, which is this, This, without all doubt, (saith he) is to be held, that none are sa­ved, but those that beleeve Christs first comming, and those that beleeve not, there is no ground for them to hope for salvation at his second comming. This is the maine matter of faith in the New Testament, Matth. 16. so that this Jew confesses like Pe­ter, Thou art Christ the Son of the living God. And I see no reason, but it may bee said to him, as to Peter, Blessed art thou Samuel the Israelite, for flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee, but my Father which is in Heaven. He affirms the very same that is affirmed in the Gospell, Iohn. 3. 3 [...]. He that beleeveth on the Sonne hath everlasting life, 1 Iohn 5. 11, 12. and he that beleeveth not the Sonne, shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.

In the tenth Chapter we have some places brought in to prove the second comming of Christ, The 8. Di­gression. which will not bear it, and yet di­vers of our Christian Expositours have taken leave to be mistaken, as well as this Jew, or rather worse; and so much the worse, be­cause they crie out of all, which will not sing to their Violl, Cramer in Schol Pro­phet. clas. 3 when they themselves are out of tune. Cramer undertaking the clearing of [Page 170] Prophecies concerning Christ, finding fault with those that do not make Zach. 14. 3, 4, 5, &c. to be meant of Christs Ascension, and the cleaving of the Mount of Olives, &c. to be meant of the Apostles sending out to the Gen­tiles, he names among the rest our Marochian, in this place applying Zachary to the second comming of Christ. Surely it is not meant of Christs second comming, but (as Calvin hath it) of an illustrious presence, and manife­station of God in his power and might, evi­dent to all, that Jerusalem shall not be in a shady Valley, but shall be conspicuous, and o­pen to a glorious view for all Nations to see it, Haec parti­cula ad posteriorē adventum accommo­dari potest: proprie ta­men per­tinet ad priorem: quia de nuntio foe­deris lo­quitur id est, de in­stitutione Legis E­vangelicae. Fe [...]. à Fig­veiro in Malach. and admire it. It is true, Samuel is mista­ken, and so is Cramer too, for because there is mention of the Mount of Olives, it doth not follow, that therefore Christs Ascension must be pointed at. But the Lutherans, Cramer, Hunnius, and others, plow deep furrows upon Calvins backe, because he will not swear to their Interpretations. Our Christian Moore makes use of the third of Malachie too, to prove Christs second comming; But who may abide the day of his comming? Divers of ours are also to be blamed for this, that whereso­ever in Scripture they meet with a terrible day of the Lord, they presently apply it to the day of Judgement: yet he sees little that [Page 171] sees not this to be meant of Christs first com­ming, whose preaching, and pure doctrine of Gospell, was terrible to prophane ones, and Hypocrites, Scribes and Pharisees. Besides, it signifies the misery, sorrow and captivitie, which should befall the Jews in, and after the comming of Christ, not by Christs fault, but by their impietie and infidelitie, rejecting Christ: so as his comming proves terrible to them.

In the end of the 11 chapter, he hath two excellent things concerning Christ, wherein he speaks Christianisme most Christianly, and brushes himself clean of the least Jewish moat.

1. He concludes it from Scripture, that Christ, and Christ alone, is the True and Righ­teous One: All men, best of men, were sin­ners, but Christ was sinnlesse. And in this he preferrs him before Moses, and all other holy Ones, which no Jew will do, just as Christ is preferred in Hebr. 3.

2. He makes disobedience and infidelitie in Christ, the damning sin. This he proves as the Authour to the Hebrews proves it: com­pare his words and those of Hebr. 10. 28, 29. and you shall see such an agreement, as if he had proposed those words, and that Text to be followed, He that despised Moses Law, dyed with­out mercy, under two or three witnesses. He has [Page 172] it like to that: If they were worthy of death who beleeved not Moses, who was two degrees behinde Christ, he was but a temporary Saviour, and hee was a sinner; Of how much sorer punish­ment suppose ye shall he be thought worthy, &c. how much more (saith our Samuel) are they wor­thy of this Iudicatorie of fire, who beleeve not, nay, who blaspheme this Christ, who is a Righteous One, and who saves eternally. O that this lightsom beam of truth had pierced the hearts and breasts of all the dark-spirited Jews! O that all of them saw with Samuels eyes! The Lord perswade these Israelites to dwell in the Tents of Sa­muel, and to come and see.

CHAP. XII.

THe Ascension of Christ he proves and beleeves, which no stone-hearted Jew will by any means admit into thoughts of probability; for they are so farre from be­leeving his glorious Ascent into Heaven, that they make his Descent into Hell their chief and unquestioned Article, with the most hor­rible blasphemy affirming, that our Christ is tormented in Hell, in boyling and scalding (Zoah) Dung, because he rejected, and despi­sed the Traditions and Doctrines of their holy Elders and Chachamims. Yea, they make him a false Prophet, and to be a prophane wretch, [Page 173] as Esau. And in the most secret Books and Pa­pers kept among the Jews, (which they will not let every eye see, but such as are rightly Jewish, that is, stiffe enemies of Jesus) this they teach and write, That the soul of Esau entred into the body of Christ, and so he was just such a wretch as Esau, or Edom. And this may perhaps be one main reason, why they call all Christians Edomites, as thinking wee follow, and put our trust in Christ, who is as Edom with them. The 9. Di­gression. He applyes the 24 Psalm to the Ascension of Christ, which divers Christian Expositours by Prophesie will have pointed at, and by allegory allude to. This Author makes some ask the question, Who is this King of glory? And he sets the Angels to answer the question, Hieronym. in Psalm. The Lord of Hosts he is the King of glory. This way Ierome goes, ma­king a Dialogue betwixt Angels and Devils. Stapulensis Schol. in Dyonvs. A­reop [...]g [...]t. Who is the King of glory, say the Devils? The good Angels answer, The Lord of Hosts, migh­ty in Battell, Baptist Fo­lengius in Psal. he is the King of glory. This Jew (it seems) had studyed not onely the Christians Gospell, Barth. a Koppen. in Psa. 24. but Christian Interpretours, and Expositours of the Bible. And though this be no strong proof of Christs Ascension, Piscator. in Psal. (but rather Davids Song about the building, and setting up the Temple, and the glorious gates thereof, for the Lord of Hosts to come enter [Page 174] and dwell in it) yet the Jew shews us how willing he is, to admit the doctrine of Christs Ascension, and to follow Christian Doctors.

