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A

SHORT AND EASY METHOD

WITH

THE

JE W S.

I. BRETHREN, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. I addressed a former discourse against the Deists, equal enemies to you and us, who deny all instituted and revealed religion; and I have justified the truth of yours, while I have asserted that of the Christian religion. They both stand upon one bottom. They only, of all the revelations that ever were pretended in the world, can shew the four marks mentioned in the Method with the Deists; which do infallibly demonstrate the truth of any matter of fact where they all do meet. And the consequence is as plain, that if the revelation of Moses be true, that of Christ must be true also. And you can never demonstrate the truth of the matters of fact of Moses by any arguments or evidences, which will not as strongly evince the truth of the matters of fact of Christ: and, on the other hand, you cannot overthrow the matters of fact of Christ, but you must, by the same means, destroy those of Moses. So that, I hope, you are involved under the happy necessity, either to renounce Moses, or to embrace Christ.

But if you will allow (as some of you have done) that the matters of fact of our Lord Jesus, as recorded in the Gospels, are true, but will contend that this does not infer the truth of his doctrine, because, as may be alleged, those seeming miracles which he wrote were done by magic: then I beseech you, how will you rescue the miracles of Moses from the same objection? The comparison, in this case, must lie betwixt the miracles of Moses and of Christ. And I believe you will not deny, but that those recorded in the Gospel are full as great as those in Exodus.

II. If the Deists think to come in here betwixt us, and conclude both to be false miracles, at least that we cannot be sure they are true miracles, because, as they philosophize, we do not know the utmost extent of the power of nature, and consequently cannot know what exceeds it.

Ans. 1. This is an objection, not against the miracles recorded of Moses or of Christ, but against all miracles; and putting it out of God's power to shew any miracle that ought to be believed of man: which is a contradiction to the principles of the Deists themselves, who allow an eternal Being of infinite power, and yet, by this, would put it out of his power to make any external revelation to

men.

2. But, in the next place, their philosophy is not good. For though we could not know the utmost stretch of what nature can do, yet it will not follow, that we cannot know what is contrary to nature, in those works of nature which we do know. For example, though I cannot tell all the whole nature of fire, and all its operations, yet this I certainly know, that it is of the nature of fire to burn; and therefore, if proper fuel be administered unto it, it is contrary to the nature of fire not to consume it. Thus, when Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, were thrown into the burning fiery furnace, if that matter of fact be true, in all its circumstances, as it is related in the third chapter of Daniel, we can be sure that there was a stop there put to the natural power of the fire, which is a miracle. We can be as sure of it as of any thing we either see or hear. So that the same scepticism which these men advance against miracles, will, as much, take away the certainty of our outward senses; which is the only postulatum they would have taken as undoubted, and to which they reduce all the certainty of which mankind is capable; giving to themselves, by their great sense, little pre-eminence above the condition of brutes, to which they would degrade all the rest of the world with themselves. some of them have shewn their parts in witty satires upon this subject. But let us leave them with the company they have chosen, and return.

And

As sure as we can be that it is the nature of fire to burn, (though we may not know every thing else it can do,) so sure we can be, that

it exceeds the power of nature to raise the dead by the speaking of a word, to cure the lame, blind, &c. by the same means, or the touch of one's finger, without any other application.

III. Now, then, the miracles recorded of Christ, being as great as those recorded of Moses, and carrying along with them the same evidences of their truth, deduced down from that time to this, what reason can be given for the believing of the one, and yet rejecting of the other? There can be none, my friends, only there are some prejudices under which you labour, that stop your way towards receiving of the truth, which you cannot deny as conceiving it inconsistent with your interpretation of some texts in your law.

But ought you not rather to suspect your own interpretations (especially where the words will favourably bear another) than to reject such an evidence as must undermine your law itself, and destroy its infallible certainty, by disowning the same, in the only case that carries the same demonstration along with it? God cannot contradict himself; and therefore would never have set his own seal (which it is not possible to counterfeit,) to the truth of the Gospel, if it did, in the least iota, contradict or destroy the law. Therefore it behoves you well to consider, whether those things that you take for contradictions are such. In order to which,

1. Consider the difference betwixt destroying and fulfilling. The fulfilling of a prophecy, is not its destruction, but completion. So of all types, or shadows, which point at things to come, when the substance is come, the shadow ceases of course.

