OLD TESTAMENT BY THE JEWS.
able to impart the saving knowledge of the will of God, if men do not also enjoy the Spirit promised in the same covenant to the church of the elect, Isa. lix. 2].
§ 5. Unto that ignorance of the mind of God in the Scripture, which is spread over their minds, they have added another prejudice against the truth, ina strange figment of an oral law, which they make equal unto, yea in many things superior to that which is written. The Scripture becoming a lifeless letter unto them, as the true understanding of the mind of God was utterly hid from them, it was impossible that they should rest therein, or content themselves with what is revealed in it. For as the word, whilst it is enjoyed and used according to the mind of God, and is accompanied with that Spirit which is promised to lead them that believe into all truth, is full of sweetness and life to the souls of men, is a perfect rule of walking before God, and is that which satisfies them with wisdom and knowledge; so when it is only enjoyed outwardly as such a writing, without any dispensation of suitable light and grace, it will yield men no satisfaction; accordingly they will constantly turn aside to other means and ways of knowing and serving God. This being so eminent in the Jews, and the Medium they have fixed on to supply that want, which they suppose to be in the Scripture, (but which indeed is in themselves,) proving to be the great engine of their hardening and obstinacy in their infidelity; I shall first declare what it is that they intend by the oral law, and then briefly show the absurdity and falseness of their pretensions about it. Though it must not be denied, that it is one of the most ancient fables that is credited amongst any of the sons of men at this day.
§ 6. This oral law they affirm to be an unwritten tradition and exposition of the written law of Moses, given unto him in mount Sinai, and committed by him to Joshua and the Sanhedrim, to be by them delivered over by oral tradition unto those who should succeed them in the government of that church. It doth not appear that in the days of Christ or his apostles, whilst the temple was standing, there was any stated opinion amongst them about this oral law, though it is evident that not long after, it began to be received by the body of the people. Nay it is evident that there was no such law then acknowledged; for the Sadducees who utterly reject all the main principles of it, were then not only tolerated, but also in chief rule, one of them being high priest. |
That they had heaped together many superstitious observances under the name of traditions, is most clear in the gospel; and it doth not appear that then they knew to whom to assign their origin; they therefore indefinitely called them the traditions of the elders, or of those that lived of old before them. After the destruction of their temple, when they had lost the life and spirit of that worship, which the Scripture revealed, betaking themselves wholly unto their traditional figments, they began to bethink themselves how they might give countenance to their apostasy from the perfection and doctrine of the written law. For this end they began to fancy that these traditions were no less from God, than the written law itself. For when Moses was forty days and forty nights in the mountain, they say that in the day time he wrote the law from the mouth of God, and in the night, God instructed him in the oral law, or unwritten exposition of it, which they have received by tradition from him. For when he came down from the mount, after he had read unto them the written law, he repeated, as they say, to Aaron and Eleazer and the Sanhedrim, all that secret instruction which he had received in the night from God, which it was not lawful for him to write. Afterwards he committed the whole in a special manner to Joshua. Joshua did the same to Eleazer, as he did to his son Phineas, after whom they give us a catalogue of several prophets that lived in the ensuing generations, all whom they employ im this service of conveying down the oral law to their successors. ‘To the high priests also they assign a place in this work; of whom there were eighty-three from the first institution of that office, to the destruction of the temple; Joseph. lib. 20, cap. 18. From Aaron to the building of Solomon's temple thirteen; from thence to the captivity eighteen; all the rest take up the troublesome time of the apostasy of their church, unto the final ruin of it; their rulers being many because of their wickedness, as they themselves observe.
The last person whom they would have to preserve the oral law absolutely pure, was that Simeon, whom they call P°787, the Just, mentioned by Jesus the son of Syrach, chap. 1. And it is very observable, that the latter Jews have left out Simeon, the son of Hillel, whom their ancient masters placed upon the roll of the preservers of this treasure, supposing he might be that Simeon who in his old age received our Saviour in his arms, when he was presented in the temple, Luke 1. 25. A crime sufficient among the Jews to brand him with a perpetual ignominy: neither are they alone in turning men’s glory into reproach and shame.
