9. Two things in general the Jews reply unto these considera- tions,—the one as they have occasion and advantage, the other openly and constantly. The first, which they only mention as they have occasion, is the prosperity of some of their nation in this or that country, with the honour and riches that some of them have attained unto. Unto this purpose they tell us stories of their number and wealth in the east, out of Benjamin Tudelensis and others; with the riches of some of them in the western parts of the world also. But themselves know that none of these things, not one of them, was promised unto them in the covenant that God made with them upon Mount Horeb. All the promises of it respected the land of Canaan, with their preservation there, or return thither, What they get abroad in the world elsewhere, under the power and dominion of other nations, befalls them in a way of common provi- dence, as the like things do the vilest wretches of the earth, and not in a way of any especial promise. And therefore when Daniel and Nehemiah, with others, were exalted unto glory and riches among the Babylonians and Persians, yet they rested not therein, but pleaded the covenant of God for their restoration unto the land pro- mised unto Abraham. And to suppose that the wealth of a few Jews up and down the world, gotten by physic, or usury, or farming of customs, is an accomplishment of the promises before insisted on, is openly to despise the promises and the Author of them.
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354 JEWS’ TRADITIONS ABOUT THE [EXERC. XVI.
10. But it is pleaded, secondly, by them, that it is for their sins that the coming of the Messiah is thus retarded and prolonged. But it is not about the coming of the Messiah directly and immediately that they are pressed withal in these considerations. That which we inquire about is their present state, and their long continuance therein, with the reason of it, only aiming to find out and discover the true cause thereof. This, they say, is because of their sins; and this also in general we grant, but yet we must further inquire what they intend thereby. I ask, therefore, whether it be for the sins of their forefathers, who lived before the last final dispersion, or for their sins who have since lived in their several generations, that they are thus utterly forsaken. If they shall say it is for the sins of their forefathers,—as Manasseh plainly doth, Quest. 43, in Gen. p. 65, and sundry others of them do the same,—then I desire to know whether they think God to be changed from what he was of old, or whether he be not still every way the same as to all the promises of the covenant? Supposing they will say that he is still the same, I desire to know whether he did not in former times, in the days of their judges and kings, especially in the Babylonian captivity, punish them for their sins with that contemperation of justice and merey which was agreeable unto the tenor of the covenant? ‘This, I sup- pose, they will not deny, the Scripture speaking so fully unto it, and the righteousness of God requiring it. I desire, then, to know what were the sins of their forefathers before the destruction of the second temple and the final dispersion, which so much, according to the rules of the covenant, exceeded the sins of them who lived hefore the desolation of the first temple and the captivity that ensued. For we know that the sins of those former were punished only with a dispersion, which some of them saw the beginning and ending of, the duration of the whole of it not exceeding seventy years, after which they were returned again to their own land; but the captivity and dispersion which hath befallen them upon the sins of those who lived before the destruction of the second temple, as they were in their manner and entrance much more terrible, dreadful, and tremendous than the former, so they have now continued in them above twenty times seventy years without any promise of a recovery. God being still the same that he was, if the old covenant with the Jews be still in force, the difference be- tween the dispensations must arise from the difference of the sins of the one sort of persons and the other. Now, of all the sins which, on the general account of the law of God, the sons of men can make themselves guilty of, idolatry doubtless is the greatest. The choosing of other gods is a complete renunciation of the true one, and there- fore comprises in it all other sins whatever; for casting off the yoke of God, and our dependence on him as the first cause and last end
SECT. 10, 11.] COMING OF THE MESSIAH. 355
of all, it doth that in gross and by wholesale which other sins do only by retail. And therefore is this sin forbidden in the head of the law, as intimating that if the command of owning the true God, and him alone, be not adhered unto, it is to no purpose to apply our- selves unto them that follow. Now, it is known to all that this sin of idolatry abounded amongst them under the first temple, and that also for a long continuance, attended with violence, adulteries, per- secution, and oppression; but that those under the second temple had contracted the guilt of this sin the present Jews do not pretend, and we know that they hated all appearance of it, nor are they able to assign any other sin whatever wherein they went higher in their provocations than their progenitors under the first temple. What, then, is the cause of the different event and success between them before insisted on? It cannot be but that either they have con- tracted the guilt of some sin wherewith God was more displeased than with the idolatry of their forefathers, or that the covenant made with them is expired, or that there hath been a coincidence of both these. And this indeed is the condition of things with them. The Messiah came, in whom the carnal covenant was to expire, and they rejected and slew him, justly deserving their perpetual rejection from it and disinheritance.