Now, if the Messiah was prophesied of, and typified in the law, then his coming will indeed put an end to these, but not by way of destroying, which would be contradicting, but of fulfilling them, which is confirming, and attesting to the truth of them. And I suppose you are not ignorant that our Messiah did not pretend to destroy the law, but to fulfil it. And did most strongly assert and confirm it to the least iota, (Matt. v. 17-19; Luke, xvi. 17.) And did fulfil it, in every circumstance, even to his suffering without the gate, to answer the burning of the body of the expiatory sacrifice without the camp, &c. (Heb. xiii. 12; Lev. xvi. 27.) That, as himself said, "all things might be fulfilled, which were written in the Law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms concerning him," (Luke, xxiv. 44.) Some of which are repeated hereafter, Sect. XII.

2. But I will carry this argument farther. That not only there is no contradiction to the law in the Gospel, but that the law cannot be true, unless you allow the truth of the Gospel. For no other way possible is there to reconcile the promises made in the law

but as they are fulfilled in the Gospel, of which let me give some few instances, out of many.

1. "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come: and unto him shall the gathering of the people, or nations, be,” (Gen. xlix. 10.)

This the Chaldee and ancient Jewish interpreters do understand of the Messiah.

And the sceptre being long since departed from Judah, and no other Messiah come, but our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom the gathering of the nations or Gentiles has been; the Rabbies of the Jews, since his coming, have strained their wits to invent salvoes and evasions for this prophecy. Some of them say, that by Shiloh here was not meant the Messiah, but Moses. Others say, it was the tabernacle at Shiloh. But others, thinking these interpretations not tenable, and that it cannot be denied to be meant of the Messiah, have fenced about the word sceptre, which they contend to be a rod, not of rule, but of correction, which should not depart from Judah till Shiloh or the Messiah should come. Others, not liking this, allow it to be a sceptre of government, but then turn it this way, namely, that the sceptre should not finally or for ever depart from Judah, because the Messiah should come, that is, to restore it. But this being an altering, instead of expounding the text, others, seeing there could not be any tolerable evasion made from the words of the text, have boldly adventured upon a new way of satisfying it, namely, that the sceptre or dominion is not yet departed, that is, not totally, for that some of them have somewhere or other some share or other of government or jurisdiction, more or less; at least some that have, one way or other, descended from the tribe of Judah, though it may not be known.

I will not take up time to examine or disprove these pretences. They carry guilt in their face. And being all contradictory to one another, shew to what a confusion the Jews are brought, in forcing their way through the plain predictions of the Messiah, of which I will go on to more instances.

2. "Thus saith the Lord, David shall never want a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel. Neither shall the priests, the Levites, want a man before me to offer burntofferings, and to kindle meat-offerings, and to do sacrifice continually. Thus saith the Lord, If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season ; then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne, and with the Levites the priests, my ministers," (Jer. xxxiii. 17, 18, 20, 21.) Now is all this

gloriously fulfilled in our Messiah, the Son of David, who is made Lord of heaven and earth, and of whose kingdom there shall be no end. But without this, how is this prophecy fulfilled? What Son of David can you produce, who now reigns over the house of Israel? And as for the covenant with Levi, that is as much broken, for instead of sacrifices continually, you have not now, nor have had since the destruction of Jerusalem, above sixteen hundred years, any sacrifice at all. But if you understand these prophecies as of the kingdom of the Messiah, so of his priesthood, of which that of Levi was a type, and fulfilled in it, then is this prophecy exactly accomplished in the evangelical priesthood which our Messiah has instituted, and which, we doubt not, will, according to the utmost extent of this prophecy of it, last as long as the covenant of day and night, that is, as our Messiah has again given us his assurance, even unto the end of the world," and that the gates of hell shall never be able to "prevail against it," (Matt. xxviii. 20; xvi. 18.) Some of the Jews pretend, that David will be raised from the dead, and made immortal, to fulfil this prophecy, (Limborch, Collat. p. 73.) But others, rejecting this interpretation, say, that this is to be meant of the time after the Messiah; so that, after the Messiah shall come of the seed of David, there shall no more want of his seed, to rule, &c. But the words of the text are, that "David shall never want a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel." And putting to this, "after the coming of the Messiah," is adding to the text. And the like liberty would leave nothing certain, in any text of the Bible, or in any other writing. The next I produce is,