§ 7. After the destruction of the temple and city, when the evil husbandmen were slain, the vineyard of the Lord was let out to others, and the kingdom given to another nation, and therewith the covenant sanctified use of the Scripture, the remaining Jews having lost wholly the mind of God in the Old Testament, betook themselves to their traditions, and as I said before, began to fancy and contend that they came from God himself; whereas their predecessors durst not plead any thing for them, but that they came unto them from them of old, that is from some of the masters of preceding generations. Hereupona while after, (as I have elsewhere showed at large) one of them whom they call Rabbi Juda Hannasi, and Hakkadosh, the prince and the holy, took upon him to gather their scattered traditions, and to cast them into form, order, and method, in writing, that they might be unto the Jews a rule of life and worship for ever. The story of his work and undertaking is given us by Maimonides in Jad Chazaka, the authors of Sedar Olam, Halicoth Olam, Tzemach David, and many others; and they all agree that this their great master lived about the times of Marcus Antoninus two hundred years, or thereabouts after the destruction of city and temple.
§ 8. This collection of his they call 720 or ΤΥ Mishne, or Mishnaioth, being as is pretended a repetition of the law, in an exposition of it; indeed it is a farrago of all sorts of traditions, true and false, with a monstrous mixture of lies, useless, foolish, and wicked. The things contained in it, are by themselves referred to five heads: lst. The oral law received by Moses on mount Sinai, preserved by the means before declared: 2nd. Oral constitutions of Moses himself, after he came down from the mount: 3rd. Constitutions and orders drawn by various ways of arguing, (13, as Rambam tells us) out of the written law: 4th. The answers and decrees of the Sanhedrim, and other wise men in former ages: 5th. Immemorial customs, whose original being unknown, are supposed to be divine.
}9. The whole is divided into six parts: noted with the initial letter of the word, which signifies the chief things treated on in it. As the first by τ, z, that is DY, Zeraim, Seeds, which is divided into eleven Massicktot, or treatises, containing in all seventy-five chapters. The second by 73, m, that is, 79170, Moad, or appointed feasts, which is distributed into twelve Massicktot, containing in them eighty-eight chapters. The third by 3, n, that is DW, of women, and is distributed into seven treatises, containing seventy-one chapters. The fourth by 3, n, that is, Ops2, Nezikim, about loss and damage, and is divided into eight Massicktot, whereof the first is divided into three parts, called ΝῊΡ NAD, NSD NAD, NINA ΝΞΞ, the first, middle, and last, port, or entrance, containing in them thirty chapters, whereunto forty-four are added in the following parts. The fifth by p, that is, Ὁ ΤΡ, Kodashim, of Sanctifications, and is divided into eleven books containing ninety chapters. The sixth with Ὁ, that is, mon», Teharoth, of Purifications, in twelve books, and one hundred and twentysix chapters.
§10. Unto this Mishne of R. Juda, they annex the ΠῚ ΟἽ, the Tosiphot, or additions of Rabbi Chaiah, his scholar, expounding many passages in his master’s works; to them a more full explanation of the same doctrine of the Mishnee, which they call Baracetot is subjoined, being the collection of some Antitalmudical masters. About three hundred years after the destruction of the temple, R. Johanan composed the Jerusalem Talmud, consisting in expositions, comments, and disputes upon the whole Mishne, excepting the last part about purifications. An hundred years or thereabouts after that, Rabbi Ase, composed the Babylonian Talmud, or Gemara; thirty-two years, they say, he spent in this work, yet leaving it unfinished, seventy-one years after, it was completed by his disciples. And the whole work of both these Talmuds may be referred unto five heads: for first, they expound the text of the Mishne; 2nd. Decide questions of right and fact; 3rd. Report the disputations, traditions, and constitutions, of the doctors that lived between them and the writing of the Mishne; 4th. Give allegorical monstrous expositions of the Scripture, which they call Midrashoth; and 5th. Report stories of the like nature. ᾿
§ 11. This at length is their oral law grown unto, and in the learning and practising of these things, consists the whole religion and worship of the Jews; there being not the most absurd saying of any of their doctors, in those huge heaps of folly and vanity, that they do not hold to be equal unto, nay, that they are not ready to prefer before the written word, that perfect and only guide of their church, whilst God was pleased with it.