This Jew, though he sometimes uses the Scriptures, The 10. Digression with meanings and applications scarce genuine, yet in his application of the 63 chapter of Esay, vers. 1. to the exaltation and triumph of Christ over his enemies, he hath done more rightly, than many of our wri­ters and Christian Preachers, who common­ly do apply this place (by a vulgar and recei­ved errour) to the Passion of Christ. How often have we heard these words quoted thus, He trodd the Wine-Presse of his Fathers wrath alone, that is, He alone suffered, and underwent his Fathers wrath for us? If it had been meant of Christs Passion, it would have been passive­ly, I was trodden in the Winepresse alone; and not Actively, I have trodd it. I It is the Grapes that suffer treading and pressing, not he that treads. II 2. Again, he is said to be glorious in his apparell, when he comes from treading the Wine-Presse. Now Christ in his Passion was either quite naked, as many think; or else but in one part very slenderly covered. Now if his Body, or that mean Cloth were sprinkled with his own Blood, this was no very glorious apparell, for one to appear thus miserably. But for Christ in his Ascension to appear, [Page 175] and in his Triumph to shew himselfe, with garments all stained with the Blood of his Enemies, this is glorious raiment indeed. The triumph of the righteous is, Psal. 58. 10 they shall wash their feet in the blood of the wicked. III 3. Ob­serve the phrases in this Prophecie, which shew not Christs Passion, but his enemies Pas­sion, travelling in greatnesse of his strength, that is, strongly conquering, and destroying his adversaries. Mighty to save, that is, to pre­serve his; he doth not say, Mighty to suffer. Garments like him that treadeth the Wine-Fatt; the blood of enemies, like the juyce of Grapes pressed, are sprinkled on him that pres­ses them. I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury. If it were of Christs Passion, it should be, I am trodden in Gods anger, and trampled in his fury. The day of ven­geance is in my heart, that is, Like a Conquerour I will now take vengeance of mine enemies. IV 4. This phrase of treading as in a Winepresse, is used in Scripture elswhere, to shew what they suffer that are trodden, as Lament. 1. 15. Now Christ saith, He trod, and was not trod­den. 5 5. He is said to come from Edom, and Bozra: by Edomites conquered and destroy­ed, he sets out, under that particular name, Christs universall conquest and triumph over all the enemies of the Church. And in this [Page 176] Exposition, this Jew applies the Prophesie better then many among us. It is true, divers of the Ancients have swallowed this without chewing, Of the An­cients, yet Origen in Matthaeum 15. Tract. applies it to Christs Ascension & triumph. to be meant of Christs Passion, but whosoever looks into the Text, and the Phra­ses of it, will see it rather points at Christs Resurrection and Triumph, then his Passion. We are too prone to take these [...] upon trust without examination. The Fa­thers were more excellent, and so the Anci­ents, for sound pietie, then for sound Exposi­tion, and dextrous Application of Scriptures. Why may not David sometimes lay by the Spectacles of his ancient Fathers, and say, I have more understanding than my Teachers. Ps. 119. 99. The learned and judicious Mercer confesses, Nostri mi­nus recte de passio­ne Chri­sti expo­nant. Ioan. that our Divines are asleep, when they expound this of the Passion of Christ. Daniel Cramerus quotes the very place of R. Samuel, to main­tain this Prophesie, Mercer in Comment. ad Cantic. c. 5. v. 10. as appertaining to Christs, against the Jews. He handles the controver­sie of the Blood here, whether is meant the Blood of Christ, Cramer. in Schola prophet. Class. 3. Passions or of his Enemies Passion, and would reconcile both, as making Christs victory to begin with his own Blood, and end with his enemies blood: and referres to the disputes of Lyra and Burgensis about it. Onely in an heat he falls foul upon Calvin, as did Hunnius, and must needs be very angry [Page 177] with him, because he will not altogether ex­pound Scriptures, as they do. Praestat, saith he, ut Calvinum, qui solus sapere vult, solum relin­quamus, ut solus sapiat. But his passion clouds his eyes, for others beside Calvin have seen that common way to have but poor grounds, as Junius and Tremelius, Mercer, Tarnovius, Musculus. This I say, not to disallow and throw by the Ancients in all things, but onely to stirre up Divines that have eyes, to use their eyes. Vide Ta [...] ­novium in excitat. Biblio. pag. 418. edit. 2 Pelargus and others have cited divers of the Ancients, applying this to the Crosse, and make it, Torcular passionis Christi; but their meaning is no way literally or directly to be found here.

Observe how fitly this Jew applies it to their Captivitie, The 11. Digression. Whom hath he trod in his wrath but us Jews? We are they that have been in the Winepresse this thousand years. Yet O the fear­full wish of this Jew, that though he be con­vinced to be a Christian, yet he wishes the Candles of conviction were blown out; here he speaks like a Jew indeed, that hates the clear prophesies of Christ. Would to God (saith he) when we slew the Prophet Esay, we had blot­ted out this testimonie of his, so manifestly poin­ting at Christ, that it might not be read and seen against us. Here he writes out of an ex­ceeding naturall love to his countrey-men and [Page 178] kinred the Jews in an extasie of Passion. The Apostle Paul has an extraordinary vote and desire another way, Rom. 9. and beyond rule, when he thinks of the miserie of his countrymen and kinred the Jews. This is to be beleeved, the Jewes will not lose, nor blot out any part of the Old Testament, no not that which seems most against them, though this man in a pas­sion write thus; for they most charily pre­serve it as their lives, and will not suffer it to be corrupted or mutilated in a word, syllable, or letter: Yea, so religiously do they devote themselves to the letter and writing of the Bible, Sal. Glassi­us in Phi­lolog. Sac. lib. 1. tract. 1. de Text Hebr. in vet. Test. puritate. that they say, if a man through igno­rance, malice or impietie, should change one word in the Bible, there is great danger the Lord for that inexpiable offence should throw the world back againe into its anci­ent indigested Chaos of confusion, be­cause God created this world onely for the Scriptures sake. Spanhem. in Dub. E­vang. p. 2. [...]ub. 88, 89 So exact are they, that no part of the Bible be either lost or corrupted, that they have noted down in their Masora, which they call The Hedge or Fence of the Law, not onely every word how oft it is used, but how oft it is in the whole Old Testament to be found with such a Pricke, or with such an Accent. Nay further, and which is a miracle of diligence and faithfulnesse, they [Page 179] have set downe how many Verses there are in every Book, and have numbred how often every letter is used in the Bible. As the let­ter Aleph or A is found by number to bee 42377 times. Beth or B 38218 times, and so have they taken notice of the rest, to re­member how often each letter is used. This doing, quickly would be discovered their un­faithfulnesse in leaving out or corrupting the Scriptures, and that by the Candlelight of their own industrie. Hereupon Austi calls the Jews Capsarios nostros, Austin in O [...]at cont. Iud. Pagan & Arian. The Christians Li­brary or Bible-keepers, because they with mar­vellous diligence have preserved the Old Te­stament from corruption and losse, even in corrupting and losing times; and are as wood­den Candlesticks to the Gentiles, holding out the light of the Law. He quotes the 49 Chapter of Genesis, which he calls the Booke of the Generation of the Creatures of Iudah, that is, Of the Children and Off-spring of Iudah. Well may I here take occasion to give a reason, why men onely sometimes are called the Creation, and the Creatures, and whence it arises. To which purpose our understandings may well and soundly take hold on this, that the word which signifies creatures, properly in common use among the Hebrews, signifies onely men sometimes, [...], as being the [Page 180] excellentest of subsolar Creatures. The same Phrase and manner of speaking is much ta­ken up in the Orientall Languages. Isaac Ca­saub. in E­pist. lib. Car Lab­baeo, Epist. 24. see Schind­ler in pen­taglott. in Bara. I shall call in my Witnesse, and he may stand for two or three, he is of such standing and perfection in the Academie of most exquisite learning, it is Hortibonus, or Casaubon. In the Arabick Geographie (saith he) in abundance of places we finde the frequencie and fulnesse of Cities thus described, the Author saith, that in them there are many Creatures, Plerum (que) de homi­nibus maxime in plurali usurpatur Coch. in Tit. Mac­coth. c. 3. that is to say, Men. This may well agree with our Samuel, who writ in Arabick, and this may be a good note af­fixed to the latter end of the 16 Chapter of Marks Gospell, to the illustration of it, Go into the whole World, and preach the Gospell to every Creature.

CHAP. XIII.

THe corporall Ascension of Christ he goes about to prove by those Scriptures, that speaks of the exaltation and elevation of God, which he saith must properly be meant of Christ, according to his humane nature, because the meer Deitie is subject to none of these Sites or Postures. That of Psalm 68 is applyed to the Ascension of Christ by S. Paul, Ephes. 4. so that R. Samuel the Jew is not asha­med [Page 181] to follow S. Paul the Apostle of the Gentiles, Ephes. 4. in beleeving and asserting the same truth.

He quotes something out of the Prophet Aser in his second Chapter, The 12. Digression but he forbears the prosecution of it upon this reason, because that Prophesie is lost, and is not to be found. The Translatour he brings his judgement a­bout the Prophet Aser, and reproves the igno­rance of R. Samuel, that he should think the Prophet Aser to be lost, when he is not. And his reason is, that the Prophet Aser and Hag­gai are all one, onely Haggai is the Hebrew Name, and Aser the Arabicke name of the same Prophet, which R. Samuel did not know, or at least did not call to minde when he writ so. Now it were good to unpire the matter betwixt Alphonsus the Spanyard, and Samuel the Jew, and upon looking into it, the Trans­lator will be found in some fault. Suppose there be some agreement betwixt Haggai and Aser, in their signification. Haggai signify­ing one that solemnizes and keeps a holy, and joyfull day of solemnities, that rejoyces festi­vally: and Aser comming of a Verbe that sig­nifies to make blessed and happy, which may accord in this, that the dayes of re-edifying the Temple, and Jerusalem, in which times Haggai prophecied, were holy, festivall and [Page 182] blessed dayes. Though there be some simili­tude, must there be Identitie? How doth Al­phonsus know that Aser and Haggai in the A­rabick Tongue are the same Prophet? This may be disproved two wayes. 1 1. Because R. Samuel writ in Arabick, lived among the Arabians, and being both a Jewish and an Ara­bick Doctor, he was likely to know as well as Alphonsus the names of Prophets in the Old Testament, both in Hebrew and Arabick. 2 2. If Aser and Haggai be all one, then let the Spa­nyard shew us this that he quotes in the Pro­phecie of Haggai, of a man ascending from the midst of the Sea, and comming up to Hea­ven. He must coyn a new Prophecie of Hag­gai, if he will finde this in it, for our Old Prophet, neither in first, or second, [...] Chapter has any such thing. However we speake of this obscure Prophet Aser, which cannot be found what he was, yet we may well conclude for the Authour against the Tran­slatour, that these words are not to be found in the Prophet Haggai.

