with them; for innumerable testimonies of the Scriptures rise up directly against their infidelity, and they can never keep their station, but by a horrible corruption of them through their traditions. On this account, it is a common thing with them, in the advice which they give unto their disciples, to advise them to prefer the study of the Talmud before the study of the Scripture, and the sayings of their wise men before the sayings of the prophets; thus plainly expressing an utter disregard of the written word, any farther than as they suppose the sense of it explained in their oral law. Neither are they here forsaken by their associates. The principal design of all the books which have been lately published by the Romanists, and they have not been a few, hath been to prove the certainty and sufficiency of their traditions, in matters of their faith and. worship, above that of the written word.

$ 20. Fifthly, There are some few remaining among the eastern Jews, who reject all this story concerning the oral law, and professedly adhere unto the written word only. These the masters of their present religion and persuasion do, by common consent, brand as heretics, calling them Scripturists, or Scripturarians, or Biblists, the very name of reproach wherewith the Romanists stigmatize all those who reject their traditions. These are their p, that is, Biblists or Scripturarians; and every where they term them, heretics, and endeavour to prove them guilty of heresy in the highest degree. Some would have them to be the offspring of the old Sadducees, to deny the resurrection, and the world to come, as men usually care not much what they impute unto those whom they esteem heretics. But the falsity hereof is notorious, and so acknowledged by others, and confuted by the writings of the Karæans themselves. Yea, the author of Cosri affirms, that they are more studious in the law than the Rabbins; and that their reasons were more weighty than theirs, and lead more towards the naked sense of the Scripture. But this they charge upon them, namely, that rejecting the sure rule of their traditions, they run into singular expositions of the law, and so divided it, and made many laws of it, having no certain means of agreement among themselves. So saith Rabbi Jehuda Levita, the author of the

הקראים כפי סברתם ירבו התורות,fore-mentioned Cosri

The Karæans multiply laws according to their own opinion,' for which he inveighs against them after he had commended them, as is mentioned above. And the same is-objected against them by Maimonides, on Pirke Aboth; as though it were not known, that the greatest part of their Talmud, the sacred treasury of their oral law, is taken up with differences and disputes of their masters, with a multitude of various opinions and contradictory conceptions about their traditions. Thus deal the Ro

manists also with their adversaries: this they charge them with. They are heretics, Biblists, and, by adhering to the Scripture alone, have no certainty among themselves, but run into diversities of opinions, because they have deserted the unerring rule of their Cabala; though the world is filled with the noise of their own conflicts, notwithstanding the pretended relief which they have by means of their traditions.

It remains that we consider how these traditions come to be communicated unto others, out of the secret storehouse wherein originally they were deposited. This, as I have elsewhere, and partly before declared, was by their being committed unto writing by Rabbi Juda Hakkadosh, whose collections, with their expositions in their Talmud, do give us a perfect account, if we may believe them, of that secret law which came down unto. them by oral tradition from Moses. And something like this is pretended by the Romanists. Many of their traditions, they say, are recorded in the rescripts of popes, decrees of councils, and constitutions of the canon law, and other such sacred means of declaring the oral instructions of our Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles.

But herein the Jews deal with us far more ingenuously than they. They tell us plainly, that now their whole oral law is written, and that they have no reserve of authentic traditions, not yet declared. So that where Austin says of his adversaries, Nescit habere præter Scripturas legitimas et Propheticas, Judæos quasdam traditiones suas quas non Seriptas habent, sed memoriter tenent, et alter in alterum loquendo transfundit, quam deuterosin vocant-Either he knew not of the Mishna that was then written, or this opinion of secret traditions was continued until the finishing and promulgation of the Babylonish Talmud, which was sundry years after his death. But here the Romanists fail us; for although they have given us heaps upon heaps of their traditions, by the means afore-mentioned, yet they plead that they have still an inexhaustible treasure of them laid up in their church stores, and in the breast of their holy father, to be drawn forth at all times as occasion shall require.

And thus have we taken a brief prospect of the consent of both these apostate churches, in that principle which hath been the means of their apostasy, and is the great engine whereby they are rendered incurable therein.

a Aust. lib. 2. Con. adver. Leg, et Prophet. cap. 1.

K2

EXERCITATION VIÍI.

The First Dissertation concerning the Messiah, proving him to be promised of old.

f1. Principles presupposed in the Apostle's discourse in his Epistle to the Hebrews. First, A Messiah promised from the foundation of the world. f 2, 3. Of the evil that is in the world. f 4. Of sin and punishment. Origin and entrance of them. §5. Ignorance of mankind about them. § 5, 6. The sin and fall of Adam. Their consequences. § 7. Jews opinion about the sin of Adam. Also of the curse and corruption of nature. § 8-12. Their sense of both at large evinced. § 13. God not unjust, if all mankind had perished in this condition. § 14. Instance of the sin and punishment of angels. Differences between the sin of angels and man. Angels lost, mankind relieved. § .15. Evidences of that deliverance. 16. How attainable. Not by men themselves, f 17. Not by angels, f18. Nor the law. That proved against the Jews. f 19. Their fable of the law made before the world, with the occasion of it. The patriarchs saved before the giving of the law. 20. Observation of the moral precepts of the law, no means of relief, §21. Nor the sacrifices of it. § 22. The new covenant. God the author of it. How to be accomplished. § 23, 24. The first promise of it, Gen. iii. 16. discussed. § 25. Sense of the Jews upon it manifested: § 26, 27. Examined. § 28. Promise of a Deliverer, the foundation of all religion in the world. § 29. The promise renewed unto Abraham, Gen. xii. 1, 2, 3. Nature of it as given unto him. § 30. Testified unto and confirmed, Gen. xlix. 10. Num. xxiv. 17. 19. Job xix. 25. Opened, ( 31–33. with sundry other places. End of the separation of the posterity of Abraham unto a peculiar people and church. f 34. This deliverer the Messiah. Meaning of the word. The person who.

