518 DANIEL’S PROPHECY VINDICATED. [EXERC. XIV.
It may not, therefore, be amiss in our way to take a little prospect of their perplexity in this matter.
23. In the Talmud Tractat. Sanhed., they have laid down this general rule, “ Male pereant qui temporum articulos suppetunt quibus venturus est Messiah ;” or, as they express it by a solemn curse in the name of Rabbi Jonathan, a great man among them, oxy npn pyp ‘avn Sy;—“ Let their bones rot who compute the times of the end.” And in Shebet Jehuda (wherein they follow Maimo- nides in Jad Chazachah, Tractat. de Regib. cap. xii.), they give a par- ticular account of that solemn malediction against the computers of times. “ It was invented,” they say, “ because, upon the mistakes of their reckonings or failings of their calculations, the people are apt to despond, and begin to suspect that he is already come.” So openly do they own it to be an invention to shelter their unbelief against their convictions. Yet this hath not hindered some of their chiefest doctors, when they hoped to make some advantage of it (as when they saw their disciples under any distress inelinable unto Christianity), to give out their conjectures without any respect unto the Talmudical curse. So the author of Shalscheleth Hakkabala assigns the year for the coming of the Messiah to be the 5335th from the creation; which, according to their computation, fell out about the year of the Lord by our account 1575. Another would have it to be in the year 5358; that is, twenty-three years after, in the year 1598. Abarbanel in his Comment on Isaiah comes short of these, assigning it to the year 5263, or 5294 at the farthest; for he had great expectations from the issue of the wars between the Chris- tians and Saracens that were in his days. Their utmost conjecture in Zohar is upon the year 5408 ; which, with their wonted success, fell out in the year of our Lord 1648, or thereabouts. And all these caleu- lations were invented and set on foot to serve some present exigency.
But the Talmudical curse and censure are pointed directly against them that would conclude any thing from the account of Gabriel given unto Daniel in this place. This they plainly acknowledge in a disputation which they had with a converted Jew before the bishop of Rome, recorded in their Shebet Jehuda. Only, they would except Daniel himself, affirming that he was not awn, “a com- puter of the time,” but Ms, “a seer;” as though the question were about the way and means whereby we attain a just computation of the time, and not about the thing itself. Daniel received the know- ledge of this time by revelation, as he did the time of the accom- plishment of the captivity, though he made use of the computation of time limited in the prophecy of Jeremiah; but in both he gives us a perfect calculation of the time, and so cannot be exempted from the Talmudical malediction. And I mention these things in the entrance of our consideration of this prophecy, to manifest how
SECT. 23, 24. ] DANIEL’S PROPHECY VINDICATED, 319
far the Jews despair of any tolerable defence of their cause, if the things recorded in it be duly weighed. This, then, we see in general, that the Holy Ghost directed the church to compute the time of its spiritual deliverance by the coming of the Messiah, no less evidently than he did that of their temporal deliverance from the Babylonian captivity. Neither are there more differences among Christians about the precise beginning and ending of Daniel’s seventy weeks than were and are about the beginning and ending of the seventy years of Jeremiah amongst the Jews. This rule was given them by God himself to direct and guide them, if they would have attended unto it, in that darkness and under those prejudices which the coming of the Messiah was attended withal.
24, And it is observable, that although it was not the will of God that they should exactly know the year and day of the accomplish- ment of this promise,—or that though they could not attain unto it, or had lost the tradition of the sense of it,—yet, about the end of the time pointed unto in this computation, they were all of them raised up to a great expectation of the coming of the Messiah, And this is not only evident from the gospel, wherein we find that upon the first preaching of John Baptist, they sent unto him to know whether he were the Messiah or no, and were all of them in expectation and suspense about it, until he publicly disavowed any such pretence, and directed them to him who was so indeed, but also from sundry other testimonies, which themselves can put in no exception unto, Their own historian tells us, that what principally moved and in- stigated them to undertake an unequal war with the Romans was the ambiguity (as he thought) of the oracle, that about that time one of their nation should obtain the monarchy of the world, Joseph. de Bell. Judaic. lib. vii. cap. viii.; which he, to play his own cards, wrested unto Vespasian, who was far enough from being one of their nation. Now, divine oracle about the coming of the Messiah at that season they had none but this of Daniel. And so renowned was this oracle in the world, that it is taken notice of by both the famous Roman historians who wrote the occurrences of those days: “Pluribus persuasio inerat, antiquis sacerdotum literis contineri, eo ipso tempore fore, ut valesceret Oriens, profectique Judea rerum potirentur,” saith Tacitus, Hist. lib. v. cap. xiii.;—‘“ Many had a persuasion that there was a prophecy in the ancient sacred books, that at that time the east should prevail, and that the governors of Judea should have the empire of the world.” And Suetonius, in the life of Vespasian, cap. iv. : “Percrebuerat Oriente toto vetus et constans opinio: esse in fatis, ut eo tempore Judea profecti rerum potirentur;”—“An ancient and constant persuasion was famous all over the east, that at that time governors of Judea should have the empire:” and this, as he adds, drew the Jews into their rebellion and war against the Romans.