19, (4.) When these two laws, the law of God and their own, do come in competition, the Jews, many of them, 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 ny “oy. “ Do not think,” saith he, “that the written law is the foundation; for the founda- tion 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,” (where he takes his argument from that expression, rbSD DI BOY, wresting foolishly, as they do all, his oral law from these words, *2"-Y, which signify nothing but “according to,” nor are any other words intended but those delivered to Moses and written by him.) “And these,” he adds, “are the treasures of the
SECT. 19, 20. ABOUT TRADITIONS. 139 2
holy, blessed God; for he knew that Israel should be carried cap- tive among other people, and that the nations would transcribe their books, and therefore would not commit their secret law to writing.”
It seems 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 showed 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 3mm naw, “The Golden Altar:” AN YY OX 12 aNDaw MIN NAY MeNIPT MN IPY oy Tod WEN ON AWIND Ninw AY'av;—“ 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 judgment concerning their traditions, but also express the reason of. their obstinate adherence unto them; which is, that without tt they cannot maintain themselves in their present Judaism. And so, indeed, is the case with them. Innu- merable testimonies of the Scriptures rising up directly against their infidelity, they were not able to keep their station, but by a horrible corrupting of them through their traditions. On this ac- count it is a common thing with them, in the advice they give unto their disciples, to prefer the study of the Talmud before the study of the Scripture, and the sayings of their wise men before the say- ings of the prophets; and they plainly express an utter disregard of the written word, any further than as they suppose the sense of it ex- plained 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. (5.) 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 o'N7p, that is, “ Biblists” or “Scripturarians;” and everywhere they term them ox, “ Heretics,” and endeavour to prove them guilty nin, of “heresy” in the highest degree. Some of them would have them to be the offspring of the old Sadducees, to deny the resurrection and the world to come; as men care not much, usually, what they impute unto those whom they esteem heretics. But the falsity hereof is notorious, and so acknowledged by others, and confuted by the
140 AGREEMENT OF JEWS AND PAPISTS, ETC. [EXERC. VIII.
writings of the Karaites themselves: yea, the author of Cosri affirms that they are more studious in the law than the rabbins; and that their reasons are more weighty than theirs, and lead more towards the naked sense of the Scripture. But this is that which they charge upon them, namely, that, rejecting the swre 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: nnn 339) DNIAD *D5 DSsApA,— “The Karaites multiply laws according to their own opinion ;” which he inveighs against them for, after he had commended them. And the same is objected against them by Maimonides in 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 among themselves, with a multitude of various opinions and contradictory conceptions about their tra- ditions. Thus deal the Romanists also with their adversaries, this they charge them withal.. They are heretics, Biblists; and, by ad- hering to the Scripture alone, have no certainty among themselves, but run into diversities of opinion, having deserted the weerring rule of their Cabala;—when the world is filled with the noise of their own conflicts, notwithstanding the pretended relief which they have thereby.