22. And there wants not reason to induce us to fix on this de- eree rather than any other, being indeed the most famous and most useful to the people of all the rest. By what means it was obtained is not recorded. Evident it is that Ezra had great favour with the king, and that he had convinced him of the greatness and power of that God whom he served, chap. vill. 22. Besides, it was not a mere proclamation of liberty, like that of Cyrus, which was renewed by Darius, but a decree, a law, made by “the king and his seven coun- sellors,” chap. vii. 14,—the highest and most irrefragable legislative
348 COMPUTATION OF DANIEL’S WEEKS. _—_[EXERC. XV.
power amongst the Medes and Persians. Moreover, with the decree he had a formal commission, when he is said not only to have leave to go, but to be sent by the king and his council. Besides, the former decrees barely respected the temple; and it seems that in the execution of them the people had done little more than build the bare fabric, all things as to the true order of the worship of God remaining in great confusion, and the civil state utterly neglected. But now in this commission of Ezra, he is not only directed to set the whole worship of God in order, at the charge of the king, chap. vii. 16-23, but also that he should appoint and erect a civil govern- ment and magistracy, with supreme power over the lives, liberties, and estate of men, to be exercised as occasion required, verses 25, 26: which alone, and no other, was the bualding of the city mentioned by Gabriel; for it is not walls and houses, but polity, rule, and go- vernment, that makes and constitutes a city.
23. And it is very considerable what a conviction of the necessity of this work was then put upon the spirits of the governors of the Persian empire. For the king himself, he calls Ezra the “scribe of the law of the God of heaven,” owning him therein for the true God; for he who is the God of heaven is God alone, all others are but the dunghill gods of the earth, verse 12. Again, he declares that he was persuaded that if this work were not done, there would be wrath from heaven upon himself, his kingdom, and his sons, verse 23. The “seven counsellors” join in that law, verse 14; and the “mighty princes” of the kingdom assisted Ezra in his work, verse 28. So that no command that concerned that people before or after was accom~ panied with such solemnity, or gave such glory unto God as this did. Besides, the whole work of the reformation of the church, the resti- tution of the worship of God, the re-collection and recognition of the sacred oracles, was begun, carried on, and finished, by this Ezra, as we have elsewhere at large declared. All which considerations, fall- ing in with the account before insisted on, make it manifest that it was this and no other decree that was intended by the angel Gabriel; and from thence unto the death of the Messiah was seventy weeks, or four hundred and ninety years, the just and true limitation of which time we have been inquiring after.
24. I declared at the entrance of this discourse, that the force of our argument from this place of Daniel against the Jews doth not depend on this chronological computation of the time determined. All then that I aimed at was to vindicate it in general from such perplexities as whereby they pretend to render the whole place inargumentative; and this we have not only done, but also so stated the account as that they are not able from any records of times past to lay any one con- siderable objection against it, or which may not be easily solved. Re- turn we now to what remains of our former designed discourse.
SECT, 23, 24.] JEWS’ TRADITIONS, ETC. 349
EXERCITATION XVI.
JEWISH TRADITIONS ABOUT THE COMING OF THE MESSIAH.
1. Other considerations proving the Messiah to be long since come. 2. Fluctua- tion of the Jews about the person and work of the Messiah. _ 3. Their state and condition in the world for sixteen ages. 4. Promises of the cove- nant made with them of old all fulfilled, unto the expiration of that cove- nant. 5. Not now made good unto them—Reason thereof—The promise of the land of Canaan hath failed; 6. Of protection and temporal deliverance. 7. Spirit of prophecy departed. 8. Covenant expired. 9. Jewish excep- tions—Their prosperity; 10. The sins of their forefathers; 11-13. Of themselves—Vanity of these exceptions— Concessions of the ancient Jews— Folly of Talmudical doctors. 14, Tradition of the birth of the Messiah before the destruction of the second temple. 15, 16. Tradition of the school of Elias about the world’s continuance—Answers of the Jews unto our arguments, by way of concession. 17. The time prolonged because of their sins—Vanity of this pretence. 18. Not the Jews only, but the Gentiles concerned in the coming of the Messiah. 19. The promise not conditional —Limitations of time not capable of conditions. 20. No mention of any such condition. 21. The condition supposed overthrows the promise. 22. The Jews in the use of this plea self-condemned. 23. The covenant over- thrown by it. 24. The Messiah may never come upon it.