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3. That most exact description (Isaiah, liii.) of the death and sufferings of the Messiah, with the reason of it, namely, as an expiation and satisfaction for the sins of the people.

And how forced and foreign is that interpretation which some of your modern Jews have put upon this chapter, on purpose to avoid the plain proof of our Messiah therein? As if the person there spoke of, were not any particular person, but only a description of the people of the Jews in the name of a person; of their present dispersion through all nations; with the contempt and misery which they suffer; and withal their making many proselytes to their religion in this their dispersion.

little of it from other parts. You boast of many in Spain and Portugal; but they conceal it, and we know them not. But the flowing in of the Gentiles has been to the Christian Church; and only so can the promise of it to your Church be verified, that is, as yours was a type of ours, or as ours is truly yours, fulfilled and continued, in the reign of your Messiah, pursuant to all the prophecies which went before of him. Therefore, by all that has yet appeared of your dispersion, it is as a just punishment for your own sins, and not for the conversion of the Gentiles. But how for their conversion ? when your learned Jew confesses (as hereafter quoted) that you have no arguments against the Gentiles, nor can convince any of them. And in all the prophecies of this your dispersion, (some of which are recited, Sect. XI.) there is nothing told of the conversion of the Gentiles as thereby designed, but only as a punishment of your iniquity, and, at the length, for your conversion, as well as that of the Gentiles. As that God will have mercy upon you, and cause your captivity to return, (Jer. xxxiii. 26.) That the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and turn away iniquity from Jacob, (Isaiah, i. lix. 20.) And in the meantime, that you should be rejected for your wickedness, and another people chosen in your place. For thus it is said to you, (Isaiah, Ixv. 11—15,) "But ye are they that forsake the Lord. Therefore will I number you to the sword. Because when I called, ye did not answer; when I spake, ye did not hear," (ye did not hearken to the words of the Lord, in the mouth of that prophet, whom he told you, Deut. xviii. 18, 19, he would send) "Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, my servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry; behold, my servants shall drink, but ye shall be thirsty; behold, my servants shall rejoice, but ye shall be ashamed; behold, my servants shall sing for joy of heart, but ye shall cry for sorrow of heart, and shall howl for vexation of spirit. And ye shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen for the Lord God shall slay thee, and call his servants by another name." How literally is this fulfilled! God hath chosen the Christians in your place, and called his servants by another name: not that you should be finally rejected, but till the fulness of the Gentiles shall come in; and then shall you be converted by them, and not they by you. Therefore are you fatally deluded, who attribute to yourselves, and to your present circumstances, all that righteousness which is spoken of the Messiah in the fifty-third of Isaiah: as, his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many," &c. Was it for this end that God foretold your dispersion? No, but for your grievous iniquities, and for your own conversion. As said by a prophet of your

For their many proselytes, we hear not of them. If the Jews keep their own ground, it is the most that, in your present circumstances, you seem to expect; and would be well content to compound for it, not only here, but in all the countries whither you are dispersed. What king, what nation have you converted? nay, in our part of the world, what family, what persons? And we hear as

