SECT. 18. | ABOUT TRADITIONS. 137
own, so they entitle [prefix] not the name of God to their anven- tions: by which means they have set themselves at liberty to mul- tiply 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 they are followed and imitated by the Ro- manists. 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 way and means whereby they were committed thereunto 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 dis- puted amongst them, that nothing of certainty 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 tra- dition, but assume a power of making new constitutions in the things of God; whereby they would have us to think they do not violate the prohibition of adding, because they ascribe then: not unto the word of God, but to the authority of the present church. Thus far, therefore, they are fully agreed.
18. (3.) The Jews, in favour and unto the honour of these tra- ditions, affirm that the written word without them is imperfect, and not to be understood but as it is interpreted by them. This they are constant unto, and earnestly contend for. 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. mn, saith he, nw» qoow nid 125 aad nnnw sinw np Syaw min 5y;—“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: 5yay myn sn mina apy Ayaw mn'y ON "3 ANanAd nd anzaw mn pxw n|;—“ The oral law is the foundation of the written; nor can the written law be ex- pounded but by the oral.”
By this being the foundation of the written law, they intend that the sense of it is so inwrapped and contained therein, that without the explications thereof it cannot be understood. And to this end Manasseh, one of their late masters, expressly disputes that in many
138 AGREEMENT OF JEWS AND PAPISTS [ EXERC, VIL
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; which, be- cause for the most part his exceptions from them are childish cavils, and have been answered by others, shall be here passed over. This they are arrived unto; this is the common persuasion of them all; and we shall yet hear what farther progress they have made. And herein are they imitated by their successors. Their oral law also is made by them the foundation of the written.
As those heretics of old, who, having got some sophistical cavils about evil, wherever they met with any one not of their mind, presently fell upon him with their wnde malum? whence had evil its original? so thinking to bring him to the acknowledgment of two supreme principles of things, a good one and a bad one: thus, 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 np 5yay min, 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 ;—first, That the Scripture is emperfect, and doth not give us a full and complete account of all things that are to be believed and practised, that God may be glorified and our own souls saved; secondly, That what is delivered therein can 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, useful inventions, and they are men that want not ability to find out what is conducing unto their own advantage, yet they cannot be allowed the credit of being their first authors, seeing they are expressly borrowed of the Jews.