21. It is sufficiently evident that this opinion and persuasion of the Jews, which is catholic unto them, and hath been so ever since they rejected the true Messiah, contains an absolute renunciation of the faith of the church of old, and an utter rejection of all the ends for which the Messiah was promised. I shall not, therefore, enter here upon a particular refutation of it; for it will occur in our ensuing discourses, Neither is this the person about whom we con- tend with them, nor have we any concernment in him. When he comes, let them make their best of him; we have already received the Captain of our salvation. What also they plead for themselves, as the ground of their obstinacy in refusing the true Messiah, must afterwards be particularly discussed. At present, therefore, I shall only reflect on those depraved habits of their minds, which, in con- currence with occasions and temptations suited unto them, have seduced them into these low, carnal, and earthly imaginations about the promised Seed, his person, office, and work that he was to perform.
22. In things, therefore, of this kind, ignorance of their miser-
252 FAITH OF THE ANCIENT CHURCH OF THE JEWS [EXERC. XI.
able condition by nature, both as to sin and wrath, justly claims the first place; for although, as was by instances before manifest- ed, the evidence of truth and power of traditions amongst them have prevailed with-some to avow the notion of the sin of Adam, and the corruption of our nature thereby, yet indeed there is not any of them that have a true sense and conviction of their natural condition, and the misery that doth attend it. The Messiah, as we have proved at large, was first promised to relieve mankind from that state whereinto they were cast by the apostasy of Adam, the common root and parent of them all. Such as are men’s apprehen- sions of that condition, such also will be their thoughts concerning the Messiah who was promised to be a deliverer from it. They who know themselves cast out of the favour of God thereby, made obnoxious unto his eternal displeasure, and disenabled to do any thing that shall please him, as being cast into a state of wniversal enmity against him, must needs look on the Messiah promised, in the grace, goodness, and wisdom of God, for a Saviour and Deliverer, to be one that must, by suitable ways and means, free them from sin and wrath, procure for them the favour of God, enable them to serve him again unto acceptation, and so bring them at length unto their chief end,—the everlasting enjoyment of him. As these things answer one another, and are on both sides fully revealed in the Scripture, so the church of old, who had a due apprehension of their own condition, looked for such a Messiah as God had pro- mised. Ignorance, therefore, of this condition is no small cause of the present Judaical misbelief. Whatever may be the estate of other men, about which they do not much trouble themselves, for their part they are children of Abraham, exempted from the com- mon condition of mankind by the privilege of their nativity; or, at least, they are relieved by their circumcision, by the pain whereof they make sufficient satisfaction for any ill they bring with them into this world! That they are “dead in trespasses and sins,” standing in need to be “born again;” that they are “by nature children of wrath,’ obnoxious unto the curse of God; that the sin of our first parents is imputed unto them, or if it be, that it was of any such demerit as Christians teach,—they believe not. Upon the matter, they know no misery but what consists in poverty, captivity, and want of rule and dominion. And what should a spiritual Redeemer do unto these men? What beauty or comeli- ness can he have in him, for which, of them, he should be desired ? What reason can they see why they should* understand the pro- mises concerning him in such a way and sense as that they should not be concerned in them? And this blindness had in a great measure possessed their minds at the first promulgation of the gospel. See John viii. 33, 34, ix. 40, 41. And therefore our
SECT. 23. | CONCERNING THE MESSIAH. 253
apostle, in his Epistle unto the Romans, wherein he deals both with Jews and Gentiles, before he declares the propitiation that was made, with the justification that was to be obtained by the blood of Christ, convinceth them all of their miserable, lost condition on the account of sin, orzginal and actual, chap. iii. Until, therefore, this pride, self-fulness, and ignorance of themselves, be taken from them and rooted out of their hearts, all promises of a spiritual Redeemer must needs be unsavoury unto them. They stand in no need of him, and why should they desire him? An earthly king that would give them liberty, wealth, ease, and domi- nion, they would gladly embrace, and have long in vain looked for. 23. Secondly, Ignorance of the righteousness of God, both as to what he requireth, that a man may be justified before him, and of his judgment concerning the desert of sin, hath the same effect upon them, Rom. x. 3, 4 The great end for which the Messiah was pro- mised, as we have in part declared, and shall afterwards further evince, was to make atonement for sin, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, Dan. ix. 24. A righteousness was to be brought in that might answer the justice of God and abide its trial. Of what nature this righteousness must be the Scripture declares, and that as well in the revelation it makes of the holiness of God, Ps. v. 4, 5, Josh. xxiv. 19, Hab. i. 18, as of the purity and severity of his law, Deut. xxxiii. 2, xxvii. 26, and the absolute perfection of his justice in the execution of it, Ps. 1 21. A universal, spotless innocency, and a constant, unerring obedience in all things, and that in the highest degree of perfection, are required, to find acceptation with this holy and righteous God. Of the nature and necessity of this _ righteousness the Jews are ignorant and regardless. They and their masters were so of old, Matt. v. 20. An outside, partial, hypocriti- cal observance of the law of Moses they suppose will serve their turns. See Rom. ix. 31. And, indeed, there is not any thing that more openly discovers the miserable blindness of the present Jews, than the consideration of what they insist upon as their righteous- ness before God. The faith and obedience of their forefathers, the privilege of circumcision, some outward observances of Mosaical pre- cepts, with anxious, scrupulous abstinences, self-macerations in fasts, with prayers by tale and number, Sabbath rests from outward labour, with the like bodily exercises, are the sum of what they plead for themselves. Now, if these things, which are absolutely in their own power, will compose and make up a righteousness acceptable unto God, cover all the sins whereof they know themselves to be guilty, to what end should they look for a Redeemer to bring in everlasting righteousness, or to make atonement for sin? Why should they look out in this case for relief, seeing they have enough at home to serve their turns? Let them that are “weary and heavy laden”