Matth. xxiii. 29, 30, 31, &c. then your prefent Obftinacy will not appear fo ftrange to you, or fo totally difproportionable to your former Demeanour. It is faid, ver. 7. Our Fathers understood not thy Wonders in Egypt. Then it is poffible that you might not understand the Wonders of your Meffiah. Your Forefathers killed the Prophets, and your Fathers built their Sepulchres: And you fay, If we had been in the Days of our Fathers, we would not have been Partakers with them in the Blood of the Prophets : Wherefore ye be Witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the Children of them who killed the Prophets. And how have you filled up the Measure of your Fathers! As our Meffiah told you beforehand that you would do. That he would fend you Prophets and Apoftles; and that you Luke xi. 49, would lay and perfecute them; That 50. the Blood of all the Prophets, which was fhed from the Foundation of the World, might be required from your Generation. And how feverely has it been required! Believe, in this, our Meffiab to have been a true Prophet; and that this last Sin of your crucifying him, and perfecuting his Apostles and Messengers, whom he fent unto you, has been greater, as it has been more grievously punished, than all your former Provacations: Of which that you may be more fenfible (for it is a material Confideration), I invite you, as the laft Thing I fhall fay upon this Head, to make the Comparison betwixt your former Captivities and Sufferings, and that much more heavy Hand of God, which has lain upon you fince your Crucifying of your Meffiah. 11, 14. 6. In the Book of Judges you are told of the feveral Captivities into which Judges iii. 8. you were fold, for your repeated Idolatries Firft, unto the Hand of the King of Mefopotamia, for Eight Years. after Forty Years of Deliverance, unto Moab, for Eighteen Years. 3dly. Unto Jabin King of Canaan, for Twenty Then, 2dly, the King of Ch.iv. 3. vi. Years. 1. x. 8. xiii. Years. 4thly, Into the Hand of Midian for Seven Years. 5thly, Of the Phili fines and Ammonites, for Eighteen Years. 6thly, Of the Philistines, for Forty Years. The Seventh was the great and longeft Captivity of Seventy Years in Babylon. All thefe for your Idolatry. But after this you were cured of your Idolatry; and to this Day have kept yourselves in the greatest Abhorrence of it. And yet now, fince your rejecting of your Meffiah, and faying, Let his Blood be upon us, and our Children, you have undergone not a bare Captivity, as in Babylon, where you were all together, and Prophets fent amongst you to comfort you, and assure you of a Restoration, and that in Seventy Years; but a Difperfion over the Face of the whole Earth; without a King, without any Prophet, as a People forfaken of God, and without a Temple, or Sacrifice; and that not only for 70 or 700, but almoft 1800 Years. And if this heavy Judgment be come upon you for your not understanding the Promifes of God, and thereby hardening yourselves against the clear Proofs which your Meffiah brought of his Miffion, then is there no Appearance of your being delivered, till you shall repent of this greater Sin, and more grievously punished than your Idolatries, to reject and crucify your Meffiab! The ingenious and learned Jew before-mentioned, anfwers to this, That the Captivity or Difperfion of the Ten Limborch, Tribes has been longer than that of the Tavo Tribes; and it cannot be faid, that the Captivity or Difperfion of the Ten Tribes, was for the rejecting of their Meffiah; and therefore, that it cannot be concluded, that the leffer Punishment of the Two Tribes was for a more heinous Sin (viz. of crucifying their Meffiab) than that Sin (viz. of Idolatry) for which principally the Ten Tribes were delivered to Captivity. Anf. Though the Ten Tribes were fent into Captivity about 120 Years before the Two Tribes, yet their Captivity has not been fo long. For, as the temporal Punishment of any Man ends with his Death, fo the Pu nishment nishment of a Nation, as a Nation, ceases, when that Nation has loft its Name, and is fcattered or incorporated into other Nations. Particular Perfons, who have defcended of that Nation, may fuffer; but the Nation is no more, and fo cannot be faid to fuffer when it is extinct: As, when a Regiment is broke, it is no more a Regiment, though the Soldiers are incorporated into other Regiments. Thus in Families, a Family is faid to be extinct, when the Name is loft, and there are none left to fupport it; though all the particular Perfons of that Family may live under other Names, and in other Families. And thus it is that the Families of the Ten Tribes of Ifrael, are long fince loft in the World; all the Jews, now known, being of the Family of Judah, as diftinct from Ifrael. But the Family of Judah, confifting of the Tribes of Judah and Benjamin, with the Levites, are