236 FAITH OF THE ANCIENT CHURCH OF THE JEWS [EXERC. XL
naturally drew their conclusion from. Some, in the meantime, among them, God’s secret ones, as Simeon, Anna, Joseph, Zacharias, and Elisabeth, but especially the blessed Virgin, with many more, retained no doubt the ancient faith of their forefathers. But the body of the people, with their leaders, being either flagitiously wicked or superstitiously proud, fancied a Messiah suited unto their own lusts and desires,—such a one as we shall afterwards describe. And this prejudicate opinion of a terrene, outward, glorious kingdom, in and of this world, was that which, working in them a neglect of those spiritual and eternal purposes for which he was promised, hardened them to an utter rejection of the true Messiah when he came unto them.
5. That this was the ground on which they rejected the promised Messiah is evident from the story of the Gospel, and we shall further prove it upon them in our ensuing discourses. How they did that, and what was the end thereof, are well known. But after they had done this, and murdered the Prince of life, to justify themselves in their wickedness and unbelief, they still with all earnestness looked after such a Messiah as they had framed in their own imagination. And herein they grew more earnest and furious than ever: for they had not only their own false, preconceived opinion, strengthened by their carnal interests and desires of earthly things, to act and provoke them, but also their reputation of and pretence unto the love and favour of God to heighten them in their presumptions; because they could not retain the least sense of them, if it might be supposed that they had rejected the true Messiah, because in his way and work he answered not their expectation. or this is the course of pride and carnal wisdom, to pursue those miscarriages with violence wherein they have been wickedly engaged, and to lay hold on any pretence that may seem to justify them in what they have done. And on this account they exposed themselves as a prey unto every seducer who made the least appearance of being such a Mes- siah as they thought meet for them to receive. This at last cast them on a second shipwreck in the business of Bar-Cosba, who, pretending himself to be their Messiah, sent to deliver them from the Roman yoke, and to set up a kingdom amongst them, drew them all the world over into that sedition, outrage, and war, which ended in an almost universal extirpation of the whole nation from the face of the earth.
6. Now, because in the business of this Bar-Cosba they met with a sore disappointment, that turned the stream of their imaginations and expectations for a long season, it may not be amiss to give in our passage a brief account concerning him and the things which befell them in those days. Some of the Jews affirm that there were two of that name, both heads of sedition amongst them. One of
SECT. 5, 6.] CONCERNING THE MESSIAH. 237
these they place under Domitian; and the other, who was his grand- child, under the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian. So do the authors of Shalscheleth Hakkabala and of Tzemach David. But the stories of those times, with the condition of the Jews under Domitian, will allow no other place unto the former but in their own imaginations. The latter was well known in the world, and hath left himself a name, such as it is, in the writings of Christians and the histories of the Romans; for Hadrian the emperor, provoked by a seditious tumult and rebellion of the Jews in the second year of his reign, —which he suppressed by Martius Turbo, as Dio, Eusebius, and Orosius declare,—drove them from Jerusalem, and built a temple to Jupiter in the place where the old temple stood. This proved a great provocation to the Jews all the world over, yea, turned them into rage and madness; and they were in those days exceedingly prone unto tumults and uproars, as being poor and needy, not having as yet given themselves to scrape wealth together, the love whereof hath been the great means of keeping them in quietness in succeeding ages. ;
In this condition Bar-Cosba shows himself amongst them, pretend- ing that he was their Messiah, as they confess in the Talmud. Tract. Sanhed. Dist. Chelek. He reigned, they say, three years and a half,—a fatal period of time; and mw sox pnd wHN,—“ he said to the rabbins, ‘ 1 am the Messiah.’” Immediately, one of their famous masters, whose memory they yet much reverence, Rabbi Akiba, became his armour-bearer, and so far his trumpeter also as to pro- claim him to be their King Messiah; for this is their way, when they get a false Messiah, they have also a false prophet to usher him in, or to set him off unto the people. And this Akiba, as Maimonides informs us, m2von ‘snp An S113 Don, “ was a great, wise man, and one of the wise men of the Mishnah,” as his sayings in it manifest ; so that jall the wise men of that generation followed him, and took this Bar-Cosba for their King and Messiah. And he first applied unto him the prophecy of Balaam, Num. xxiv. 17, concern- ing the Star that should come out of Jacob; whereon they changed his name, and called him Bar-Cochba, or “The son of the Star;” or,. as some say, that was his name at first, whence the blind rabbin took occasion to apply that prediction unto him. Concerning him, also, they interpreted the prophecy of the Shiloh, and that also in Haggai about the shaking of the heavens and the earth, as they acknowledge in the Talmud, in the place fore-cited. This man, there- fore, a magician and a bloody murderer, by the common advice and counsel of their doctors and wise men, they gathered unto in multi- tudes, and embraced as their Deliverer. So soon as he had got strength and power, he set himself to the work which they expected from their Messiah, namely, to conquer the Romans, and to extir-