In the dust of this confusion they dwell, loving this darkness more than light, because their deeds are evil. Having for many generations entertained a prejudicate imagination, that these traditional figments, amongst which their crafty masters have inserted many filthy and blasphemous fables against our Lord Christ and his gospel, are of divine authority; and haying utterly lost the spiritual sense of the written word, they are thus sealed up in blindness and obdurateness; and shall be so, until the veil be taken away, when the appointed time of their deliverance shall come. A brief discovery of the falseness of this fancy of their oral law, which is the foundation of all that huge building of les and vanities that their Talmuds are composed of, shall put an end to this discourse.
§ 12. 1. The very story of the giving of the law at mount Sinai, sufficiently discovers the folly of this imagination. ‘This oral law, the Jews are ready, on all occasions, to prefer before that which is written; and do openly profess, that without it the other is of no use unto them. I desire then to know whence it is, that all the circumstances of the giving and teaching of the less necessary, are so exactly recorded; but not one word is spoken of this oral law, either of God’s revealing it to Moses, or of Moses teaching of it to Joshua, or any others. Strange! that so much should be recorded of every circumstance of the less principal, lifeless law; and not one word of either substance or circumstance of that which is, if these men may be believed, the very life and soul of the other. Maimonides, in Jad Chazaka, tells us there is mention made of it in Exod. xxiv. 12. I will give you, saith the Lord, M87 Mn, a law and commandment. 7n, saith he, is the written law; 7187, the oral: though the next words are, ὉΠ ΠΟ snan> ἭΝ, which I have written, that thou mayest teach them; the written law, and no other, being on several accounts expressed by both those terms. How know they, that any such law was given to Moses as they pretend? What testimony, witness, or record of it, was had or made at the time of its giving, or in many generations, for two thousand years afterwards?
§ 13. 2. Did their forefathers, at any time before the captivity, transgress this oral law, or did they not? If they say they did not, but kept it, and observed it diligently, we may easily see of what importance it is, that the most strict observation of it would not preserve them from all manner of wickedness; and what an hedge it is to the written law, when notwithstanding the obedience yielded unto it, that was utterly despised and neglected. If they shall say that law also was broken by them, I desire to know whence it comes to pass, that whereas God by his prophets doth reprove them for all their other sins, and in particular for contempt of the written law, and of the statutes, ordinances, and institutions of it, he no where once mentioneth this their greater guilt, of despising the oral law, but there is as universal a silence concerning its transgression, as there is of its giving and institution. Can we have any greater evidence of its being fictitious than this? that whereas it is pretended that it is the main rule of their obedience to God, God did never reprove them for the transgression of it, though whilst he owned them as his church and people, he suffered none of their sins to pass unreproved, especially not any of that importance of which this is by them pretended to be..
3. Moses was commanded to write the whole law that he received from God, and did so accordingly, Exod. xxiv. 3, 4; xxxiv.28; Deut. xxxi. 9 —24. Where was this oral law, which they say was not to be written, when Moses was commanded to write the whole law that he had received of God, and did accordingly? This new law was not then coined, being indeed nothing but the product of their apostasy from the law which was written.
4. The sole ground and foundation of this oral law, lies in the imperfection of the written law. This is that which they plead for the necessity of it. The written law extends not to all necessary cases that occur in religion; many things are redundant, many wanting in it; and hereof they gather great heaps of instances, so that they will grant, that if the written law had been perfect, there had been no need of this traditional one. But whom in this matter shall we believe: a few ignorant Jews, or God himself bearing witness that his law is perfect, and that he requires no more in his worship but what is in that law prescribed? See Ps. xix. 8; Prov. xxx. 6,6; Deut. iv. 1,2. And this perfection of the written law, though it be entirely destructive to their traditions, not only the Karei among themselves do earnestly contend for, but also sundry of their Gemarists do acknowledge, especially when they forget their own concernments, out of a desire to oppose the gospel. And to this head bélong all the arguments that divines make use of to prove the perfection of the Scripture against the new Talmudists in Christianity.
