hand, and to render both him and his coming useless. But this figment proceeds from the prov soos of the Jews,-namely, that the Messiah is not promised to free them from their own sins, but to make them possessors of other men's goods; not to save their souls, but their bodies and estates; not to make men heirs of heaven, but lords of the earth: which folly hath been before discovered and disproved. 22. Fifthly, The Jews on several accounts are avroxaráxpiroi, or selfcondemned, in the use of this plea or pretence. Their great sins, they say, are the cause why the coming of the Messiah is retarded. But, (1.) What those sins are they cannot declare. We readily grant them to be wicked enough; but withal we know their great wickedness to consist in that which they will not acknowledge,namely, not in being unfit for his coming, but in refusing him when he came. They instance sometimes in their hatred one of another, their mutual animosities, and frequent adulteries, and want of observing the Sabbath according to the rules of their present superstitious scrupulosity. But what is all this unto the abominations which God passed over formerly in their nation, and also fulfilled his promises unto them, though really conditional? (2.) Take them from the rack of our arguments, and you hear no more of their confessions, no more of their sins and wickedness, but they are immediately all righteous and holy, all beloved of God, and better than their forefathers. Yea, (3.) On the day of expiation, they are all as holy (if we may believe them) as the angels in heaven,—there is not one sin amongst them; so that it is strange the Messiah should not, at one time or another, come to them on that day. (4.) They have a tradition among themselves, that the coming of the Messiah may be hastened, but not retarded. So they speak in their gloss on Isa. lx. 22, "I the LORD will hasten it in his time:" Tractat. Sanhed., ; אלכסנדרי ריבל' דמי כתיב בעתה וכתיב אחישנה זכו אחישנה לא זכו בעתה "Rabbi Alexander said, and Rabbi Joshua, the son of Levi, 'It is written in his time, and it is written, I will hasten it, I will hasten it if they deserve it, and if they deserve it not, yet in its own time."" And this they apply to the coming of the Messiah. (5.) They assert, many of them, that it is themselves who are spoken of in the 53d of Isaiah, and their being causelessly afflicted by the Gentiles. Now, he whom the prophet there speaks of is one perfectly innocent and righteous; and so they must needs be in their own esteem, supposing themselves there intended. So that this pretence is known to themselves to be no more [than a pretence.] 23. Sixthly, This plea is directly contrary to the nature of the covenant which God promised to make at the coming of the Messiah, or that which he came to ratify and establish, and to the reason which God gives for the making of that covenant, Jer. xxxi. 31-33. The foundation of the new covenant lies in this, that the people had disannulled and broken the former made with them. Now, surely they do not disannul that covenant if they are righteous according to the tenor of it; and unless they are so, they say the Messiah will not come,—that is, the new covenant shall not be made unless by them it be first made needless! Again, the nature of the covenant lies in this, that God in it makes men righteous and holy, Ezek. xi. 19; so that righteousness and holiness cannot be the conditions of making it, unless it be of making it useless. This, then, is the contest between God and the Jews: He takes it upon himself to give men righteousness by the covenant of the Messiah; they take it upon themselves to be righteous, that he may make that covenant with them. 24. Lastly, If the coming of the Messiah depend on the righteousness and repentance of the Jews, it is not only possible but very probable that he may never come. Themselves conceive that the world shall not continue above six thousand years. Of this space they do not suppose that there is any more than five hundred remaining. The time past since the expiration of the days determined for the coming of the Messiah is at least sixteen hundred years. Seeing that they have not repented all this while, what assurance have we, nay, what hope may we entertain, within the four or five hundred years that are behind? Greater calls to repentance from God, greater motives from themselves and others, they are not like to meet withal. And what ground have we to expect that they who have withstood all those calls without any good fruit, by their own confession, will ever be any better? Upon this supposition, then, it would be very probable that the Messiah should never come. Nothing can be replied hereunto, but that God will either at length effectually by his grace give them that repentance which they make necessary for his coming, or that he will send him at last whether they repent or no; but if either of these may be expected, what reason can be imagined why God should so deal at any season concerning which he had made no promise that the Messiah should come therein, and not do so at the time concerning which he had so often promised and foretold that he should come therein? EXERCITATION XVII. THE THIRD GENERAL DISSERTATION, PROVING JESUS OF NAZARETH TO BE THE ONLY TRUE AND PROMISED MESSIAH. 1. Jesus whom Paul preached, the true Messiah. 2, 3. First argument, from the time of his coming-Foundation of this argument unquestionable. 4. Coming of Jesus at the time appointed, proved by Scripture record and catholic tradition; 5. By the testimonies of heathen writers; 6. By the confession of the Talmudical Jews-Jesus Christ intended by them in their story of 36. Jesus Jesus the son of Pandira and Stada. 7. No other came at that season by disciples. 76. Success of the doctrine of Jesus-Last argument. 