might happen, made two brazen dogs, and set them on two pillars before the door of the sanctuary: and it was so, that when any one went in, and learned that name, as he came out, these dogs barked so horribly, that they frighted him, and made him forget the name that he had learned. But Jesus of Nazareth going in, wrote the name in parchment, and put it within the skin of his leg, and closed the skin upon it; so that though he lost the remembrance of it at his coming out, by the barking of the brazen dogs, yet he recovered the knowledge of it again out of the parchment in his leg; and by virtue thereof, he wrought miracles, walked on the sea, cured the lame, raised the dead, and opened the eyes of the blind. From this story we mean only to infer that the most stubborn of the Jews must have been convinced of the miracles of our blessed Saviour. Had these not been openly performed, and undeniably attested, no creatures that ever had the shape of men, or any thing more of modesty than the brazen dogs which they talk of, would have had recourse to such monstrous and foolish figments, to countenance their rejection of him and of his miracles. He that should con

tend, that the sun did not shine all the last year, and should give this reason of his assertion, that a certain man of his acquaintance climbed up to heaven by a ladder, and put him in a box, and kept him close in his chamber all that while; that man would speak to the full, with as much probability and appearance of truth, as the grand Rabbins do in this tale. Every word in their story is a monster. The stone, the writing of the name of God on it, the virtue of the pronunciation of that name, the brazen dogs, the entrance of a private man into the Sanctum Sanctorum, the barking of the dogs, all are dreams becoming men under a penal infatuation and blindness, not much distant from those chains of darkness wherewith Satan himself is kept bound unto the judgment of the great day.

§ 75. Fourthly, We must not forget the testimony of his disciples who conversed with him, and were eye witnesses of his miracles, especially of his rising from the dead. These, with multitudes assured of the truth by their testimony, willingly suffered the loss of all temporal interests, and exposed themselves to innumerable dangers, in bearing witness to it, in the world. And at last they sealed their testimony with their blood, which was shed by the most exquisite tortures that the malice of hell could invent. Now, all this they did in expectation of acceptance with him, and a reward from him, which depended on the truth of the miracles which they asserted him to have wrought. From all these considerations we may safely conclude, that it is utterly impossible, that the nature of man should be more ascertained of any thing that ever was in the world, than we may be of the miracles wrought by our Lord

Jesus. Now all these we have declared, were wrought by the power of God to confirm the truth of his being the promised Messiah. And if this were not so, it is impossible that God should ever require an assent unto any revelation of his mind or will, no revelation being capable of a more evident and full confirmation, than this truth hath received, that Jesus is the Christ. The application of this consideration, particularly to his resurrection from the dead, hath been the special subject of so many writers, that I shall not farther insist upon it.

§ 76. One argument more, taken from the success that the doctrine of Jesus hath had in the world, shall close this discourse. How poor his outward condition was in this world, we acknowledge, and in this the Jews triumph. His poverty, and the contempt and reproach that he was exposed to, was one of the chief pretences that they had, and have to this day, for their refusal of him. The time when he came, was the time, as has been shewed, when the Jews were in daily expectation of their Messiah, and when the residue of mankind were in the full enjoyment of all that light, wisdom and knowledge, which the principles of nature could afford. In this state of things, a poor man, living in an obscure village of Galilee, not taught by men so much as to read, begins to preach and to declare himself to be the Messiah, the Son of God, the Saviour of the world. With this testimony he declares a doctrine destructive of the religion and sacred worship of every man then living in the world; of the Jews as to the manner of it, which they esteemed above its substance; and with respect to all other men, his doctrine was destructive of the very nature and being of their religion, and enjoined a course of obedience to God, decried by them all. To encourage men to believe in him, and to accept of his testimony, he gives them promises of what he would do for them when this life should be ended. No sooner doth he undertake this work, but the Jews among whom he conversed, almost universally, at least all the great, the wise, the learned, and they who were esteemed devout amongst them, set themselves to scorn, despise, reproach and persecute him. And from this course they ceased not, until, conspiring with the power of the Gentiles, they removed him out of the world as a malefactor, by a bitter, shameful and ignominious death. After this he riseth again from the dead, and shews himself neither to Jews nor Gentiles in general, but only to some poor men chosen by himself, to be his witnesses and apostles. These begin to teach both Jews and Gentiles the things before mentioned, The Jews more deeply engaged than formerly, by having slain their Master, immediately persecute the servants, and that unto death. The Gentiles at first deride and scorn them, but quickly change their conduct, and set all their wit and power at work

to extirpate them and their followers out of the world. The Jews on many accounts looked upon themselves as ruined forever, if the testimony of these men were admitted. The Gentiles saw that on the same supposition, they must abandon all their religion, and with it every thing with which they pleased themselves in this world. Invisible infernal powers who ruled in the world by superstition and idolatry, were no less engaged against them. With them was neither human wisdom or counsel, nor external force; yea, the use of both in their work was by their master severely interdicted to them. Had not the truth and power of God been engaged in support of this undertaking, it is such madness to suppose that it could have been carried to that issue in the conquest of mankind, which it at length obtained, that no man not utterly forsaken of reason, or cursed with blindness of mind, or made senseless and stupid by the power of his lusts, can make himself guilty of it. Many are the branches of this argument, and many the considerations that concur in contributing evidence and strength unto it; but to examine and follow out these, is beyond our present design. The bare statement of the argument is sufficient to banish all. Jewish exceptions from the minds of sober and reasonable men. With this argument then we finish the third part of our general thesis concerning the Messiah; and from it, in connection with those which we formerly stated, we conclude that Jesus of Nazareth whom Paul preached was He.