5. God every-where sends his people to the written law of Moses, for the rule of their obedience, no where unto any Kabal, Deut. xi. 32, x. 12, 13, and xxviii. 1; Josh. i. 7, 8, xxiii. 6; 2 Chron. xxx. 18; Isa. viii. 20. If there be such an oral law, it is one that God would not have any man to observe; which he calls none to the obedience of, nor did ever reprove any man for its transgression
§ 14. And many more arguments of the like nature may be added, to prove the vanity of this pretence; and yet this figment is the foundation of the present Judaical religion and obstinacy. When the apostle wrote this Epistle, their apostasy was not yet arrived at this rock of offence; since their falling on it, they have increased their blindness, misery, and ruin. Then they were contented to try their cause, by what God spake to their fathers in the prophets, which kept open a door of hope, and gave some advantages for their conversion, which are now shut up and removed, until God shall take this veil away from their faces, that they may'see to the end of the things that were to be done away.
§ 15. By this means, principally, have they for many generations both shut out the truth, and secured themselves from conviction. For they reject whatever is taught in the Scriptures concerning the person, office, and work of the Messiah, seeing they have that which they esteem a revelation of equal authority, teaching them a doctrine quite of another nature, and more suited unto their carnal principles and expectations; and will rather rest in any evasions, than give way to the testimony of Scripture. And whilst they have a firm persuasion, as they have, received by the tradition of many generations, that the written word is imperfect, and but a half revelation of the mind of God, in itself unintelligible, and not to be received or understood, but according to the sense of their oral law, now recorded in their Talmuds, what can the most plain and cogent testimonies of it avail to their conviction? And here it must be remarked, that the Christian and the Jewish church have trodden the same path to their grand apostasy. How far that of the Jews was overtaken with it in the days of our Lord’s conversation on the earth, the gospel doth abundantly declare; and of the manner in which they have brought it unto its height, we have given now some brief account. The conduct of the Roman church hath been the very same, and hath at length arrived unto almost the same issue, by the same degrees. This, some of them perceiving, do not only defend the Pharisaical opinion among the Jews about the oral law, and the succession of their traditions, as consonant to the pretensions of their own church; but also openly avow, that a very great number of their several respective traditions are either the same, or that they nearly resemble one another; as doth expressly Josephus de Voysin, in his Prowmiwm to the Pugio Fidei of Raimundus Martini. And because it is evident that the way and means whereby both the Judaical and Roman church have apostatized and departed from the truth, are the same, and that they maintain and defend themselves in their apostasy and refusal to return unto the truth by the same arguments, I shall, ὡς ἐν zapody, manifest their consent and agreement in this principle, about their traditions, and the authority of them, which have been the ruin of them both.
§ 16. First, The Jews expressly contend that their oral law, their mass of traditions, was from God himself. They say that it was partly delivered unto Moses on Mount Sinai, and partly added by him from divine revela- ft? 4 ORAL LAW OF THE JEWS.
tions, which he afterwards received. Hence, the authority of it, with them, is no less than that of the written word, (which hath all its authority from its divine original,) and the usefulness of it is much more. For although they cannot deny but that this and that particular tradition, that is practice, custom, or exposition of any place of Scripture, was first introduced, expressed, and declared, at such or such seasons, by such masters or schools amongst them; yet they will not grant that they were then first invented or found out, but only that they were then first declared out of the cabalistical abyss, wherein they were preserved from their first revelation; as all of them agree, who have written any thing about the nature, propagation, and continuance of their oral law.