Since these Notes I have found something that is like this which is quoted, but neither in R. Samuels obscure Aser, nor Alphonsus the Translators Haggai chap. 2. but in the Apo­cryphals of Esdras, 2 Esd. 13. 2, 3. Lo, there arose a winde out of the sea, and lo, that man waxed strong with [Page 183] the thousands of heaven. Iunius reads it, Qui­dam ut ventus, A certain man as the winde came from the sea. It should be translated a Man, not a winde that did rise out of the Sea; so the third Verse intimates, that man waxed strong, not that winde. For rising of the winde is not the thing, but the comparison accompanying and illustrating the appearance of the man. I think (pardoning the errour of the Authors and Translators Quotation, both of the Name, and the Book, and Chapter) I am the Oedipus of this Riddle. And it may well be his mean­ing was of this place, for in this book he doth (besides this) make use of the Apocrypha, as Chap. 19. he quotes a place out of Jesus the sonne of Syrach, and in chap. 20. he has out of the same Book. Besides, he is subject to some mistakes, for in that 20 chapter he cals it Salomons writing, when it is the Sonn of Syrachs: and in this 13 chapter he quotes a place in Esay, when it is in Ieremie,— Ali­quando bonus dormitat Hebraeus, calling Esdras Aser.

Among those were assumed into heaven, he names Methusalem, and takes it for a thing granted and known among the Jews. But we must beleeve Moses, who saith, that Methusa­lem when he had lived nine hundred sixty nine years, Gen. 5. 27. dyed, he doth not say he was transla­ted, [Page 184] which he had newly said of Enoch his Fa­ther. August. de Civ. D. lib. 15. cap. 11. The Greeks errour is, that he lived 14 years after the floud, and was with Noah in the Ark, which errour comes out of the Sep­tuagints false computation. And some of the Jews (it seems) are in this errour, that be­cause his Father was taken into heaven in his body and soul, so was Methusalem too. But they that compute and reckon according to the Hebrew numbring of the years, do agree, that Methusalem dyed that very year the flood came. Others think he dyed six years before the floud. He concludes the Chapter with as­serting the wonderfull birth of Christ, born of a Virgin, without a man, to be a very truth, and plainly foretold by the Prophets of God. Wher­in he grants for a truth one of those six things, which are the main Controversies betwixt the Jews and Christians. Ludovic. He takes indeed one place to prove the birth of Christ by a Vir­gin, Carret. in Epist. seu libro visor. divin. which I dare not say flatly that the Pro­phet did speak it with any relation to the birth of Christ. Ierem. 31. It is that of Ieremies, The Lord shall create a new thing upon the earth, a woman shall compasse a man. I know the stream of Expositours runn that way, to make it point at Christs Incarnation, both ancient and mo­dern, which made that Lutheran Beadle pro­vide so terrible a whip for Calvin, and lasht [Page 185] him with Calvinus Iudaizans, Calvin turn'd Iew, because he knew no reason why these words (and other places of Scripture) should be thought a plaine Prophecie of Christ. Neither the consequents, or the Antecedents do give any great light to that sense. And let a man perpend and consi­der it well, whether the interpretation of Calvin be so strange a thing to the mean­ing of the Prophets discourse and Sermon. He is speaking of Gods delivering his peo­ple from the power of Chaldeans, and it shall be so wonderfull, The word Sabab do [...]h not onely signifie to embrace lovingly, but in an hostile manner as an enemy, to encom­pase, be­siege and straiten▪ So is the word used in Psa. 22. 13. and 17. It is also plainly ta­ken for be­sieging Ec­cles. 9. 14. that he saith A wo­man shall compasse a man; that is, the weak and low-brought Israelites, that may seem to be compared to women, being furnished with new strength from God, shall pre­vail against the Chaldeans their potent ene­mies, that are strong men; and thus women may be said to bring men into straits. O­thers besides Calvin have thought this sence to be more litterall and proper to that place then to expound it of Christs Birth. The L. shall create a new th. up. e. a w [...]m. shall comp. a man: that is, This wonderfull and new thing will the Lord bring to passe, the Church of the Jews, that like a wandring and strange woman is departed from the Lord by rebellion and Idolatry, to whom [Page 186] she was betrothed once, [...] she shall come with bitter repentance, returning to her first Husband, & embracing him again gratiously whom she had vilely forsaken. This is that new and wonderfull thing that the Lord should create in this impenitent and wic­ked people, a new heart to return unto him. This is commonly called A new Creation. And if in this Calvin play the Jew, then Luther was a Jew, and divers others, who could not with their best eye sight, spie the Incarnation of Christ plainly and clearly in that Text of the Prophet. And if we do not take that peece to confirme Christs spotlesse birth, yet do we not want clear proofs and Prophecies against the gainsay­ing Jews, to make it appear as noon-day.

Against the applying of the Scriptures unduly and unproperly to Christ, the words of the ancient Pelusiot are ponderous, and precious; This course (saith he) puts har­nesse upon the Gentiles and Heretiques in their contentions with us; for when we tor­ture and wrest the Scriptures, which are not meant of Christ, to bring them to point at him, we bring suspicion upon those other Scrip­tures, which (without any wresting or wring­ing) do lay plainly their meaning in Christs bosome. Thom p. 1. [...] And the great Schoolmaster Aqui­nas [Page 187] writes with a Quill of the same Wing, Qu [...]mad­modum advocatus causam perd [...] vulgares & triviales conciona­tores saepe numero concionem habent cō ­tra hereti­cos, & eos impruden­ter adju­vāt. Sic ar­ma capien­da sunt ut hostis vul­nera sētiat. Nic. Cle­nard. epist. Abbati Tongella­rensi lib 1. Fesae. When a man, (saith he,) going about to make proof of the Christian faith, shall bring rea­sons whose clearnesse is not convictive, and in a sort coactive, that they cannot be denyed, he layes himself open to the scorn and derision of Infidels and unbeleevers, for they will present­ly conclude, that we lean upon these Reeds, and that these weak reasons are the inducements to our faith, and the grounds our belief lies upon. Whence we draw a Theologicall Canon, That Divine truths must be urged and con­firmed by indubitate and clear Testimonies, else it turns to the detriment of the sayers, and it will not convince the gainsayers.

CHAP. XVI.

SPeaking of Jews reprobation, and Gen­tiles election, he tels of the Jews proud boasting that they are the sonnes of Ia­cob and Israel; pride and contempt of all people in the world besides themselves, R Iachiad. in Para­phras. in Dan. cap. 7. Constant l' Emper. in Annotat. ad R. Iachi­ad ubi citar Abrabane [...]. is the proper fault of the Jews. He reasons the case here well, Why should they thus contemn and scorn the Gentiles? They say, they onely are Gods portion, and onely fall under the care of his Providence; and the Gentiles run at large without the guidance [Page 188] of Gods Providence: There is a saying much in the mouth of the Iews, Omnes se­ctarij subi­to pereant. yea, their Land of Ca­naan is the onely fit and apt place in the world to be the subject of Gods providence. With them, onely the Jews shall rise again, and the Gentiles shall have no resurrection. David shall confirm this their opinion in his first Psalm. In Maimo­nides his 13 Articles, he saith, They shall all pe­rish that do not be­leeve them Grotius in Annotat. ad lib. 2. ver. Christ. Relig. In their Talmud they say, It is not murther if a Jew kill a Gentile; nor is it perjury if he falsifie his promise to him, confirmed by oath. Yea, their Talmud commands them to hold the Christians in esteem as bruit beasts, and no otherwayes to use them, then as they use beasts. These, and many such like, lets us see how the Jews pride themselves, and cast the Chri­stians & Gentiles low enough in the Court of honour.

