ways and means to overthrow the kingdom of Satan and his works. This he privately 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 exercised on devils themselves, to their shame, terror, and dispossession of the habitations they had invaded. In and during this work, he declares them to all the world to be evil, wicked, malicious, unclean, and lying spirits, 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 men, therefore, shall imagine or fancy that the works of Christ against the interest of Satan, upon his person, unto his shame ;-wrought to confirm a doctrine teaching all the world to avoid him, abhor him, fight and contend against him; commending every thing that he hates, with promise of life eternal unto them who forsake him and maintain his quarrel against him; threatening every thing that he loves and labours to promote in the world with eternal vengeance,were wrought by his help and assistance, they had more need to be sent unto the place where the maladies of those distracted in their wits are attended, than to have an answer given unto their folly.

74. They have yet another pretence, to preserve themselves from the efficacy of this self-conviction. But this is so perfectly Judaical, —that is, so full of monstrous, ridiculous figments,-that nothing but an aim to discover their present desperate folly, and with what unmanly inventions they endeavour to cover themselves from the light of their own conviction, can give countenance unto the repetition of it. Besides, the fable itself is vulgarly known, and 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, wherein was written "Shem Hamphorash" (so the Cabbalists 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 ensue thereon, 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 those 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 on 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. That alone which from hence we aim to evince, is the conviction that the most stubborn of the Jews had of the miracles of our blessed Saviour. Had they 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 they talk of, would have betaken themselves to such monstrous foolish figments for a countenance and pretence unto the rejection of him and them. He that should contend that the sun did not shine all the last year, and should give this reason of his assertion, because 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, 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, 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 ascertained of the truth by their testimony, to witness it unto the world willingly forewent all temporal interests, exposing themselves to dangers innumerable, and lastly sealed their testimony with their blood, shed by the most exquisite tortures that the malice of hell could invent; all 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 and performed. 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 this world, than we may be of the miracles wrought by our Lord Jesus. Now all these, as we have declared, were wrought by the divine 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 more require an assent unto any revelation of his mind or will, none being capable of a more evident and full confirmation so to be than this hath received of Jesus being the Christ. The application of this consideration in particular unto his resurrection from the dead hath been the special subject of so many writers, that I shall not further 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. What was his outward condition in this world we acknowledge, and the

Jews triumph in. The poverty of it, the contempt and reproach that it was exposed unto, was one of the chief pretences that they had, and have to this day, for their refusal of him. The time wherein he came was that, as hath been showed, wherein 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 attain unto. 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 all and every man then living in the world;of the Jews as to the manner of it, which they esteemed above its substance; and of all others in its very nature and being;-and presseth a course of obedience unto 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 amongst whom he conversed, almost universally, at least all the great, wise, learned, and esteemedly devout amongst them, set themselves to scorn, despise, reproach, and persecute him. And this course they ceased not, until, conspiring with the power of the Gentiles, they took him out of the world as a malefactor, by a bitter, shameful, and ignominious death. After which he riseth again from the dead, and shows himself neither unto Jews nor Gentiles in common, 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 them, and that unto death. The Gentiles at first deride and scorn them, but quickly change their note, 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 and undone for ever, if their testimony were admitted. The Gentiles saw that, on the same supposition, they must forego all their religion, and therewith every thing wherewith 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 unto them. Had not the truth and power of God been engaged with them and for them, it is such a madness to suppose that this undertaking could have been carried on unto that issue and event, in the conquest of mankind, which it at length obtained, as 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. Many are the branches of this argument, many the considerations that concur in a contribution of evidence and strength unto it; all which to examine and improve is beyond our present design The bare proposal of it is sufficient to cause all Jewish exceptions to vanish out of the minds of sober and reasonable men. From it, therefore, with them that went before, we conclude the third part of our general thesis concerning the Messiah,-namely, That Jesus of Nazareth, whom Paul preached, was he.

EXERCITATION XVIII.

JEWS' OBJECTIONS AGAINST CHRISTIAN RELIGION ANSWERED.

1. Objections of the Jews against the doctrine of Christianity. 2. Their general 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; Zion, 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. 2-4, considered. 15. Jewish objections from it answered-Outward peace, how intended. 16. Promises of the diffusion of the knowledge of God, and of unity in his worship, Jer. xxxi. 34, Zeph. iii. 9, Zech. xiv. 9. 17-19. Jewish exceptions 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 remaineth, for a close unto these dissertations, is the consideration of those reasons and arguments wherewith the present Jews do endeavour, and their forefathers for many generations have laboured, to defend their obstinacy and unbelief; and this we shall engage into with as much briefness as the nature of the matter treated of will admit. Many are the books which they have written among themselves, mostly in the Hebrew tongue, and some in other languages, but the Hebrew character, against Christians and their religion. Unto sundry of these they give triumphant, 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 that seems to have any weight shall be produced and examined.

Sundry things they object unto the doctrine of the gospel concerning the person of the Messiah, or his being God and man, and the rejection of the Mosaical 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, 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 it, as to the ceremonial worship therein instituted, it must be at large insisted on in that Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews which these discourses are only intended to make way unto. I shall not here, therefore, enter upon a particular discussion of their opinions, arguments, and objections about these things; besides, they belong not immediately to the subject of our present discourse. It is about the coming of the Messiah simply that we are disputing. This we assert to be long since past. The Jews deny him to be yet come, living in the hope and expectation 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 do 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 made and recorded as to be accomplished at the coming of the Messiah are not fulfilled, and therefore 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 unto 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 [even] 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 instances; wherein they reckon up all the promises which they suppose as yet unaccomplished, and so endeavour to establish their conclusion. These we shall afterwards cast under the several heads whereunto they do belong, and return that answer which the word of truth itself and the event do manifest to be the mind of