And this is the persuasion of the Romanists about their cabal of traditions. They plead that they are all of a divine original, partly from Christ, and partly from his apostles. Whatever they have added unto the written word, yea, though it be never so contrary thereunto, still they pretend that it is part of the oral law, which they have received from them by living tradition. Let one convention of their doctors determine that images are to be adored; another, that transubstantiation is to be believed; a third, add a new creed, with an equal number of articles unto the old: let one doctor advance the opinion of purgatory; another, of justification by works; all is one, these things are not then first invented, but only declared out of that unsearchable treasure of traditions, which they have in their custody. Had they not fixed this persuasion in the minds of men, they know that their whole fabric would, of its own accord, have long since sunk into confusion. But they highly contend at this day, that they need no other argument to prove any thing to be of a divine original, but that they think so, and practise accordingly. ι
§ 17. Secondly, This oral law being thus given, the preservation of it, seeing Moses is dead long ago, must be inquired after. Now, the Jews assion a threefold depository of it. Ist, The whole congregation; 2dly, The sanhedrim; and 3dly, The high priest. To this end they affirm, that the part of it which Moses received on Sinai, was three times repeated upon his descent from the Mount, and that the additions which were afterwards made, had the same promulgation. Ist, It was repeated by himself unto Aaron; 2dly, By them both unto the elders; and 3dly, By the elders unto the whole congregation; or as Maimonides in Jad Chazaka, Moses delivered it unto Eleazar; Phineas and Joshua, after the death of Aaron; ᾿ by whom the consistory was instructed therein, who taught the people as occasion did require. What the people knew of it is uncertain, but what they did know was quickly lost. The consistory, or great sanhedrim, Ins Dyaw dw }T m3, as they call it, ‘The House of Judgment, of Seventy and one, was more faithful in its charge. Hence, Rab. Moses, in the same book, Tractat. D’I27 of rebels or transgressors, teacheth us, Oma ΤΙΝ ὍΤΙ “ay om ΤῸ Syaw mn apy on pdwrsaw Sven pt ma ΣΝ" 52d ΝᾺ vbw pr, ‘The great consistory (or house of judgment) at Jerusalem, was the foundation of the oral law: these are the pillars of doctrine, from whom statutes and judgments went forth unto all Israel.’ And he afterwards affirms, with what truth may be easily judged, Sowa apm AT Nd op dy tart pT a Mw, ‘whilst this great consistory continued, there was no dissension in Israel. For not only the famous differences between. Hillel and Shammai, with their disciples, which involved all the schools, scribes, and lawyers among them, arose, and were propagated whilst that consistory continued; but also the atheistical sect of the Sadducees rose unto that height and interest, as to obtain the presidentship in the sanhedrim itself. But the high priests are those whom they fix upon as the principal conservators of this oral law. To this end they give us catalogues of them from first to last, that by their uninterrupted succession we may be “assurred of the incorrupt preservation of their original traditions. Only it may here be added by the way, that they bind not themselves precisely in all their religious observances unto this oral law, to which they assign a divine origin; but ascribe an authority unto the sanhedrim and the high priest, to constitute things of themselves in the worship of God, besides and beyond the word. And whatever they pretend of their oral law, when they come unto particular instances, they would fain educe the constitutions of it from some word or letter, or manner of interpretation of the Scripture itself. But those constitutions of the consistory and wise men, they ascribe unto their own authority.
Some of these are recounted by Maimonides, in his preface unto Jad Chazaka; as the reading of the book or roll of Esther with fasting, lights on the feast of dedication, the fast on the seventh of Ab, or July, various mixtures and washings of hands; things plainly of that nature which our Lord Jesus condemned amongst them. And there is something observable in the manner in which Maimonides frees them from transgressing that precept, Deut. xii, 32. ‘Thou shalt not add unto this word,’ by this constitution. WT 13 Wax SN anys mds ΠΥῚΡΣ ἽΝ ay myy>d my ΤΣ ΤΙ sya Nd "m “Tox Ws JD Nos myn by parow. ‘For, saith he, ‘they say not that the holy blessed God hath commanded these things, that there should be such mixtures; that the book of Esther should be read with fasting; for if they should say so they should add to the law. But thus we speak, such and such a prophet, or the consistory, commanded and appointed that the book of Esther should be read with fasting, to celebrate the glory of the holy blessed God in our deliverance; and so of the rest. It seems, then, they may add what they will of their own, if they prefix not the name of God to their inventions; by which means they have set themselves at liberty to multiply superstitious observations at their pleasure, which they had actually done in the days of our Saviour, and thereby made the law of God of none effect.