A learned Jew of these times treating of the Resurrection, Menas [...]h Ben Israel, de Resur. lib. 2. cap. 9. has a Chapter on this Head, An etiam Gentes resurgent, Whe­ther the Gentiles shall rise again, or no; he indeed concludes, they shall. What is the reason that the Jews every year on the eight day of the moneth Tebeth, which answers to our December, [...]. do keep a solemn Fast, sor­rowing and humbling themselves, in the remembrance of the Scripture translated by them into the Greek at the instance of Pto­lomaeus Philadelphus? Do they execrate and [Page 189] abhort the memory of that act? It seems it is out of meer hatred and envy that any good, or any knowledge of God should be scattered among the Gentiles. Act. 22. 21. 22. We hear of old they could not endure to hear Paul to speak one word more, 1 Thes. 2. 16 when they heard this from him, that the Lord said to him, De­part, for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles; so soon as this is mentioned, then they crie out Away with such a fellow from the earth, for it is not fit that he should live. In their Stories, Pet. Clu [...]. ac. ex Tal­mud. as that of R. Iosue Ben Le­vi, that was up and down heaven and Hell, he findes Christians, and abundance of all Nations in Hell, but we hear tell of no Jews there. It is well that God follows not the Jews rule, that scorn all but their own peo­ple, But in every Nation he that fears God, and works righteousnesse, and Gentile as well as Jew, is accepted with him.

CHAP. XVIII.

HE admirably agrees with S. Paul in the Application of the nineteenth Psalm to the preaching of the Gos­spell by the Apostles, Their sound is gone out into all the earth, and their words into the ends of the world.

CHAP. XIX.

HE applies the Prophecie of Ioel about the Old men dreaming dreams, and the young men seeing Visions, to the Apostles, and the abundant knowledge of God they had above former times, just as S. Peter applyes it Acts 2. so that he is an Asserter of the truth with Paul, he ap­plyes the predictions of the Prophets Evan­gelically with S. Peter, and will needs dis­cover himselfe a Christian every way. He makes one notable observation concerning the faith of Christ, That of the Apostles of Christ that embraced the Faith, not one of them did ever recant and return to em­brace the Jews faith any more. Iosephus the Jew does highly applaud the followers of Christ for their constancy. Writing of Christ, he saith, There was at that time one Iesus a wise man, if it be lawfull to call him a man. Mark how this Jew inclined to think there was a Deity in Christ, and something super humane. He proceeds. This same Iesus did bring to passe incredible works, and he was a Master to men that did receive the truth with much delight and pleasure in it. [...]. An­tiq. [...]ud lib. 1 [...]. cap. 14. Many Iews, and many Greeks did he draw unto him. [Page 191] This is he that was called Christ, whom when Pilate had caused to be crucified, being accu­sed of the chief of our Iewish Nation, yet they that loved him at first, would never give over loving him, and cleaving to him. A rare testimony is this of the constancy of Chri­stian Disciples and Followers of Christ. I omit that he saith of him, that he appeared alive again after three dayes, according as the Divine Prophets had foretold these, and many other admirable things concerning him. Is not Iosephus here turned Christi­stian too, making this to be him the Pro­phets spoke on?

CHAP. XX.

IN the twentieth Chapter he commends the purity and cleannesse of the Christi­an Rites and service by Bread and Wine, and prefer [...]s it before the medling with the flesh and fat of Beasts slaughtered for Sa­crifice by Jews. He makes Scriptures of the Old Testament plainly before-hand point at the bread and Wine in our Sacrament of the Lords Supper. Onely he puts in Wa­ter as well as Bread and Wine into that Sacrament, and will make good that new practise of mixt Wine by an old proof from [Page 192] Salomons Proverbs, where Wisdome pro­pounds mixt Wines: and so it was applyed to his hand long before him by S. Cyprian. Cyprian E­pist. 4. Cae­cilio lib. 2. And Cyprian indeed doth speak of mixing Wine with the Water in the Sacrament, and in that Epistle Dominica Traditio ser­vetur, at which the Papists shout for joy more then Boyes when they have found the black in the Bean, as imagining this to be a strong ground for their weak opinion of un­written Traditions. But herein our Romanists run away like Boyes with a wrong errand, for though Cyprian commend the mixing of Wine & Water, as Dominicam Traditionem, yet doth he not mean an unwritten Traditi­on, for he goes to prove it from the Scrip­tures, Ration. Di­vin. offic. lib. 2. c. 30. as from that of Water and Blood is­suing from our Saviours side on the Crosse. And he saith at the Institution our Saviour gave a mixed Cup. Consecra­tio valida est cum so­lo [...]ino. You may see Durands, and the Papists foolish mysteries in their mixing of water with their Wine. Tolet. lib. 2 de Institut Sacerdot. cap 25. In vino sanguis Christi, in aqua populus repraesenta­tur. And it is very true the Fathers in for­mer times of old did use Vinum baptiza­tum, Whitaker [...] d [...]sput. de Sa [...] Scrip cont. 1. Quaest. 6. cap. 12. or Crama Eucharisticum, Wine tempered with Water, as some call it, because in the places where they lived the Wine was so strong it had need to be [Page 193] well-tempered with water, at those times especially when they studyed the most so­briety and temperance, in drawing near in­to fellowship with Christ. Now Cyprians intent was not so much to prove, that we ought to use Water with our Wine, as to disprove the judgement and practise of the Water-Heretiques, Theod. Balsamon in schol. ad Synod. in Truilo Can. 32. the Aquarii, that did contend onely water was to be used in the Sacrament, and so did celebrate. These A­quarij were also called Hydroparastatae, an ancient Heresie, that defended water was onely to be used in the Sacrament. The Armonians that said, onely Wine without water was to be used, were both in ancient times counted Hereticks. Moreover, beyond all this, the Ancients some of them did not onely mixe cold Water, but (which some not acquainted with antiquity will wonder at) they did mixe hot water, or boyling water with the Wine. And this hot water they thus infused in way of devout significancy, to minde the faith of the Re­ceivers, that the Blood and water which flowed from Christs Side, were not dead and cold Elements, but that they were live­ly and effectuall; even hot water and blood, issuing from one, had yet the heat of life in him.

CHAP. XXIII.

HE hath a notable way to follow Alle­gories, and indeed the Genius of those times made many Christians in their writings on Scripture altogether Alle­goricall. That of Salomon, Better is a mor­sell of Bread with love, then a stalled Oxe with hatred, is a Pool well fisht, when he can catch this Fish in it, that it means the Christians bread in the Sacrament is more acceptable to God, then the Jews killing a fat Oxe for a Sacrifice. This Jew, as ou [...] Saviour said of the young man that came to him, and answered prudently, may well have it said of him, Verily he is not farre from the Kingdome of Heaven; for here he commends the New Testament, and gives an Epithite as high as he can to the Gospel of S. Matthew, calling it, The glorious Go­spell. And in it he praises that Statute of patience our Saviour will have observed by his subjects, If any man smite thee on the one Cheek, 16. Digres. turne to him the other also. This is better testimony, and fairer language, then the rabble of the Rabshakeh Jews, both cur­sing and cursed, do commonly give, who call the Gospell which is Evangelium, in scorn, [Page 195] Aven Gillaion, the Volume of lies, or va­ [...]ities. His perfidious fellow Rabbins will [...]ot thank him for writing so to the credit of the Gospell, Munster. in Annotat. ad Hebr. or praising any of the Pre­ [...]epts or Lessons of Christ; Evangel. they can read [...]im another Lecture out of a Book among [...]hem called Toledoth, Matth. c. 1. Iesus, Sed patibu­lo affixus interiit. wherein they [...]each to blaspheme high enough, Quid istud ad causam? and then they speak (as they think) well enough of Christ. Arnobius. That book is full of blasphemies, Wolsius in memorab. lect. Tom. 2 centen 16. cal­ling Christ Talui, De voce Halma Vir­gine & Iu­dëorum conv. tijs vide Iuni­um in Pa­rallel lib. 1. par. 4. A Gallows Clapper, or A hanged Thief; Mariam, Harriam, Mary the blessed mother of Christ they call An [...]heap of Dung. In their calling Mary (as my Author has it) Harriam, I know not whether he doe not rather meane Chorim, which is obscene and filthy in the sense of it. As for Hariah it signifies A woman great with Childe, and if they call her so, they do it to blot her Virginity, as if she were begot with Childe by man, Munster. in Annotat▪ ad. Hebr. and so (with mouthes running over with blasphe­my and lies) they call her Sonah, Evangel. a Whore, or unchaste woman, Matth. c. 1. the polluted one of the world. Sonah is the word by which Rahab is called [...]. 2. 1. The Apostles and Martyrs of Christ they call Lenones: the Bread in the Sacra­ment, A polluted Body; the Church, Errour, and Preaching, Howling. They call our Festivall of the Lord Day, the day of ruine [Page 196] and destruction; Domus cloacarum diruat De­us Hieron. de sanc. fid. the Christians little ones they call Vermine, or creeping things. They are commanded when they passe by the Churches or Oratories of Christians, to say this, The Lord destroy these houses of Office. Out of the word Jesu they make the num­ber by the Letters of 316. and there they have Curses and blasphemies scarce to be named. O [...] the patience of the just Jesus, that endures these wretches Hellish Blas­phemies, & doth not suddenly let the Ocean of his wrath on earth carry them with a strange Wave to the Ocean of everlasting fire in Hell.

