the building of the city mentioned by Gabriel; for it is not walls and houses, but policy, rule and government, that makes and constitutes a city.

$23. And here the impression made on the minds of the Persian rulers, ought to be particularly observed. The king himself calls Ezra the scribe of the law of the God of heaven; thus owning him for the true God: for he who is the God of heaven, is God alone; all others are but the dunghill gods of the earth, ver. 12. Again, he declares that he was persuaded that if this work was not done, there would be wrath from heaven upon himself, his kingdom, and his sons, ver. 23. The seven counsellors they join in that law, ver. 14.; and the mighty princes of the kingdom assisted Ezra in his work, ver. 28. So that no command that concerned that people before or after, was accompanied with such solemnity, or gave such glory unto God as this did. Besides, the whole work of the reformation of the church, the restitution of the worship of God, the collecting and the recognition of the sacred oracles, was begun, carried on, and finished by this Ezra, as we elsewhere at large have declared. All which considerations falling in with the account before insisted on, makes it manifest that it was this, and no other decree that was intended by the angel Gabriel; and from thence unto the death of the Messiah, was seventy weeks, or four hundred and ninety years; the just and true limitation of the time after which we have been inquiring.

§ 24. I declared at the entrance of this discourse, that the force of our argument against the Jews from this place of Daniel, does not depend on this chronological computation of the time determined. All then that I aimed at in it, was to vindicate it in general from those perplexities by which they pretend to render the whole place inconclusive. And this we have not only done, but we have moreover so stated the account, as that they are not able from any records of times past, to bring any one considerable objection against it, or any objection which may not be easily solved. We now proceed to what remains of our introductory dissertations.

EXERCITATION XVI.

1. Other considerations, proving the Messiah to be long since come. §2. Fluctuation of the Jews about the person and work of the Messiah. §3. Their state and condition in the world for sixteen centuries. § 4. Promises of the covenant made with them of old. All fulfilled unto the expiration of that covenant. § 5. Not now made good unto them. Reason there. of. The promise of the land of Canaan failed. § 6. Of protection and temporal deliverance. § 7. Spirit of prophecy departed. S. Covenant expired. 9. Jewish exceptions. Their prosperity. § 10. The sins of their forefathers. § 11-13. Of themselves. Vanity of these exceptions. Concessions of the ancient Jews. Folly of Talmudical doctors. § 14. Traditions of the birth of the Messiah before the destruction of the second temple. § 15, 16. Tradition of the school of Elias; about the world's continuance. Answers of the Jews unto our arguments by way of concession. § 17. The time prolonged, because of their sins. Vanity of this pretence. § 18. Not the Jews only, but the Gentiles concerned in the coming of the Messiah. § 19. The promise not conditional. Limitations of time, not capable of conditions. § 20. No mention of any such condition. § 21. The condition supposed overthrows the promise. § 22. The Jews in the use of this plea, self-condemned. § 23. The covenant overthrown by it. § 24. The Messiah may never come upon it.

§ 1. WE may now add to the conclusive testimonies before in

sisted on, some other considerations taken from the circumstances and opinions of the Jews themselves. These will be found both suitable for their own conviction, and of use to strengthen the faith of them who do believe. And the first thing that offers itself unto us, is their miserable fluctuation and uncertainty in the whole doctrine about the Messiah, ever since the time of his coming, and of their rejection of him.

§ 2. That the promise of the coming of the Messiah, was the foundation of their professed faith, and worship, from the days of Abraham, we have before sufficiently proved. Until the time of his coming, they were unanimous in this profession, as also in their desires and expectations of his advent. Since that time, as they have utterly lost all faith in him, as to the great end for which he was promised, so they have lost all truth as to the doctrine concerning his person, office and work, though these are abundantly revealed in the Old Testament.

In their Talmud. Tractat. Sanedr. they only wrangle, conjecture and contend about him, and that under such notions and apprehensions of him, as the Scripture gives no countenance

unto. When he shall come, and how, where he shall be born, and what he shall do, they wrangle much about, but are not able to determine any thing at all; at which uncertainty, the Holy Ghost never left the church in things of so great importance. Hence some of them adhered to Barcosby for the Messiah, a bloody rebel; and some of them in after ages to David el David, a wandering juggler; others to Moses Cretensis; and by sundry other pretenders have they allowed themselves to be deluded. Thus some have lately followed the foolish apostate Sabadia, with his false prophets, R. Levi and Nathan, who never made the least appearance of any one character of the true Messiah, as Maimonides confesseth and bewaileth. The disputes of their late masters, have not any thing more of certainty or consistency, than those of their Talmudical progenitors. And this at length hath driven them to the present miserable relief of their infidelity and despair, asserting that Messiah shall not come until immediately before the resurrection of the dead; only they take care that some small time may be left for them to enjoy wealth and pleasure, with dominion over the Edomites and Ishmaelites, that is Christians and Turks, under whom they live, full of thoughts of revenge and retaliation in the days of their Messiah. Now, to what can any man ascribe this fluctuation and uncertainty, about that which was the fundamental article of the faith of their forefathers, and their utter renunciation of the true knowledge of the Messiah, but to this, that having long ago renounced him, they exercise their thoughts and expectations about a chimera of their own, which having no subsistence in itself, nor foundation in any work or word of God, can afford them no certainty or satisfaction in their contemplations about it?