In all these things are they followed and imitated by the Romanists. In the same manner do they lay up the stock of their traditions. In general, they make the church the repository of them, although they do not so distinctly explain the ways and means whereby they were committed to it, as the Jews do. Unto the sanhedrim, councils are succeeded in the same office. But their nature, work, authority, assistance, and use, are so variously disputed amongst them, that nothing of certamty from them or by them, singly considered, is to be obtained. It is the high priest or pope that is the principal conservator of this sacred treasury of traditions; upon their succession doth the certainty of them depend. And whilst there is a pope at Rome, the knowledge of the new oral law will not fail, as the old one did not whilst the Jews had a high priest; though, in the pursuit of it, they crucified the Messiah, and continue to reject him unto this day. Besides, like the Jews, they content not themselves with what they pretend to be of ancient tradition, but assume a power of making new constitutions in the things of God; by which they would have us to think that they do not violate the prohibitions of adding, because they ascribe them not unto the word of God, but to the authority of the present church. Thus far, therefore, they are fully agreed. /
§ 18. Thirdly, The Jews, in favour and to the honour of these traditions, affirm that the written word without them is imperfect, and not to be understood, but as it is interpreted by them: in this they are constant, “and for this they earnestly contend. Aben Ezra, in his Preface to the Law, discourseth at large of five several ways of the interpretation of it, but concludes at last that the whole written law of Moses is founded. on the oral. He saith, may wm mp dysw mn by mwa qoow msxd Ὁ rm 325‘ And this is a sign unto us, that the law of Moses is founded on the oral law, which is the joy of our hearts: so apt are they to rejoice in a thing of nought. To the same purpose are the words of another famous master amongst them: Rabbi Bechai, in Cad. Hakkemach, nT py ΒΞ ΠΌΤ ὉΝ 13 ANanmd md ΞΏΞΞῚ mn PRY ΠΡ ΡΞ mn A —‘ The oral law is the foundation of the written, nor can the written law be expounded but by the oral.’
By this being the foundation of the written law, they intend, that the sense of it is so enwrapped and contained therein, that without the explications of the oral law, the written law cannot be understood. And to this end Manasse, one of their late masters, expressly disputes, that in many things it is defective, and in some things redundant, so that it is not able to give us a full and clear direction in the things of God, without their traditional explications. And in the confirmation of his opinion, he instanceth in sundry precepts and prohibitions, that he would prove so obscure, as that no obedience can be yielded, unto them in a due manner, without the help of the Cabala; but as the greater part of his exceptions are childish cavils, and have been answered by others, they shall be here passed over. To this then they are arrived; this is the common persuasion of them all; and we shall hear what farther progress they have made. And in this they are imitated by their successors. Their oral law also is made by them the foundation of the written.
As those heretics of old, who had got some sophistical cavils about evil, wherever they met with any one not of their mind, presently fell upon him with their wnde malwm? whence had evil its original? so thinking to bring them to the acknowledgment of two supreme principles of things, a good one and a bad one. So, for the most part, the first question of a Romanist is, How do you know the Scriptures to be the word of God? and then the next word is, the Cabala, the 75 bya mn, oral law, tradition: these are the foundation of it. And in their progress, they fail not to assert two principles, both borrowed from the Jews:—Ilst, That the Scripture is imperfect, and doth not give us a full and complete account of all things that are to be believed or practised, that God may be glorified, and our own souls saved.—2dly, That what was delivered in the Scriptures can in no way be rightly and truly understood, but by the help of those traditions which they have in their custody. But although these are good and useful inventions, and although they are men that want not ability to find out what is conducing to their own advantage, yet they cannot be allowed the credit of being their first authors, seeing they are expressly borrowed from the Jews.
§ 19. Fourthly, When these two laws, the law of God and and their own traditions, do come in competition, many of the Jews do expressly prefer that of their own invention before the other, and that both as to certainty and use. Hence, they make it the foundation of their church, and the only safe means to preserve the truth. So are we informed by Isaac Corbulensis, in m2 ὙΠῸ, ‘Do not think, saith he, ‘that the written law is the foundation, for the foundation is the oral law; for by that law was the covenant made, as it is written, According to these words do I make a covenant with thee, Exod. xxxiv. 27. He takes his argument from that expression, TNT DDIM 5. Dy, wresting it foolishly, as they do other Scriptures. His oral law he finds in those words, “5 δ, which signify nothing but ‘according to,’ nor are any other words intended, but those delivered to Moses and written by him. And of this oral law he goes on _ to say, ‘ These are the treasures of the holy blessed God; for he knew that ' Israel should be carried captive among other people, and that the nations would transcribe their books, and therefore he would not commit their secret law to writing.’