CHAP. XXVI.

IN this Chapter, that God hath let the Jews fall from him by a flatt Apostasie, is the thing he would leave as a true conclu­sion in the conclusion of his Book, drawn from all the pre-cited Authorities, for them deeply to weigh and consider. Two things I specially minde in his Confession, which are meer Jewish vanities. I 1. The first, that they very earnestly, though very idlely, do look for another Messias then Jesus Christ, but all their expectations miscarry, proving abortive and uncomfortable. II 2. The second [Page 197] is, that the Jews in their empty imaginati­ons among themselves in their Synagogues, do whisper this as a truth, which is a clear lie, That their Messias was born in the Ba­bylonian Captivity, though he do not yet ma­nifest himself to Israel. For the first of these, how vainly they look after other Saviours, I shall prove by an Historicall exemplificati­on annexed to that speech of our Saviours to the Jews, Iohn 5. 46. to verifie it, I am come in my Fathers Name, and ye receive me not, if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive. Our Samuel could give us in a large Cata­logue, how oft the Jews have been gulled with Pseudo-Messiahs, and false-Christs, that came in their own name; and the poor Jews have madly doted on them, as the only pro­mised Messiah. 17. Digres. I shall endeavor to give some account of the notablest delusions that that people has groaned under in this kind. There were of these false-Christs, seducing many, some before the destuction of Ierusalem, and some after, which for methods and orders sake, we will in that manner reckon up.

I 1. There was one Theudas mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, Acts 5. 3 [...] ▪ who rose up, boast­ing himself to be some body, to whom a number of men, about 400 joyned themselves, who was slain, and all, as many as obeyed him, were scat­tered [Page 198] and brought to nought. Gerhard. Harmoniae Evangel. cap. 100. There is some difference about the time when this was, & whether Gamaliel mentioning one Theudas, & Josephus writes of another, not this same. This Theudas that Iosephus speaks of was when Cuspius Fadus was President of Syria, about the 46. year of Christ, and this in the Acts, it is thought, was of another, & of another time. Iosephus & Eusebius out of him, relates it thus, One Theudas a Magitian perswaded a great multitude of people, Euseb. hist. that taking all their wealth with them, Eccles. l. 2. c. 11. they should follow him to the River Iordan, and he being a Pro­phet, (at least inspired so with his owne boastings) they should see him divide the Streams with a word of his mouth, where­by they should easily passe over; with which promise he deceived very many. But Fadus sent some Troups of Horse out against them, that they gained little by this dotage, for they suddenly setting upon them, slew many, took many alive, and among the rest Theudas himself, whose head being cut off, they brought to Ierusalem. Iudas of Galilee was a captain to some Rebels also, Hegesip. excid. Hie­rosol. lib. 3. cap. 14. pro­mising to free the people from paying servile taxes to the Roman Emperour, whom they followed; but I know not whether he may be accounted among the false Christs. I [Page 199] omit another, Ioseph. An­tiq. lib. 18. cap. 5. that (as a cunning Impostor) led abundance of people after him to Mount Garazin, and deceived many Samaritans, whom Pilate set upon, and slew them, and brought their businesse to nought.

II The famous false Messias, was Barcochah, or Benchochab, that is, The sonn of the Star, for he made himself the Messias, and said that Scripture was spoke of him, Numb. 24. 17. There shall come a Starre out of Iacob, &c. Rabbi A­kiba, a famous Doctor among them as any in those times, when he saw him, he said, This is the King, the Messias. Of this Aki­ba they say Moses spoke that, O my Lord, send I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt send. Now this Barcochab was in Ierusalem before the destruction of it, as is said, and Akiba applyed unto him that of the Prophet Haggai, The desire of all Nati­ons shall come. This mans arising and reign­ing they judge was not long after the Passi­on of Christ. Galatin. l▪ 4 de Arcan. Cathol. ver. c. 20. To him not onely the com­mon people, but the chief Doctors and Rab­bies did give consent and counsell, and did aid him against the Romans, untill he pe­risht, and caused many to perish, so as af­terwards they said his name was not Benco­chab, but it was Bencozbi, The son of a lie.

III Simon Magus would needs act the part [Page 200] of a false-Saviour, Hierom. in c. 24. Matth Aug de Haeres. and carryed many after him, exceedingly bewitching and seducing the Samaritans and many others, saying of himself that he was the great power of God, Daneus in Aug. the Word of God, the faire one, the Comforter, the Almighty, the All things of God. He said of himself, That he was God the Father that gave the Law on Mount Sinai; Hegesipp. excid Hie­rosol. lib. 3. c. 2. that Christ did not suffer really in the flesh, but he himself was Christ, and he called a Whore that went about with him, one Helena, the Holy Ghost.

IV After the destruction of Ierusalem some 48 years and an half, Porchet. was that other nota­ble Cheat called Bencozbi, Galati [...]. a second famous Impostor of the same name with the for­mer; Gen. brard. so blinde and madd were the Jews, Gerhard. that they never remembred how sore they paid for the entertaining of the other, that had the same name and folly. I know the Jews write somewhat confusedly concern­ing these Barcochabs, and for most part men­tion little of the first, but attribute all to this last; yet others finde out there were two of them, and that out of their Wri­tings. Very much is said of this last, whose doings swallow up the memory of the first. The Jews that remained after Je­rusalem was destroyed, made a Citie cal­led [Page 201] Bitter, the Metropolis and chief seat of the Kingdom, and took this false Christ for their King. Nay, R. Akiba, they write, was blinded the second time, and proclaimed this Barcochab the Messias also. The Em­perour Adrian besieged them in the Citie Bitter three years and an half, at length he took it, and the head of Barcozbi was smit­ten off: in which War 45000 Jews were slaughtered; but make room for the Jew, his mouth runns over, and he cannot speak a lie, but it must be of the first magnitude, and exceed all lies, for they write, that the Emperour Adrian slew in Bitter four hun­dred times ten thousand, till the blood of the slain, like a river, rolled great stones in the stream of it, and carryed them into the Sea, which was four miles distant from the Citie. Nay, that all lyars may take a pat­tern, the Emperour Adrian (they say) had a Vineyard 18 miles in length, and 18 in breadth, and yet he hedged it about with the bodies of them that were slain in Bit­ter. Many other Hyperboles, none of the least, they have about this Barcozbi, which I omit. In the Talmud they write, that Barcozbi said to the Rabbins, In Gemara Sanhedrim. cap. 11. sect. 15. ex vers. Io. Coch. I am the Mes­sias. The wise Masters of the Jews said to him again, It is written of the Messias, [quod [Page 202] odorans erit & judicans] Hee shall smell and judge, R David. Ganz Por­chet. in vi­ctor. cont. hebr. part. 1. cap. 10. Esay 11. 3. That is, he shall judge by smelling who is innocent, and who is guiltie; Let us see therefore whether thou beest able to judge by smelling; and when they saw his smel­ling was without this judgement, they slew him. This will scarce agree with so great a slaughter of Barcozbi, and all his people, by Adrians Forces. But certain it is, many Jews were now sacrificed to the Romans furie by their sword, that the Lord might thorowly execute his wrath upon them. This false Christ, they say, his reign and rule was some thirty years and a half, and some make it foretold in those words of Daniel, Dan. 11. 34▪ Rab Iachi­ad paraph. in Daniel. paraphrasing them thus, Now when they shall fall (that is, the Israelites in the destruction of the Temple under Titus) they shall be holpen with a little help in the King­dom of Bitter, (which remained to the 52 year after the destruction of the Temple) and many Israelites shall joyne with them in Bitter: but with flatteries, &c. Of this Barcozbi all our writers make mention, that speak of those times, and say, he tormented Christians (whiles he had power) with all kinde of punishments, Iustinus Martyr. and put many to death, Euseb. hist. lib. 4. cap. 8. if they would not deny and blas­pheme Christ. He is called by Eusebius, [Page 203] Barchochebas, [...]. He is called by Hierome in his Catalogue of Church Doctors, Hierom. in Catalog. that were Writers of Books, Mellific. histor. P [...] ­tavius in Rationar. in the life of one Agrippa, surnamed Castor, Chocibus; and in that Book made Greek by Sophronius, Temp. [...]; others call him Cuziba, Mornaeus. but under all these names is meant this sonn of a lie, Io: Phison. Barcozbi, who na­med himself the son of a starre; Dugo in Christian. Institut. if he were, it was like the bitter Starr Absynthites, or Wormwood, that in the Citie Bitter brought such sore destruction upon his Countrey­men. And yet Rabbi Lipman, the most blasphemous of all Jewish Doctors, was not ashamed to write, that this Bencozbi was one of the lawfull and right Princes of Isra­el, and of the familie of David; and his reason is, because when he said, I am the Messias, the Rabbins never asked him, Art thou of the Family of David? He judges they took it for granted, that he was so. But this may well beseem the lying lip of Lip­man, Writ about the year 1549. who hath writ a Book called Nitza­chon, Buxtorf. in Biblioth. or, his book of victory and triumph over the Gospell of Christ; Rabbinica. in which the blasphe­mous Spider will needs finde lies, falshoods, and vain things, and poysonous untruths, to make Christ and our Religion ridiculous. Some learned Christians have answered [Page 204] blasphemous Hebrew, aud his Nitzachon, as Munster in his Annotations to the Hebrew Gospell of Matthew. Postellus follows Munster, and we shall shortly see with us the learned Constantine L'Emperour, fully confuting this Nitzachon, so as to make such blaspheming Jewes leave all their cursed croaking and coaxation, [...]. and make them as mute as the Seriphian Froggs, and give no croaking sounds at all. Of Rabbi Akiba they write, that his Companions some nine were taken with him when Gozbi perisht, and they were put to cruell deaths, [...]. Gen [...]. in Annotat. ad Mos. Maimon. [...]. for Akiba (if we durst beleeve them) was put to death by an Iron Comb, with which his flesh was torn off his body. And thus farr we have gone to shew the Tragedy of Ben­cochab, and Jewish dotage.

