SECT. 16-18.] COMING OF THE MESSIAH. 363
this condition, ‘If they deserve it, if they repent, the Messiah will come; the time is already past, but because of our sins he is not come. If all Israel could repent but one day, he would come. This is the sum of their answer: There was a time limited and determined for the coming of the Messiah; this time is signified in general in the Scripture to be before the destruction of the second temple, and the utter departure of scribe and lawgiver from Judah: but all this designation of the time was but conditional, and the ac- complishment of it had respect unto their righteousness, repentance, good works, and merits; which they failing in, their Messiah is not yet come. To this issue is their infidelity at length arrived. But there are reasons innumerable that make naked the vanity of this pretence. Some of them I shall briefly insist upon at present, and more fully afterwards.
18. First, We have before proved that not the Jews only, but the Gentiles also, even the whole world, was concerned in the coming of the Messiah. The first promise of him concerned mankind in general, without the least particular respect unto any one peculiar people, Gen, i, 15. The next solemn renovation of it unto Abraham extends the blessing wherewith it was to be attended unto all the kindreds of the earth, Gen. xii, 3, xviii. 18. The whole restriction of the promise unto him and to his posterity consisted only in the designation of them to be the means of bringing forth that Messiah who was to be a blessing unto all nations; and when Jacob foretells his coming of Judah, Gen. xlix. 10, he declares who were to have an equal share in the blessing of it together with his posterity. “To him,” saith he, “shall be the gathering of the people.” The same course do all the succeeding prophets proceed in, They everywhere declare that the Gentiles, the nations of the world, were equally con- cerned with the Jews in the promise of the coming of the Messiah, if not principally intended, because of their greatness and number. In mercy, love, compassion, and philanthropy, did God provide this blessed remedy for the recovery of mankind (both Jews and Gentiles) out of that misery whereinto they had cast themselves by sin and apostasy from him, The time of exhibiting this remedy unto them he promised also, and limited, stirring them up unto an expectation of its accomplishment, as that whereon all their happiness did de- pend. Shall we now suppose that all this love, grace, and mercy of God towards mankind, his faithfulness in his promises, were all sus- pended on the goodness, righteousness, merits, and repentance, of the Jews? that God, who so often testifies concerning them that they were a people wicked, obstinate, stubborn, and rebellious, should make them keepers of the everlasting happiness of the whole world? that he hath given the fountain of his grace and love, which he in- tended and promised should overflow the whole earth, and make all
364 JEWS TRADITIONS ABOUT THE [EXERO. XVI.
the barren wildernesses of it fruitful unto him, to be closed and stopped by them at.their pleasure? that it should be in their power to restrain all the promised effects of them from the world? As if he should say in his promises, ‘I am resolved, out of mine infinite goodness and compassion towards you, O ye poor, miserable sons of Adam, to send you a Saviour and a Deliverer, who at such a time shall come and declare unto you the way of life eternal, shall open the door of heaven, and save you from the wrath that you have de- served. But I will do it on this condition, that the Jews, an obstinate and rebellious people, be good, holy, righteous, and penitent; for unless they be so, the Saviour shall not come, nor is it possible he should until they be so. This of themselves they will never be, nor do I intend to make them so.’ If they can persuade us that God hath thus placed them in his throne, and given his grace and truth into their hands, to make effectual or frustrate at their pleasure, and sus- pended his good-will towards the residue of mankind on their obedi- ence, whom he testifieth to have been always stubborn and disobe- dient, they may also hope to prevail with us to believe that they only are men, and all others beasts, as some of their Talmudical masters have affirmed. At present we find, by blessed experience, that their wickedness hath not made the truth of God of no effect. 19. Secondly, When God limited and foretold the time of the coming of the Messiah, he either foresaw what would be the state and condition of the Jews, as to their repentance and good works, or he did not? If they say he did not, then, besides that they deny him to be God, by denying those essential attributes of his nature which the very heathen acknowledged in their deities, they also utterly overthrow all the prophecies and predictions of the Old Testament; for there is not any one of them but depends on a sup- position of the prescience of God: and this is nothing but to coun- tenance their unbelief with perfect atheism. If they say he did foresee that their conditions and manners would be such as the event hath proved them, whence he must also know that it was impossible that the Messiah should come at the time limited and determined, I ask to what end and purpose he doth so often, and at so great a distance of time, promise and foretell that he should come at such a time and season, seeing he knew perfectly that he should not so do, and so that not one word of his predictions should be fulfilled? Why, I say, did he fix on a time and season, foretell it often, limit it by signs infallible, give out an exact computation of the years from the time of his predictions, and call all men unto an expecta- tion of his coming accordingly, when, by his foresight of the Jews’ want of merit and repentance, no such thing could possibly fall out? God, who is éevd4¢, doth not deal thus with the sons of men. This were not to promise and foretell in infinite veracity, but purposely