It seems, then, that these things were left them in secret tradition, because God was not willing that any besides themselves should know his mind and will. But they have at last shown themselves more full of benignity towards mankind than they would allow God to be, inasmuch as they have committed this secret law to writing. And to this purpose is their Confession in 37 ΤΣΤ ‘the Golden Altar,’ Sy τῶν WEN ON MOTD STD DYAW MIN ἣν ON 8D ANDAW THN ἈΝ ΤῸ τ WNATN APY —‘It is impossible for us to stand or abide upon the foundation of our holy law, which is the written law, unless it be by the oral law, which is the exposition thereof.’ Wherein, they not only declare their judgments concerning their traditions, but also express the reason of their obstinate adherence unto them; which is, that without it they cannot maintain themselves in their present Judaism. And so indeed is the case with them; for innumerable testimonies of the Scriptures rise up directly against their infidelity, and they can never keep their station, but by a horrible corruption of them through their traditions. On this account, it is a common thing with them, in the advice which they giye unto their disciples, to advise them to prefer the study of the Talmud before the study of the Scripture, and the sayings of their wise men before the sayings of the prophets; thus, plainly expressing an utter disregard of the written word, any farther than as they suppose the sense of it explained in their oral law. Neither are they here forsaken by their associates. The principal design of all the books which have been lately published by the Romanists, and they have not been a few, hath been to prove the certainty and sufficiency of their traditions, in matters of their faith and worship, above that of the written word.
§ 20. Fifthly, There are some few remaining among the eastern Jews, who reject all this story concerning the oral law, and professedly adhere unto the written word only. These the masters of their present religion and persuasion do, by common consent brand as heretics, calling them Scripturists, or Scripturarians, or Biblists, the very name of reproach wherewith the Romanists stigmatize all those who reject their traditions. These are their ON7P, that is ‘ Biblists’ or ‘ Scripturarians; and everywhere they term them bD‘N2”7, ‘heretics, and endeavour to prove them guilty ΤῚΣ of ‘heresy’ in the highest degree. Some would have them to be the offspring of the old Sadducees, to deny the resurrection and the world to come, as men usually care not much what they impute unto those whom they esteem heretics. But the falsity hereof is notorious, and so acknowledged by others, and confuted by the writings of the Karans themselves. Yea, the author of Cosri affirms, that they are more studious in the law than the Rabbins; and that their reasons were more weighty than theirs, and lead more towards the naked sense of the Scripture. But this they charge upon them, namely, that rejecting the sure rule of their traditions, they ran into singular expositions of the law, and so divided it, and made many laws of it, having no certain means of agreement among themselves. So saith Rabbi Jehuda Levita, the author of the fore-mentioned Cosri, MYANT WAT OND 59 Mw pr. ‘The Kareans multiply laws according to their own opinion,’ for which he inveighs against them after he had commended them, as is mentioned above. And the same is objected against them by Maimonides, on Pirke Aboth; as though it were not known that the greatest part of their Talmud, the sacred treasury of — their oral law, is taken up with differences and disputes of their masters, with a multitude of various opinions and contradictory conceptions about their traditions. Thus deal the Romanists also with their adversaries: this they charge them with. They are heretics, Biblists, and, by adhering to the Scripture alone, have no certainty among themselves, but run into diversities of opinions, because they have deserted the unerring rule of their Cabala; though the world is filled with the noise of their own conflicts, notwithstanding the pretended relief which they have by means of their traditions.