"By

own, (Ezek. vi. 8, 9, 10,) " Yet will I leave a remnant, that ye may have some that shall escape the sword among the nations, when ye shall be scattered through the countries: And they that escape of you shall remember me among the nations- Because I am broken with their whorish heart, which hath departed from me And they shall loathe themselves for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations: And they shall know that I am the Lord, and that I have not said in vain that I would do this evil unto them." Again, (xii. 15, 16,) "They shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall scatter them among the nations, and disperse them in the countries: But I will leave a few men of them that they may declare all their abominations among the heathen whither they come; and they shall know that I am the Lord;" that is, you Jews shall know. It is to convince and convert you that you shall be so dispersed as you are this day. Again, (Amos, ix. 7, 8, 9,) "Are ye not as children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel? saith the Lord.-Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the Lord: For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth." You shall be preserved, in your dispersion, in order to your repentance, not for your holiness to convert the nations, for you are called the sinful kingdom, and as children of the Ethiopians. And God will choose other hands to raise his kingdom among the heathen; as it follows, "In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, that they may possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the heathen which are called by my name, saith the Lord that doeth this," (Amos, ix. 11, 12.) See that fulfilled this day. Where are the heathen that are called by the name of the Lord? Who does possess them, but our Messiah, the Son of David, by whose name they are called Christians? In vain, therefore, do you expect the heathen to be converted by you. You see it done already by those whom God has chosen in your room, and who now seek to convert you, by persuading of you to hearken to Moses and your own prophets; who have told you of this conversion of the Gentiles, while you remain in your obstinacy, "I am sought of them that asked not for me; I am found of them that sought me not; I said, Behold me, behold me unto a nation that was not called by my name,” (Isa. lxv. 1.) But unto Israel he saith, (ver. 2.) "I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious and gain-saying people." Yet you would attribute great holiness to yourselves in this your dispersion, even all

that which is spoken of the Messiah in the fifty-third of Isaiah.

I have insisted thus long upon it, because this is all you have to say against that wonderful prophecy of the low outward appearance of the Messiah when he should come; and of the end of his coming, not fighting (as you expect) but suffering; not conquering men with the sword, but, as it is there expressed, (Isa. lxv. 10,) "giving up his soul an offering for sin," whereby to redeem us from that death denounced against sin, (Gen. ii. 17;) and so conquering him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; to whom we were in bondage, lying under the curse, of which he was made the executioner.

And this (till the time should come) was shadowed out to us in several types and representations of it, not only in your law, which was but one of them; for sacrifices (the most express type of the death and sacrifice of the Messiah) were instituted upon the first sin of man, and the promise of the Messiah then given, and his conquest of the serpent, (Gen. iii. 15;) and were practised by Cain, Abel, Noah, Abraham, &c. before the law; but most lively expressed in the sacrifice of Isaac, upon which the promise of the Messiah was again renewed to Abraham, (Gen. xxii. 18.) This salvation by the Messiah was likewise prefigured by the saving of Noah and his family in the ark; as by your passage through the Red Sea, and deliverance out of Egypt; particularly by the erection of the brazen serpent, as of Christ upon the cross; and your salvation only by looking upon that, as ours by faith in him. But these types may be over-valued, when we rest in them, without looking forward to what they represent. Therefore Hezekiah broke that brazen serpent to pieces, and called it Nehushtan, (2 Kings, xviii. 4,) a contemptible name, that is, only a bit of brass. And God expresses himself with as much indignation against your sacrifices, as insufficient of themselves to reconcile to him. In which sense, he declares, (Isaiah, i. 11-15,) that he hates them, that they are a trouble and an abomination to him, and that he is weary to bear them; and that he will not accept of them, nor has required them as a satisfaction for sin. What is it then that he will accept? Even the Messiah, for whom a body was prepared, (Psal. xl. 6, 7,) in which he was to make that atonement which the bodies of beasts could not; and which is very particularly described in the fifty-third of Isaiah; and cannot be applied to the Jewish nation (as they would now turn it) under their present sufferings and calamity. It is said (ver. 12,) “ He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.' Do the Jews make intercession for the Gentiles? or how do they bear their sins? It is said, (ver. 9,)" He had done no violence, neither

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