WE $1. E proceed now to what we chiefly intend in all these discourses; which is the consideration and discussion of those great principles, as of all religion in general, so of the Christian in particular. These the apostle supposes as the foundation of his whole reasoning with the Hebrews, and they are the basis that he stands upon, in the management of his whole design. For in all discourses that are parænetical, as this Epistle for the most part is, there are always some principles taken for granted, which give life and efficacy unto the exhortations in them, and into which these are resolved. For as to attempt to persuade

men to receive particular points of faith, opinion, or practice, without a previous conviction of general principles of truth, from which the persuasions used do naturally flow and arise, is a thing weak and inefficacious; so to be employed in the demonstration of the principles themselves, when the especial end aimed at is to persuade, would bring confusion into all dis

course.

Wherefore, although our apostle do assert and confirm those dogmata, and articles of truth, which he persuaded the Hebrews to embrace; yet he supposeth and takes for granted those more general xvgias dotas, or first maxims, which are the foundation both of the doctrines and exhortations insisted on, as all skill in teaching doth require. These principles we shall now attempt to draw forth and consider. They are the following:

First, That there was a Messiah, or Saviour of mankind from sin and punishment, promised upon, and from the first entrance of sin into the world, in whom all acceptable worship of God was founded, and in whom all the religion of the sons of men was to centre.

Secondly, That this Messiah, long before promised, had been actually exhibited in the world, and had finished the work committed unto him, when the apostle wrote this Epistle.

Thirdly, That Jesus of Nazareth was this Messiah, and that what he had done and suffered, was the work and duty promised of old concerning him.

There is not a line in the Epistle to the Hebrews, that doth not virtually begin and end in these principles; not an assertion, not a doctrine, not an exhortation, that is not built on this triple foundation. They are also the great verities, as ooroyias xewTians, of the Christian profession or religion. A sincere endeavour therefore to explain and vindicate them, may not be unacceptable, especially in these days, wherein as on the one hand, there are various thoughts of heart about the present condition and expectation of the Jews; so, on the other, there are many who are ready with a presumptuous boldness axiva viv, and to call in question the fundamentals of all religion. Now the first of these principles is at this day by several vain imaginations obscured by the Jews, to their utter loss of all benefit by it; and hath been so for many generations, although it was the life and soul of the religion of their forefathers, as shall be demonstrated. And the two latter are by them expressly denied, and maliciously contended against. Here then we shall fix and confirm these principles in the order wherein we have laid them down; declaring on every one of them the conceptions and persuasions of the Jews concerning the promised Messiah, and removing in the close their objections against the faith of Christians in this matter, in a peculiar exercitation to that purpose. And

the confirmation and vindication of the first of these principles, is the object of our present discourse.

§ 2. Besides the testimony of God himself in his word, we have a concurrent suffrage from the whole creation, that man in the beginning was formed, as in the image, so in the favour of God, and unto his glory. And as he was not liable unto any evil, which is the effect of God's displeasure, nor defective in any good necessary to preserve him in the condition wherein he was made, so he was destitute of nothing that was any way requisite to carry him on to that farther enjoyment of God for which he was designed, Gen. i. 26. 31. Eccles. vii. 29. For God being infinitely good, wise, righteous, and powerful, creating man to know, love, honour and enjoy him; and thereby to glorify those holy properties of his nature, which exerted themselves in his creation, (which that he did, the nature of those intellectual perfections wherewith he endowed him, doth undeniably evince), it was utterly impossible that either he should not delight in the work of his own hands, the effect of his own wisdom and power, or not furnish him with those faculties and abilities by which he might answer the ends of his creation. To .suppose a failure in any of these, is contrary to the prime dictates of reason. For infinite wisdom can do nothing in vain, nothing not perfectly suited unto the end whereunto it is designed neither can infinite goodness allow of any defect in ought that proceedeth from it. Gen. i. 31. "God saw every thing that he had made, and behold it was very good."

Hence many philosophers saw and granted, that the first cause in the production of all things did, ida Badia, proceed by such a certain reason and way, as that every thing might both in itself, with reference unto its own especial end, and also in relation unto the universe, have its proper rectitude and goodness sufficient unto its station and condition. This is the Scripture calls Govan Ty Osλnuatos T8 8, Eph. i. 11. The counsel of the will of God: expressing the co-operation of absolute sovereignty and infinite wisdom. And these uncontroulable notions of nature or reason, cast men of old into their difficulties about the origin of evil. For this they plainly saw, that it must be accidental and occasional; but where to fix that occasion they knew not. Those who, to extricate themselves out of this difficulty, fancied two supreme principles or causes, the one author of all good, the other of all evil, were ever exploded as persons bidding defiance unto all principles of reason, whereby we are distinguished from the beasts that perish. This, I say, men generally discerned, that evil, as it now exists, could not have entered into the world, without a disturbance of that harmony, wherein all things at the beginning were constituted by