1. THE third branch of that great supposition and fundamental article of faith whereon the apostle builds his arguments and reasonings wherewith he deals with the Hebrews, is, that Jesus whom he preached was the true and only promised Messiah, who came forth from God for the accomplishment of his work, according to the time determined and foretold. The confirmation of this foundation of our faith and profession is that which now, in the third place, we must engage in. A subject this is whereon I could insist at large with much satisfaction to myself, nor have I just cause to fear that the matter treated of would be irksome to any Christian reader; but we must have respect unto our present design, for it is not absolutely and of set purpose that we handle these things, but merely with respect unto that further end of opening the springs of the apostle's divine reasonings in this epistle, and therefore we must contract, as much as may be, the arguments that we have to plead in this case; and yet neither can this be so done but that some continuance of discourse will be unavoidably necessary. And the course we shall proceed in is the same we have passed through in our foregoing demonstrations of the promise of the Messiah and of his coming. Our arguments are first to be produced and vindicated from the particular exceptions of the Jews, and then their opposition to our thesis in general is to be removed, referring an answer unto their special objections unto another dissertation. 2. That we may the more orderly annex our present discourse unto that foregoing, our first argument shall be taken from that which is proved and confirmed therein,-namely, the time limited and determined for the coming of the Messiah. Two ways there are whereby the time fore-appointed of God for the coming of the Messiah is signified and made known:-First, By certain rexuńρIα, or evident tokens, taken from the Judaical church, with the state and condition of the whole people of the Jews. This we have insisted on from Gen. xlix. 10; Hag. ii. 3, 6-9; Mal. iii. 1. Secondly, By a computation of the time itself as to its duration, from a certain fixed date unto its expiration. This way we have unfolded and vindicated at large from Dan. ix. 24-27. And although herein we have evidenced the truth and exactness of the computation insisted on by us, as far as any chronological accounts of time past are capable of being demonstrated, yet we have also manifested that our argument depends not on the precise bounding of the time limited, but lying iv hár, is of equal force however the computation be calculated, the whole time limited being undeniably expired before or at the destruction of the city and temple. Hence is the foundation of our first argument: Before or at the expiration of that time the promised Messiah was to come; before or that time, as denoted and described by the general renunpia, or evident tokens before mentioned, and limited by the computation insisted on, came Jesus, and no other that the Jews can or do pretend to have been the Messiah: and therefore he was the true, promised Messiah. 3. The foundation of this argument,—namely, that the Messiah was to come within the time limited, prefixed, and foretold,-cannot be shaken without calling into question the truth of all promises and VOL. XVIII. 24 predictions in the Old Testament, and consequently the faithfulness and power of God. The great design, whose lines are drawn in the face, and whose substance lies in the bowels of the Old Testament, and which is the spirit that enlivens the whole doctrine and story of it, the bond of union wherein all the parts of it do centre, without which they would be loose, scattered, and deformed heaps, is the bringing forth of the Messiah, the Saviour of the world. Without an apprehension of this design, and faith therein, neither can a letter of it be understood, nor can a rational man discover any important excellency in it. Him it promiseth, him it typifieth, him it teacheth and prophesieth about, him it calls all men to desire and expect. When it hath done thus in several places, it expressly limits, foretells, and declares the time wherein he shall be sent and exhibited. If there be a failure herein, seeing it is done to give evidence to all other things that are spoken concerning him, by which they are to be tried, and to stand or fall as they receive approbation or discountenance from thence, to what end should any man trouble himself about that which is cast as a fancy and empty imagination by its own verdict? If, then, the Messiah came not within the time limited, all expectation from the scripture of the Old Testament must come to nought; which those with whom at present we contend will not grant. Nor can the Jews, on such a supposition, in any measure defend the truth of it against an infidel; for unto his inquiry, Where is the promised Messiah? if they shall plead their usual pretences, it is easy for him to reply, that these things being nowhere mentioned or intimated in the books themselves, are only such subterfuges as any man may palliate the most open untruths withal. And, indeed, the ridiculous figment of his being born at the time appointed, but kept hid to this day they know not where, is not to be pleaded when they deal with men not bereft of their senses or judicially blinded by God; for besides that the whole of it is a childish, toyish fiction, inconsistent with the nature and being of their Messiah, whom they make to be a mere man, subject to mortality in his whole person, like all the other sons of Adam, it suits not at all unto the difficulty intended to be assoiled by it; for it is not his being born only, but also his accomplishment of his work and office at the time determined, which is foretold. Nor is there any one jot more of probability in their other pretence, about their own sins and unworthiness; for, as we have declared, this is nothing but in plain terms to assert that God hath violated his faith and promise, and that in a matter wherein the great concernments of his own glory and the welfare of all mankind do consist, upon the account of their miscarriages, which as they either can not or will not remedy, so he himself hath not (though he might have so |