ftill preferved to fuffer; a vifible Example of God's juft Judgment and Indignation against them. The very Names of all the other Tribes of Ifrael being fo far loft, as that not one of them is now known, or any few does fo much as pretend to be of any of those Tribes. Though it is very probable, that many of the Tex Tribes are incorporated (albeit they may not know it) into the Two remaining Tribes, yet all go under the Name of the Two Tribes; and therefore the Two Tribes are they only who are faid to fuffer; as they only (and fuch of the Ten Tribes as were then incorporated with them) were concerned in the Rejection and crucifying of their Meffiab. But as the Punishment of the Two Tribes has been fo many hundred Years continued longer than that of the Ten Tribes, for this their greater Sin of crucifying their Meffiah; fo there was a plain and vifible Reafon for the at first greater Punishment of the Ten Tribes. 1. They rebelled from under the Houfe of David. 2. They fell into Schifm against the Houfe of Aaron, and fet up new Priefts of their own, 3. As a Confequence of both these, they fet up a falfe Worship, in the Calves of Dan and Bethel; and returned not from their Idolatry, their Schifm, and Rebellion, till their Extirpation. And we may fee a very legible Hand of God upon them, in great Judgments, all along from their Re volt. Judah had many bad Kings, but fome eminently good. Ifrael had a Succeffion only of nineteen Kings from their Defection, among whom there was not one that was good. And they were carried away captive 120 Years before the Captivity of Judah. But then the Captivity of Judah having been conti. nued fo much longer than theirs (as before has been faid), fwells up the Punishment of Judah now to exceed theirs, as their Sin in crucifying their Meffiah has far exceeded all the Sins of the House of Ifrael. Let me add to this, the many and miferable Massacres and Deftructions of the Two Tribes fince our Saviour, under the feveral falfe Meffiahs whom they fet up; in one of which they fuffered more than in either of the Deftructions of Jerufalem, by the Chaldeans, or the Romans, as before has been fhewn, from their own Confeffions. Now let us confider, that, at the Day of Judgment, there is no Representation of Nations; but every Man fuffers for his own Sin. National Judgments are only in this World. And hence it is obfervable, that no wicked Nation has ever yet escaped a national Judgment in this World; though God may bear long with them, yet, if they do not repent, by a national Sorrow and Amendment, Judgment overtakes them, even here: For no-where else are there any national either Mercies or Judgments. And as all Nations have been wicked in their feveral Degrees, fo have they every one been severally punished, according to their Demerits, even before the Sons of Men. But But there are no Judgments, that have befallen any Nation, fo legible as what have been fent upon your Nation; particularly upon the Two Tribes. No Nation, fince the Earth began, has been kept under fo Long a Captivity and Difperfion; fo wonderfully preferved! and fo remarkably punished! Preferved for Punishment! and, when God's Time fhall come, for a glorious Reftauration, in the Acknowlegement of your only true and divine Meffiah! O that this were the Time! Libor. p. 101. n. iv. But the learned few has another Answer, viz. That the Jews have not been free from Idolatry fince their Return from the Captivity of Babylon; nor are at this Day: And therefore that the Comparison muft fail, which we draw betwixt the Punishments that have come upon them for their former Idolatries, and this 1800 Years Difperfion, after they had forfaken their Idolatry; which, he says, they have not yet forfaken. He fays, that they have it in the utmost ibid. Abomination, and avoid it wherever they p. 102. can: But that, for Fear, or other bafe Motives, very many of them have turned Mahometans, in all the Dominions of the Turk, in Africa, in Afia, in Perfia, and Arabia. But though this be an Apoftacy, and forfaking of their Law, yet he does not charge it as Idolatry; because the Mahometans do not worship God by Images. But then he returns upon the Chrif tians, and fays, That, fince the Idolatry of the Church of Rome, Multitudes of the Jews have, to avoid Perfecution, embraced the Popish Idolatry, in divers Countries. And even in our own Times, (fays he) we have fresh Experiences of it. He names the whole Neapolitan Synagogue, of Barcelona, and all the others in Catalonia, who turned to the Church of Rome. And in Spain and Portugal they have turned so fast, that, he says, Ex Judais apoftatis, fere omnes & Principes, Nobiles, & Populares, Originem ducunt. Quod in iis Regionibus adeo notum, ut nemo dubitaverit, i. e. That almost all of them, Princes, Nobles, and Commons, are sprung from apoftate Jews: |