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873. As for the blasphemy itself, no other answer needs to be given to it, but what was returned by our Lord Jesus of old. If these things had been done by magical incantations, and consequently by the assistance of the Devil, it must proceed from a division of those wicked spirits among themselves, and that with respect to the main design of their kingdom, dominion and interest in this world. The open and avowed work of our Lord Jesus in this world, was by all ways and means to overthrow the kingdom of Satan and to destroy his works. This he pri vately taught, this he publicly declared to be the main end of his coming into this world. The works and miracles which he wrought were very many, innumerable of them were exercised against devils themselves, to their shame, and terror, and to their expulsion from the habitations which they had invaded. During this work, he declares to all the world, that these spirits are evil, wicked, malicious, unclean, and lying, reserved for everlasting destruction in hell, under the wrath of the great God. For this cause, they on the other side ceased not to oppose him, and to stir up all the world against him, until they thought they had prevailed in his death. If then men will imagine that the works of Christ which are against the interest and person of Satan, and which put him to open shame; works which were wrought to confirm a doctrine that teaches all the world to avoid Satan, to abhor him, to fight and contend against him, that commends every thing which he hates, and that gives promises of life eternal to them who forsake him, and maintain his quarrel against him, and that threatens every thing that Satan loves, and labours to promote in the world with eternal vengeance; if men will imagine that these works confirming this doctrine were wrought by Satan's assistance, they had more need to be sent to the place where the maladies of those distracted of their wits are attended to, than to have an answer given to their folly.

$74. They have yet another pretence by which they try to harden themselves against conviction. But it is so perfectly Judaical, that is, so full of monstrous and ridiculous figments, that nothing but a design to discover their present desperate folly, and to shew with what unmanly inventions they endea vour to resist their own convictions, can afford an excuse for the repetition of it. Besides, the fable itself is vulgarly known; I shall therefore only give a brief compendium of it, seeing it may not be wholly avoided.

The story they tell us is this: there was a stone in the Sanctum Sanctorum, under the ark, on which was written Shem Hamphorash, (so the Cabalists call the name Jehovah). He that could learn this name, might by the virtue of it, do what miracles he pleased. Wherefore the wise men fearing what

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 contend, 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, wil lingly 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.

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