V In the Reign of Theodosius the second, came Moses of Crete to act his part of a false Saviour, Ann. 434. giving out he was sent from Hea­ven, and was a second Moses, he would lead al the Jews that followed him, thorow the sea to the Continent, dry-shod. For a year toge­ther he perswaded them in their Cities and Townes, to leave all their riches and follow him, & he would carry them to the promi­sed Land. At an appointed day to passe the Sea, great multitudes of men, women and [Page 205] Children repaire to him, whom he brings to an high Promontory hanging over the Sea, he bidds them cast themselves down, which multitudes did, Soc [...]a. hist. and perisht, being dasht in pieces on the Rock, Eccles. lib. 7. cap. 3 [...]. or drowned in the Sea. Many were saved, that were about to cast themselves down, by some Christi­an Merchants and Fishers, that disswaded them from so madd and murderous an Act, and who helpt to draw many out of the Sea, and saved them from drowning. The Jews seeing the great Delusion, thought to lay hands upon the Impostor, but their false Moses, as if he had been a true Devill, was gone and vanisht they knew not whether, nor how. This was an occasion to bring many Jews to embrace the Christian faith, and to leave the way of Judaism, subject to such dangerous and costly deceits.

VI Of another false Prophet Moses Mamoni­des makes mention, who arose in the Sou­thern parts, and told the people he was the fore-runner of the Messias, and that in those parts he should shortly appear, and he in­vited them, Come ye with me, and let us goe meet the Messias, Ex Epist. R. Mos. ad Iudae [...]s in Marsili [...]. for he hath sent me unto you, that I may prepare the way before him. After a year he was taken, they that did cleave to him fled away, and an Arabian King that [Page 206] took him, asking him why he did this, and he answering, I did it by command from God: he further demanded, What Miracle or wondrous thing canst thou do to con­firme this? He replyed, My Lord the King, cut off my head, and after that I will rise again, and live as I did before. The King said, Thou canst not do a greater thing then this, bring but this to passe, and then I and all the world shall beleeve thy sayings are true and good, and that our Ancestors have inherited vanity and lies, which profited them not. His head by the Kings appoint­ment was cut off, but he never yet was as good as his word, to appear alive again, though some Jews are so devoid of judge­ment, as to expect his reviving, and look for his appearing. [...].

There was Rex Thaborius, one called the King of Thabor, that would needs be a Mes­sias, whom Charles the fift caused to be burnt. Maimonides reckons up four more obscure false Christs, that did arise among the Jews in Spain and France, and brought mise­ry upon themselves aud the Jews.

VII Among these Impostors was David El-David, Ann. [...]35 or David Elroi, in the Citie Oma­dia, subject to the King of Persia; he had some Power by Praestigiation and Magique, [Page 207] whereby he did work great Signes, and marvellous things, and gathered people to make warre with all Nations. Buxtorf ex lib▪ Scheb. Iud. Some said this great power of his was from the speci­all vertue of God in him, and as he called himself, Gul. Vorst. ex Mose Maimon. so they counted him the Messias, as he said to the King of Persia, I am the Messias, and God hath sent me to deliver the Children of Israel. The King cast him in Prison, and said, If thou canst deliver thy self; I shall know thereby whether thou be the Christ or no: if thou dost not deliver thy self, I will put thee to death, because thou art a fool. But the Jugler got from Bonds, and though the King sent Horsmen, and great strength to take him, yet they returned, and said, they could do nothing; for they fable, that in one day he could passe over as much ground as would serve one ten dayes ordinarily to travell, by the Art of Schemamphoras. Here­upon the King himself and his Nobles did assay to overtake, and take him, and com­ming to a rivers side they called on him, though they saw him not; he answered, Are ye not fools? Behold, I go my journey, if you have any power, follow me. He spread his Handkerchief upon the flood Gozan, and so he presently passed over, the King and his servants seeing it, and beholding it. Then [Page 208] the King broke out, No man can do this, but he whom the King of the world hath ordained King; and he would needs make him King, but that his Nobles endeavoured to per­swade him, that many such things might be done by meer Magique, & eye-delusion. At length the Jews (to prevent the great misery that was comming upon them by reason of him) used means to get him to a Feast and banket; Benjamin. in Itinerar. after which (being asleep in his drun­kennesse) his head was cut off, and there was the end of the cheat-Saviour.

VIII I name but another crack in the Jews brain, Pet. Cluni­ac. lib. con­tra Iud. c. 4. and then I leave this doting upon false Christs. A King in Africa made warre a­gainst the King of Marocco, who oft having the day, (to get a better part in the hearts of his people) by a fained humility, he would needs ride alwayes upon an Asse, which got him a name, that he was called The King of Asses. The fame of which, meeting with the Jews ears, (most shut to the true Christ, most open to false Christs) they presently erect their hearts with hope, and are ready to say as Andrew, VVe have found the Mes­sias. Many of them affirmed, the King of whom Zacharie prophesied, Zach. [...]. he should come riding upon an Asse, was now come. Thus the Oxe knows his owner, and the Asse [Page 209] his Masters Cribb, but the Jews will not know, nor consider, but are ready to follow every Asse, sooner then to embrace Christ. I suppose, one may probably guesse, this may be he that was called Bejezid, Leo Afri­can. in de­scrip. Afric. the Prea­cher; who was famous for this Title, Asi­ninus Eques, the Knight of the Asse, and had an Army of 40000. By this time we have made R. Samuels words good, that they have in vain looked for a Saviour, and yet all their profit hath been put in a bagge with holes. 18 Digres.