EXERCITATION XVIII.

§1. Objections of the Jews against the Doctrine of Christianity. § 2. Their principal argument to prove the Messiah not yet come. General answer. Principles leading to a right understanding of the promises concerning the Messiah. § 3. Redemption and salvation promised by him spiritually. Folly and self-contradiction of the Jews, that expect only temporal deliverance by him. § 4. Promises of temporal things, accessory and occasional. Thence conditional. The general condition of them all suited to the nature and duration of the kingdom of the Messiah. 5. Spiritual things promised in words which first signify, things temporal. Reasons thereof. Of peace with God, and in the world. § 6. Seed of Abraham, Jacob, Israel, Sion, Jerusalem. Who and what intended thereby. § 7. All nations; the world; the Gentiles in the promise, who. 8,9. Promises suited unto the duration of the kingdom of the Messiah. §10. The calling and flourishing state of the Jews thereon. § 11. Particular promises may not be understood, or understood amiss, without prejudice to the faith. § 12. Application of these principles. § 13, 14. Promise of universal peace in the days of the Messiah: Isa ii. 2, 3, 4, 5. considered. § 15. Jewish objections from it, answered. Outward peace how intended. § 16. Promises of the diffusion of the knowledge of God. Of unity in his worship, Jerem. xxxi. 34. Zeph. iii. 9. Zech. xiv. 9. fulfilled. 17-19. Jewish objection answered. § 20. Promises concerning the restoration and glorious estate of Israel. § 21. Fulfilled to the spiritual Israel. To the Jews in the appointed season. Their calling, and peace ensuing thereon.

§ 1. THAT which remains for a conclusion to these disserta

tions, is the consideration of those reasons and arguments, with which the present Jews do endeavour, as their forefathers for many generations have endeavoured, to defend their obstinacy and unbelief. And in this we shall engage with as much briefness as the nature of the matter treated of will admit. Many are the books which they have written, mostly in the Hebrew tongue, and some in other languages, but in the Hebrew character, against Christians and their religion. To some of these they have given triumphant and insulting titles, as though they had undoubtedly obtained a perfect victory over their adversaries. But the books themselves in nothing answer their specious frontispieces. Take away wilful mistakes, gross paralogisms, false stories, and some few grammatical niceties, and they vanish into nothing. What is spoken by them, or for them, which seems to have any weight, shall be produced and examined.

Sundry things they object to the doctrine of the gospel, concerning the person of the Messiah, or his being God and man, and concerning the rejection of the Mosaic ceremonies and law, which they deem eternal; and many exceptions they lay against particular passages and expressions, in the historical books of the New Testament. But all these things have been long since cleared and answered by others, and I have also myself spoken to the most important of them, partly, in the preceding discourses; and partly, in my defence of the Deity and satisfaction of Christ against the Socinians. For what concerns the law of Moses, and the abolition of the ceremonial worship therein instituted, it must be insisted on at large in that exposition of the epistle to the Hebrews to which these discourses are only intended as an introduction. I shall not therefore enter here upon a particular discussion of their opinions, arguments and objections about these things: indeed they belong not immediately to the subject of our present discourse. It is only about the coming of the Messiah that we are now disputing; this we assert to be long since past; the Jews deny that he has yet come, and live in the expectation and hope of him, which at present is in them but as the giving up of the Ghost. The means whereby this dying, deceiving hope is supported in them, comes now under examination, and this alone is the subject of our ensuing discourse.

§ 2. To countenance themselves then in their denial of the coming of the Messiah, they all of them make use of one general argument, which they seek to confirm in and by several instances. Now this is, that the promises which are recorded in Scripture to be accomplished at the coming of the Messiah, are not fulfilled, and therefore that the Messiah is not yet come. This fills up their books of controversies; and is constantly made use of by their expositors, so often as any occasion seems to offer itself to them. The Messiah, say they, was promised of old. Together with him, and to be wrought by him, many other things were promised. These things they see not at all fulfilled; nay, not those which contain the only work and business that he was promised for; and therefore they will not believe that he is come. This general argument, I say, they seek to confirm by reckoning up all the promises, which they suppose to be as yet unaccomplished, and so endeavour to establish their conclusion. These we shall afterwards cast under the several heads to which they belong, and return that answer which the word of truth itself, and which the event manifests to be the mind of God in them. For the present, to their general argument we say, that all the promises concerning the coming of the Messiah, are actually fulfilled; and that those which concern his grace and kingdom are partly already accomplished, and that the remainder shall be accomplished in the manner, time and season appointed