SECT. 19-21. ] COMING OF THE MESSIAH. 365
to deceive. The condition, then, pretended cannot be put upon the promise of the coming of the Messiah without a direct denial of some, and, by just consequence, of all the essential properties of the nature of God,
20. Thirdly, There is not in the whole Scripture the least intima- tion of any such condition as that which they pretend the promise insisted on to be clogged withal. It is nowhere said, nowhere in- timated, that if the Jews repented and merited well, the Messiah should come at the time mentioned; nowhere threatened that if they did not so, his coming should be put off unto an uncertain day. We know not, nor are they able to inform us, whence they had this condition, unless they will acknowledge that they have forged it in their own brains, to give countenance unto their infidelity. Before the time allotted was elapsed, and they had obstinately refused him who was sent, and came according unto promise, there was not the least rumour of any such thing amongst them. Some of their pre- decessors invented it to palliate their impiety ; which so they may do, they are not solicitous what reflection it may cast upon the honour of God. Besides, as the Scripture is silent as to any thing that may give the least colour unto this pretence, so it delivers that which is contrary unto it and destructive of it; for it informs us that the sea- son of the coming of the Messiah shall be a time of great sin, dark- ness, and misery; which also their own masters, in other places and on other occasions, acknowledge. So Isa. lii. liii; Jer. xxxi. 32, 33; Dan. ix. 24; Zech. xiii. 1; Mal. iii. 3, 4. He was to come to turn men from ungodliness, and not because they were turned so before his coming. There can be no place, then, for this condition.
21. Fourthly, The suggestion of this condition overthrows the rise of the promise, and the whole nature of the thing promised. We have before manifested that the rise and spring of this promise was mere love and sovereign grace. There was not any thing in man, Jew nor Gentile, that should move the Lord to provide a remedy and relief for them who had destroyed themselves. Now, to sus- pend the promise of this love and grace on the righteousness and repentance of them unto whom it was made, is perfectly to destroy it, and to place the merit of it in man, whereas it arose purely from the grace of God. Again, it utterly takes away and destroys the nature of the thing promised. We have proved that it is a relief, a recovery, a salvation from sin and misery, that is the subject-matter of this promise. To suppose that this shall not be granted unless men, as a condition of it, deliver themselves from their sins, is to assert a plain contradiction, so wholly to destroy the promise. He was not promised unto men because they were penitent and just, but to make them so; and to make the righteousness of Jews or Gentiles the condition of his coming, is to take his work out of his
366 JEWS’ TRADITIONS, ETC. [EXERC. XVI.
hand, and to render both him and his coming useless. But this fig- ment proceeds from the rparov peddo¢ of the Jews,—namely, that the Messiah is not promised to free them from their own sins, but to make them possessors of other men’s goods; not to save their souls, but their bodies and estates; not to make men heirs of heaven, but lords of the earth: which folly hath been before discovered and disproved.
22. Fifthly, The Jews on several accounts are aitroxardxpiros, or self- condemned, in the use of this plea or pretence. Their great sins, they say, are the cause why the coming of the Messiah is retarded. But, (1.) What those sins are they cannot declare. We readily grant them to be wicked enough; but withal we know their great wickedness to consist in that which they will not acknowledge,— namely, not in being unfit for his coming, but in refusing him when he came. They instance sometimes in their hatred one of another, their mutual animosities, and frequent adulteries, and want of ob- serving the Sabbath according to the rules of their present supersti- tious scrupulosity. But what is all this unto the abominations which God passed over formerly in their nation, and also fulfilled his promises unto them, though really conditional? (2.) Take them from the raek of our arguments, and you hear no more of their con- fessions, no more of their sins and wickedness, but they are imme- diately all righteous and holy, all beloved of God, and better than their forefathers. Yea, (3.) On the day of expiation, they are all as holy (if we may believe them) as the angels in heaven,—there is not one sin amongst them; so that it is strange the Messiah should not, at one time or another, come to them on that day. (4) They have a tradition among themselves, that the coming of the Messiah may be hastened, but not retarded. So they speak in their gloss on Isa. lx. 22, “ I the Lorp will hasten it in his time:”’ Tractat. Sanhed., nya vst xo mswens wor awn Ina Anya Ina ‘ot ay MADSbs — “ Rabbi Alexander said, and Rabbi Joshua, the son of Leyi, ‘It is written in his time, and it is written, I will hasten it, I will hasten it if they deserve it, and if they deserve it not, yet in its own time.’” And this they apply to the coming of the Messiah. (5.) They assert, many of them, that it is themselves who are spoken of in the 53d of Isaiah, and their being causelessly afflicted by the Gentiles, Now, he whom the prophet there speaks of is one perfectly innocent and righteous; and so they must needs be in their own esteem, sup- posing themselves there intended. So that this pretence is known to themselves to be no more [than a pretence. ]