II I fall upon a second note, their conclusi­on maintained among them, That their Mes­sias is come, and was born in the Babylo­nish Captivitie. Our Christian Jew well confutes this, because none ever lived a thou­sand years upon earth, by the confession of all men. Methusalem, the greatest Heir of gray hairs & long life upon earth, had his thred spun forth to 969 years, none had more. But if Christ were born in the desolation of the se­cond house, at the time of Samuels writing his Book, he should be a thousand and fifty years old, and who but a Jew can have a faith bigge enough to receive and beleeve such a fable? Divers do beleeve their Mes­siah was born then, and that he is kept se­cret by God, and must hereafter be mani­fested [Page 210] to Israel. Munster. de fide Iu­deor. Well, where is this Mes­siah all this while? Some say, God keeps him in the Garden of Paradise, till the time appointed come; and in Paradise, if one could get in, they might finde him fast ty­ed to the hair of a woman, nay, and they have Scripture for it too in Canticles 7. 5. Thine head upon thee is like Carmel, and the hair of thine head like Purple, the King is held in the Galleries. You must here favour their Interpretation, and take the Galleries for Paradise, and take the King for the Mes­sias; and then you must suppose, when its said. He is held in the Galleries, that he is held by a womans hair, which is here said to be like Purple. Rabbi Salomon, though he have a wise name, is not ashamed to have too much respect to this wise Exposition. Others say he is all this while about the City of Rome, in Gemara sanhedr. c. 11. sect. 33. and he sits among the Beg­gars, and Lepers, and such as are full of sores and botches; or he lies in Vaults, and pla­ces under the earth, rent and gnawed by Dogs; and he shews his wounds, the ef­fects of those gnawings▪ and that he suf­fers all this for the iniquities and sinnes of the Jews, Pet Cluni­ac. contr. Iud. c. 3. according as they say it is written, He was wounded for our iniquities, for our sinnes was he bruised, Esay 53. Mark how [Page 211] they see, and yet are blinde; they see that Prophesie points at Christ, and will not see it fulfilled in our Christ. Many blinde gues­ses, & bold predictions they have had, setting down a year, when the Messias should ap­pear, but all of them have left them lyars, and added to their misery perpetuall fru­strations. Rabbi Salomon gave them hopes, that their new Law should begin at the de­vastation of the Temple, about 1390. but herein he had Daniel his strong adversary, and they failed in their waiting. Postel. de concord. orb t [...]rae lib. 4. One Zaa­dias gave them hopes at the year 1200, but there their Egg was addle also, and brought them forth nothing but winde. They had a generall appointment of a publick repen­tance among all the Jews, men, women and Children, old and young, all over in the Captivitie, Munster. kept almost a whole year in hu­miliation, never such humbling so solemn­ly, since their humbling in the year of Christ 1502, for the comming of their Christ; and yet all this was answered with a nullity of any Signe, Miracle, Whisper, concerning any new Saviour; and they were forced to conclude, All our supplica­tions, humiliations, and prayers are nothing but emptinesse, and rejected of God. Rabbi Abraham Avenares set down a year for [Page 212] their Messias to come 1444, Vossius de Orig Ido­lolat lib. 2. c. p. 48. when Iupiter and Saturn should meet in Cancer; but his Astrologie was a meer Cancer, proved Crip­ple, and creeping too short of performance. Abravenel sets down another year in the conjunction of Pisces, and they caught no fish in their Net that year 5224. At length they are come to a wise resolution, In Gemara Sanhedr. cap 11. sect. [...]0. Let their Bones be broken, and let them breath their last, Vae deter­minantibꝰ tempus adventus Messiae. that compute years, and set down any pe­riods or limits of time. They have been so often gulled, they will hearken to no con­jectures any more. It were well they would make this Resolution as Brasse, Mornaeus de verit. and strong as Iron. Christ. re­lig. cap. 29. Themselves in this Confession grant they are in a Cloud of confusion, and and that they are blinded of God, and know not what to do. Nor are they such as de­ny large Confessions of the blindnesse of their times; for if the first were the sonnes of men, we are, they say, meer Asses, nay, we are not so good as an Asse. R. Afhu, being asked when the Messias should come by a prophane and wicked man, Porchetus ex R. Zera. he answe­red, Then when darknesse shall possesse you. He said to him, Thou curses me; but he reply­ed again, It is the word of the Scripture, Be­hold, darknesse shall cover the earth, and grosse darknesse the people, but the Lord shall arise [Page 213] upon thee, Gemar. and his glory shall be seen upon thee, Esay 60. 2. Sanhedr. cap. 11. sect. 36. In which he plainly confesses, no marvell if the Jews stumble, because they shall be left in a thick spirituall Myst of blindnesse. Esay 6. Blindnesse in part is happen­ed to Israel, Ro. 11. 25. untill the fulnesse of the Gen­tiles be come in. Figveiro in Malac. They frame their faith into an imagination of two Messiahs that shall come, Porchet. the one the sonne of Ioseph, the other the sonne of David; His glorie is like the firstling of a Bullock, Deu. 33. 17. that is, the sonne of Ioseph. Zach. 9. 9. He is lowly, riding upon an Asse, and upon a Colt the Foal of an Asse; Buxtorf. this is their Messias the sonne of David. Both these they will needs finde in the 32 of Esay, Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters, Man [...]s [...]h Ben Israel. de resur. mort. l 3. c. 5. that send forth thither the feet of the Oxe and the Asse. These two are both but one Iesus Christ, for he was the sonne of Ioseph that was betrothed to his Mother, his son, not by the flesh, but by education and bringing up. Rursus l. 3. c. 11. Besides, he was the son of David by the glorious Virgin his Mo­ther, who by the flesh descended from the Seed of David. Messias the son of Ioseph being dead, Messias the son of David (they beleeve) shall raise him again. Their Mes­sias shall make them great Feasts, and Mar­ry a Wife, Kings daughters shall be among [Page 214] his honourable women: on his right hand shall stand his Queen in Gold of Ophir. The Kings of the world will think themselves highly honoured, if any of them could get the Messias to marry their daughter. He shall be­get Children, and see his childrens children, and after he shall die as other men: but his children shall rule and reign over Israel. And whiles they are thus under their Messias, the Christians shall do all their works & drud­gery without any wages, Earth shall bring forth fruits for them presently after they are sown; all kinde of pleasure & peace shal they have, &c. Thus they grow up from dotage to dotage, and wander without end, in the framing to themselves a carnall Saviour, and a sensuall salvation. Let the 11 Chapter of the Gemara of the Sanhedrin be perused, and there is enough from the Jews to stop the mouthes of the Jews concerning the ex­pectation of any other Messiah besides Iesus Christ. My intentions are not a f [...]ll confu­tation of them, but onely the confirmation of Samuels Arguments.

CHAP. XXVII.

HE pleads against the Jews, that they (through incredulity and obstinacy) [Page 215] will not receive Christ, by the testimony of Saracens and Mahumetans concerning him: Whence we note, 19 Digres. that Christs bitterest and blasphemousest enemies are the Jews, his own Countreymen, and Brethren after the flesh. Venit ad suos, & sues eum non recepe­runt, as the Waldenses in their Writings have it. Socra. hist Eccles. l. 5 c. 20. They are pertinacious and st [...]ffe-hearted, nothing will convince them. Sab­batius a Jew was baptized and made a Chri­stian Minister, R. David Ganz. in Tzemach David, seu Chronol. sacro pro­phan. he yet afterwards did secret­ly abide in his Jewish infidelitie. When any of their Zealots are put to death for some pranks against Christ, and Gospell, as blasphemy or perfidiousnesse, yet if their Writers mention it, their evill deaths are commonly set out with this phrase, Idem▪ He was slain [propter sanctificationem Dei] for the sanctifying of God; Hebrae [...] quidam contra a [...] ­mi [...] tentiam baptizat [...] abluerunt baptismū Cedren ad Imperat I [...]eon. [...] reg [...]. Hector Pintus in Ezechiel, c. 1. 16. as they say of R. Mordechai at Norenberge. R. Ganz relating how five thousand Jews were put to death, he saith they were burnt in fire [propter sanctificatio­nem Dei, neque stultitiam vel peccatum tri­buerunt Deo] nor charged they God with sin or folly, that is, They did not renounce their Judaisme. R. Amnon publikely san­ctified the Lord by his death. So Rabbi Abraham sanctificavit seipsum propter nomen proprium, seu Dei. A Christian [Page 216] disputing with Jews at Rome, when by Scripture he clearly convinced them, yet they remitted nothing of their pertinacie; nay one of them answered, Although thou shouldest shew it to me as clear as the Noone-dayes light, that Christ is the Messias, yet I am resolved of one thing, I will not beleeve it.

