5. The present Jews, I hope, will not deny but that God is faith- ful still, and as able to accomplish his promises as he was in the days of old. Let us, then, inquire whether they enjoy any one thing promised them in the covenant, or any thing relating there- _ unto, or have done so since the days wherein, as we have proved, the Messiah was to come. First, For the country given unto them by covenant, and the place of God’s worship therein, the whole world knows, and themselves continually complain, that strangers possess it, they being utterly extirpated and cast out of it. It is with them all as it was with Abraham before the grant of the inheritance was accomplished,—they have not possession of one foot in it in any pro- priety, no, not even for a burying-place. Their temple is destroyed, and all their attempts for the restoration of it, which God so blessed of old, frustrated, yea ceased. Their daily sacrifice is ceased; and
352 JEWS’ TRADITIONS ABOUT THE [EXERC. XVI.
whatever they substitute in the room of it is an open abomination unto the Lord. We need not insist on these things. The stories of their ruin, exile, vain attempts to recover the land of their fore- fathers, and of the utter pollution of the place of their worship, are known to themselves and all men that take care to know aught of these things. Where is now the covenant of the land of Canaan? Was it to be absolutely everlasting? Whence comes it to pass that the great promise of it doth utterly fail? Was it to expire? What period can be assigned unto its duration but only that of the coming of the Messiah, and the establishment of a new covenant in him? Is not the denial hereof the ready way to make the men of the world turn atheists, and to look upon the scriptures of the Old Testament as a mere fable, when they shall be taught that the pro- mises contained in it were but conjectures, deceitful words, that came to nothing?
6. Again; how are they delivered from their adversaries? how are they defended from their oppressors? There is not a known nation in the world wherein they live not, either openly or privately, in exile and banishment from their own land. About their oppres- sions and against their oppressors they have cried out and prayed after their manner, for many generations. Where is the protection, the deliverance promised? If the time be not yet expired for the coming of the Messiah, why are they not delivered? What word is there in the Law or the Prophets, that they shall not be delivered out of temporal distresses any other way but by the Messiah? Hath it not been otherwise with them? Were they not delivered from former oppressions and captivities by other means? Could not God of old have dispossessed the Romans of the land of Canaan, and afterwards the Saracens? and can he not now the Turks as easily as he did the Babylonians, Persians, and Grecians? If the covenant of those promises be not expired in the coming of the Messiah, what account can they give of these things?
7. Further; where are the prophets promised unto them? Can they name one since the days of John Baptist, whom they owned for a prophet? Hath any one amongst them pretended to any such thing, whom the event and themselves thereon have not discovered to be an impostor? Such was Theudas and Moses Cretensis, with some few others. Is it not strange that they, who never long wanted a prophet in their straits and difficulties, and sometimes had many of them together, should now, in their utmost misery, wanderings, and darkness, be left utterly destitute of any one for one thousand six hundred years, and upwards? It is the general confession of all their masters, that they have lost the Holy Ghost, or Spirit of pro- phecy. After the finishing of the second temple, they say, and they say truly, that prophecy ceased. ‘yy xa) pp xd ywn nan mawH *D
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by naa pwonwy anbyr Sauna, saith Saadias Hageaon on Dan. ix.;— “Tsrael had no prophet after the finishing of the second house, but those who enjoyed the Bath Kol.’ But what is now become of that Bath Kol also, for a thousand and six hundred years? Is not all pretence of revelations utterly departed? What, then, is become of that covenant wherein it was promised unto them? Yea, we know that they have not only lost the Holy Ghost as a Spirit of prophecy, but also as a Spirit of grace and supplications; so that, besides a few superstitious forms, repeated by number and tale, there is no such thing as prayer amongst them, as some of their late masters have acknowledged.
8. What reason, now, can be assigned for this state and condition of things, but only that the covenant wherein the good things men- tioned were promised unto them had a time limited unto it, when it was to give place unto a new one of another nature? And this the Jews acknowledge is to take date from the coming of the Mes- siah. God is faithful, unchangeable, able to make good his promises and his word to the utmost. The present Jews are no less Jews of the carnal seed of Abraham than their forefathers were. It cannot be, then, but that the covenant made with them until the coming of the Messiah is long since expired; and therefore, also, that he is long since come.