§3. Again, the state and condition of this people for the space of above sixteen hundred and thirty years, gives evidence to the truth contended for. The whole time of the continuance of their church state and worship, from the giving of the law on Mount Sinai, to the final destruction of the city and temple by Titus, was not above sixteen hundred and thirty years, or sixteen hundred and forty at the utmost, allowing all their former captivities and intermissions of government into the reckoning. They have then continued in a state of dispersion and rejection from God, as long as ever they were accepted for his church and people; what their condition hath been in the world for these sixteen centuries, is known unto all, and what may be thence concluded, we shall distinctly consider.

§4. When God took the Jews to be his people, he did it by a special and solemn covenant. In this covenant, he gave them promises, which were all made good to them until the expiration of this peculiar covenant in the coming of the Messiah." These

promises may be classed under three heads. First, That they should possess the land of Canaan, and there enjoy that worship which he had prescribed unto them; see Exod. vi. 4. ch. xxxiv. 10, 11. Levit. xxvi. 8, 9. Deut. xviii. 18. ch. xxix. 13. Psal. cv. 10, 11. Secondly, That he would defend them from their adversaries, or if at any time he gave them up to be punished and chastised for their sins, that upon their repentance and supplications made unto him, he would deliver them from their oppressors, Deut. xxx. 1-5. Neh. i. 9. Deut. xxxii. 35—37. 1 Kings viii. 34. Thirdly, That he would continue prophets among them to instruct them in his will, and to reclaim them from their transgressions, Deut. xviii. 18. The whole Pentateuch, and all their divine writings, are full of promises about these things. And, as we said, 'till the time limited for the expiration of that special covenant, they were all made good unto them. That it was to expire, they are forced to acknowledge, because of the express promise of a new or another covenant to be made not like unto it, Jer. xxxii. The land given them by inheritance, and the place designed for the worship of God therein, were continued in their possession, notwithstanding the mighty attempts made by the nations of the world for their extirpation. And when at any time he gave them up for a season unto the power of their adversaries, because of their sins and provocations, as unto the Babylonians in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, and afterwards unto the Grecians or Syrians in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes; yet still he first foretold them of their condition, promised them deliverance from it, and in a short time accomplished it, though it could not be done without the ruin of other kingdoms and empires. The oppression of the Babylonians continued but seventy years, and the persecution of Antiochus prevailed only for three years and a half. Prophets also he raised up unto them in their several generations, yea, in the time of their greatest distresses; as Jeremiah at the time of their desolation, Ezekiel and Daniel in Babylon, Haggai and Zechariah in their poverty after their return, which dispensation ceased not until these prophets had pointed out to them the end of that covenant, and had told them that the Messiah should come speedily and suddenly into his temple, Mal. iii. 1, 2.

5. The present Jews, I hope, will not deny but that God is faithful still, and that he is as able now to accomplish his promises, as he was in the days of old. Let us then inquire whether they enjoy any one thing promised them in the covenant, or any thing relating to it, or whether they have done so since the days wherein, as we have proved, the Messiah was to come. 1. For the country given unto them by covenant, and the place of God's worship there, the whole world knows, and they con

tinually complain, that strangers possess it, they being utterly cast out of it. It is with them all, as it was with Abraham before the grant of the inheritance was accomplished, they have not possession of one foot in it, no not for a burying-place. Their temple is destroyed, and all their attempts for the restoration of it, which God so blessed of old, have been frustrated, and have ceased. Their daily sacrifice has ceased, and whatever they substitute in the room of it, is an open abomination unto the Lord. We need not insist on these things. The stories of the ruin and exile of their forefathers, and of the vain attempts which they have made to recover their land, and of the utter pollution of the places of their worship, are known to themselves, and to all men that care to know aught of these things. Where is now the covenant of the land of Canaan? Was it to be absolutely everlasting? Whence comes it to pass, that the great promise of it doth utterly fail? Was it to expire? What period can be assigned unto its duration, but only that of the coming of the Messiah, and the establishment of a new covenant in him? Is not the denial hereof a ready way to make the men of the world turn Atheists, and to look upon the Scriptures of the Old Testament as a mere fable, when they shall be taught that the promises contained in it, were but conjectures, deceitful words, that came to nothing.

§ 6. Again, How are they delivered from their adversaries? How are they defended from their oppressors? There is not a nation in the known world, in which they do not live either openly or privately in exile and banishment from their own land. About their oppressions, and against their oppressors, they have cried out, and prayed after their manner, for many generations. Where is the protection, the deliverance promised? If the time be not yet expired for the coming of the Messiah, why are they not delivered? What word is there in the law, or the prophets, that they shall not be delivered out of temporal distresses in any other way but by the Messiah? Hath it not been otherwise with them? Were they not delivered from former oppressions and captivities by other means? Could not God of old have dispossessed the Romans of the land of Canaan, and afterwards the Saracens ? and can he not now dispossess the Turks as easily as he did the Babylonians, Persians and Grecians? If the covenant of those promises be not expired in the coming of the Messiah, what account can they give of these things?

§ 7. Further, where are the prophets promised unto them? Can they name one since the days of John Baptist, whom they owned for a prophet? Hath any one amongst them pretended to any such thing, whom the event, and they on the event, have not discovered to be an impostor? Such was Theudas, and MoVOL. I. A a