It is reported at Coleine there was a Jew (as was thought) converted to the Chri­stian Faith, initiated by Baptism, growing up to many years, a little before his death he rejected with execration the Christian Religion, and professed his Jewish mis-be­lief, which, it was judged, he had abando­ned. Hereupon dying they made this Em­bleme be infixed on his Tomb; Lau Bayer link. in theatr. Mag. a Mouse is represented pursuing a Catt, with this In­scription, Quando mus felem capiet, Iudaeus etiam conversus manebit Christianus; VVhen a Mouse shall catch a Cat, then a Jew, converted to be a Christian, will remain a firme Christian. By which it is in a manner concluded, that it is amongst incredibles, to think that any Jew will heartily convert and turn to Christ. Yet God has a time, and a power, and a way to raise up these stones, and make them children to Abraham. Ʋsquequo Domine. O for the time when the Jews shall be seene mourning over Jesus, whom they have pierced!

[Page 217] The last thing is induction of Alcoran Te­stimonies concerning Christ, some have done it besides this man, as Dionysius à Ric­kel. It was the good intent of the Jew, to shame his Countreymen any way out of their infidelity, and might be provoked by the very Turks to think and speak better of Christ. 20 Digres. But here is the Poyson, if they write one syllable of truth concerning Christ, they line it with so many Lies, as makes it abominable. Euthimius in Panopl. Dogmat. Sylb [...]rg [...]i Saruc [...]nica seu Maho­metica. Postell. Concord. Orb. Terrae This is one of their sentences concerning Christ, The Word of God, and his Spirit entred into Mary the sister of Moses and Aaron, and she without Seed did bring forth Iesus Christ, who was a Prophet and ser­vant of God. Mark what non-Divinity is here, not speaking as the Gospell speaks, The Word of God and Spirit entred into Ma­ry. Mark what non-sense and non-reason is here, that Mary the Mother of Christ was the same with Miriam the sister of Moses and Aaron, whereas that Miriam lived thou­sand [...] of years before Mary Christs Mother was born. I could alledge some good say­ings of theirs concerning Christ, but that the Devill is to be rebuked speak he never so well. Ex lib. Su­neh In So­ [...]a E [...]nesae. They say Jesus the son of Mary shall descend from Heaven to earth in the day of the Resurrection, and shall judge the world [Page 218] in it with just judgement. In Tesche­re Elimam. Again, Iesus shall slay men, and shall bring forth Gog and Ma­gog, and they shall die, but Iesus shall remain alive, and they that partake of his faith. What ever they say of Christ it matters not, for though they make him great, yet they put him but as a Servingman to Maho­met, whom they alwayes exalt higher. It is verily beleeved, they say, by many wise and learned Heads, Richard. ord. Praedi­cat. in con­futat. Al­corani c. 13 even in Arabia, and followed with reasons to prove it, that the first Au­thor of the Alcoran was not man, but the Devill, exceedingly envying the Faith of Christ in the Orientall Parts very much spreading, and Idolatry decaying, to the de­struction of which Christian faith this Hel­lish invention he supposed might mightily prevail. A Religion it is full of vanitie, so as their Alcoran may well without tongue-stumbling be called Acheron, there are so many both doltish, and Devillish untruths and vanities in it. This we write not from vain hearsayes, and far off reports, their Al­caron, and other Mahumetan Volumes of Divinity being translated long since into the Latine Tongue, and to be found amongst us. The like did Postel­lus under­take. Yet if any desire sufficient witnesse, the learned Clenard of Lovan will be admitted by all to speak truth in this, as being be­yond [Page 219] exception, who lived amongst them a long time, spending his last studies and age in Africa, of purpose to learn the Arabick Tongue, Clenard. in Epist. ad Carolum Cae [...]arem August. and to confute the Alcaron in its own Language, if God had given him ex­tent of life to perfect his intents. These he relates as parts and Parcels of their Divine Volumes. I 1. That Mahomet had a far grea­ter spirit of prophesie then Christ. II 2. That Mahomet had but just 14 white Hairs in his head and Beard. III 3. That there shall be far more women in Paradise then men. VI 4. That an old woman praying to Mahomet, he would commend her to God, and give her a place in Paradise, he smiled on her, and said, not one old woman enters Paradise. Not to name the Paradise promised to them to be like a pleasant place provided for lusts of Boyes, and fair women; that the Sunne and Moon ride upon Horses; that when the Moon was in pieces Mahomet sewed it together again. In the Chapter Elgem is written, that the Devils are pleased with the Alcoran, and much delighted in it. It is much for their credit to make their Alcoran the Devils, and to say it pleases them. Such as this is their Divinity, or Vanitie rather, which should call for our Tears rather then our Laughter, considering how farre this Do­ctrine [Page 220] of Soul-delusion, Quid enim est hod [...]è Christia­ni [...]mus, si sp [...]ctes Gentes Mahometi? nimirum quod olim Iudaea comparata mundo re­liquo. Cle­nard lib. 1. and Damnation is spread. For profession of Christianity, if we look at Mahometan Kingdomes, and Countreys, carries no larger bulk, then as Jewrie once compared to the whole world besides. And now (to our shame) these lat­ter times are become the sink of all Here­sies, some are become so unchristian, as they are almost Mahometans by faith and doctrine. For are there not amongst us that are Ari­ans, Epist. Iac. La [...]mo praeceptori. Socinians, Puccians, Antitrinitarians, and do not all these conspire in divers points of Religion with the very Turkish Alcoran? Was it not Sergius a Nestorian, and John an Arrian, that helped to compile and make the Alcoran? Do not the Arians and So­cinians say as scornfully of the eternall Godhead of Christ, as the Mahometans do, How could God have a sonne since he has not a Wife? Did not Servetus (a father of the Socinians) say, So [...]in. in epist. [...]. ad Dudith. that the Alcoran of Maho­met, and the Doctrine of the Church might well be reconciled, Puccius de univers. Redemp. if the doctrine of the Trinitie were but left out? Our Puccians, Socinians, and others among us, say, that all men, whether Lutherans, Calvinists, Ana­baptists, Arians, so they live piously and honestly, without doubt shall be saved? So saith the Turkish Alcoran, that every one [Page 221] of good life, See Ru­therfords Survey. whether Jew or Christian, and that worships God, shall be made partaker undoubtedly of the Divine love.

Immortality of the soul is more sleighted by some of ours, Azoar. 12. then ever it was by the Mahometans. Beza ep. 81▪ Me [...]ch. A­dam in vita Gerlachii. And this is notoriously known in the world amongst Divines, that if any Christians turn Mahometans, they begin with Arianisme, and Socinianisme, and then Turcisme is not so strange a thing. Calovi [...]s in Pseudo Theol. So­cin. ort. Iohn Paul Alciat, and Adam Neuser, after (with Soci­nus) they had oppugned the Doctrine of the Trinitie, they turned Turks, and embraced the Doctrine of Mahomet. It is the just hand of God, that they who curiously and scornfully touch that flaming mysterie of Faith, God manifest in the flesh, and the high Doctrine of the Persons, whiles they can­not finde it in reason, they burne both their reason and religion in the flame, Mortuis autotibꝰ hujus ve­neni, scele­ra tamen eorum, & doctrina non mori­untur. and chuse to deny the doctrine, because they cannot descrie it by humane reason. Thus the ancient Monsters of Blasphemie, though they be dead, yet their errours and wickednesse die not. I conclude with that of Petrarch, which, Phaebadius Episc. in lib contra Arian. O that it had the like or better ope­ration in our hearts, and if our hearts be right, they will thus rise; The more, saith he, I hear spoken against Christ, it makes me love [Page 222] Christ the more, Petrarc. de ignorantia suiips. & multor. and grow firmer in the Faith▪ [Saepe me Christum ipsum Testor de Christia­no Christianissimum Haereticorum fecere blas­phemiae;] I call Christ to witnesse, oftentimes the blasphemies of Hereticks of Christian have made me most Christian; have brought me from a lesse degree, to a more high degree in the Christian Faith.

To summe up all, consider but how this Jew hath (like a Christian) professed Christs sinnlesse Conception and Birth of a Virgin, his Divinitie, that he is the Son of God, the Righteous One; that he lived poorly, by the Jews was miserably Crucified, that he was Buried, rose again, ascended into Hea­ven; that he shall come again gloriously to judge the world; that hee hath cast off the Jews because they will not beleeve in him; that he beleeves the Gospell to be a glorious truth, and the Christian Religion onely pleasing to God, and all Jewish Rites abominable: and lastly, that he writes none can be saved that do not beleeve this, that Christ is the Sonn of God, and the alone promised Messiah; and for not receiving this, the Jews are captived and accursed, and under Gods great wrath, whiles they look for salvation by any other. All this conside­red, what hinders but we may be bold to say [Page 223] of R. Samuel, Behold a Christian Israelite indeed, in whom remains no Jewish guile.