It remains that we consider how these traditions come to be communicated unto others, out of the secret storehouse wherein originally they were deposited. This, as I have elsewhere, and partly before declared, was by their being committed unto writing by Rabbi Juda Hakkadosh, whose collections, with their expositions in their Talmud, do give us a perfect account, if we may believe them, of that secret law which came down unto them by oral tradition from Moses. And something like this is pretended by the Romanists; many of their traditions, they say, are recorded in the rescripts of popes, decrees of councils, and constitutions of the canon law, and other such sacred means of declaring the oral instructions of our Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles.
But herein the Jews deal with us far more ingenuously than they. They tell us plainly that now their whole oral law is written, and that they have no reserve of authentic traditions, not yet declared; so that where Austin says of his adversaries,* ‘ Nescit habere preeter Scripturas legitimas et Propheticas, Judzeos quasdam traditiones suas quas non Scriptas habent, sed memoriter tenent, et alter in alterum loquendo transfundit, quam deuterosin vocant. Either he knew not of the Mishne that was then written, or this opinion of secret traditions was continued until the finishing and promulgation of the Babylonish Talmud, which was sundry years after his death. But here the Romanists fail us; for although they have given us heaps upon heaps of their traditions, by the means afore-mentioned, yet they plead that they have still an inexhaustible treasure of them laid up in their church stores, and in the breast of their holy father, to be drawn forth at all times, as occasion shall require. ἢ
And thus have we taken a brief prospect of the consent of both these apostate churches, in that principle which hath been the means of their apostasy, and is the great engine whereby they are rendered incurable
§ 1. Principles presupposed in the Apostle’s discourse in his Epistle to the Hebrews. First, A Messiah promised from the foundation of the world. § 2,3. Of the evil that is in the world. § 4. Of sin and punishment. Origin and entrance of them. § 5. Ignorance of mankind about them. § 5, 6. The sin and fall of Adam. Their consequences. ᾧ 7. Jews’ opinion about the sin of Adam. Also of the curse and corruption of nature. § 8—12. Their*sense of both at large evinced. § 13. God not unjust if all mankind had perished in this condition. § 14. Instances of the sin and punishment of angels. Differences between the sin of angels and man. Angels lost, mankind relieved. § 15. Evidences of that deliverance. § 16. How attainable. Not by men themselves. § 17. Not by angels. ᾧ 18. Nor the law. That proved against the Jews. § 19. Their fable of the law made before the world, with the occasion of it. The patriarchs saved before the giving of the law. § 20. Observation of the moral precepts of the law, no means of relief. § 21. Nor the sacrifices of it. § 22. The new covenant. God the author of it. How to be accomplished. § 23, 24. The first promise of it, Gen. ili. 16, discussed. § 25. Sense of the Jews upon it manifested. ᾿ § 26, 27. Examined. § 28. Promise of a Deliverer, the foundation of all religion in the world. § 29. The promise renewed unto Abraham, Gen. xii. 1, 2,3. Nature of it as given unto him, § 30. Testified unto and confirmed, Gen. xlix. 10; Num. xxiv. 17, 19; Job xix. 25. Opened, § 31—33, with sundry other places. End of the separation of the posterity of Abraham unto a peculiar people and church. §34, This deliverer the Messiah. Meaning of the word, The person who.
§ 1. We proceed now to what we chiefly intend in all these discourses; which is the consideration and discussion of those great principles, as of all religion in general, so of the Christian in particular. These the apostle supposes as the foundation of his whole reasoning with the Hebrews, and they are the basis that he stands upon, in the management of his whole design. For in all discourses that are parzenetical, as this Epistle for the most part is, there are always some principles taken for granted, which give life and efficacy unto the exhortations in them, and into which these are resolved. For as to attempt to persuade men to receive particular points of faith, opinion, or practice, without a previous conviction of general principles of truth, from which the persuasions used do naturally flow and arise, isa thing weak and inefficacious; so to be employed in the demonstration of the principles themselves, when the especial end aimed at is to persuade, would bring confusion into all discourse.
Wherefore, although our apostle do assert and confirm those dogmata, and articles of truth, which he persuaded the Hebrews to embrace; yet he supposeth and takes for granted those more general κυρίας dogac or ‘first maxims, which are the foundation both of the doctrines and exhortations insisted on, as all skill in teaching doth require. These principles we shall now attempt to draw forth and consider. They are the following: