412 JESUS OF NAZARETH [EXERC. XVII.
it overthrows all the foundations of knowledge in the world and of all human society, yea, of every thing that as men we either do or know; so, being once granted, it will necessarily follow that we know not the things that we see any longer than whilst we see them,—no, nor perhaps then either, seeing the evidence we have of knowing any thing by our senses proceeds from principles and presumptions which we never saw, nor can ever so do. And as for the Jews, we have all the advantage for the confirmation of what we affirm that either we are capable of or need to desire.
60. (1.) We plead owr own records, that were written by the evangelists. And herein we have but one request to make unto the Jews,—namely, that they would lay no exceptions against them which they know to be of equal force against the writings of Moses and all the prophets. If they declare themselves to be such bed- lamites as to set their own houses on fire, for no other end but to en- danger those of their neighbours; if they will destroy the principles of their own faith and religion, to cast the broken pieces of them at the heads of Christians; if they cry, “Pereant amici dummodo et pereant inimici;”—they are not fit to be any longer contended withal. I desire, then, to know what one exceptian the Jews can lay against this record, which, “mutatis mutandis,’ may not be laid against the Mosaical writings. And if they have always concluded all such exceptions to be invalid as to an opposition unto those grounds and evidences on which they believe those writings, why will they not give us leave to affirm the same of them in reference unto those which we receive and believe on no less certain testimonies and evidences? Unless, then, they can except any thing to the credit of our writers, or disprove that which is written by them from records of equal weight with them,—which they can never do, nor do they attempt it,—they have nothing reasonable to plead in this cause. To tell us that they do not believe what is written by them, neither did their forefathers, is, as to themselves, no more than we know, and as to their forefathers, nothing but what those very writers tes- tify concerning them; and to look for their consent unto that in any record, which that record witnesseth that they dissented from, is to overthrow the record itself and all that is contained in it. The Jews, then, have nothing to oppose unto this testimony but only their own unbelief, which, for all the reasons that have been insisted on, cannot be admitted as any just exception; story or circumstance they have none to oppose unto it.
61. (2.) We plead the notorvety of the miracles wrought by Christ, and the tradition delivermg them down unto us. This also the Jews plead concerning the miracles of Moses. They were, say they, openly wrought in the sight of all Israel; and that they were so wrought, the testimony of Israel in succeeding ages is, next
SECT. 60-62.] THE ONLY TRUE AND PROMISED MESSIAH. 413
to the writing itself, the best and only witness they have of them. And wherein doth our testimony come short of theirs? Nay, on both accounts,—of their first notoriety and succeeding tradition,—it far exceeds what they have to plead; for as the miracles of Moses were wrought openly, so the most of them were so only in the sight of that one people, whom he had under his own conduct, in a wilder- ness, remote from any converse with other nations, and that in those dark times of the world wherein men were generally stupid and credulous, as having not been imposed on by the delusions which the following ages were awakened by. The Jews also lay no greater weight on any miracles than they do on those which were wrought in the wilderness of Midian, which had no witness unto them but that of Moses himself. But the miracles of Jesus were all, or most of them, wrought before the eyes of multitudes, envying, hating, and persecuting him; and that in the most knowing days of the world, when reason and learning had improved the light of the minds of men to the utmost of their capacity; and in and upon multitudes, for sundry years together; being all of them sifted by his adversaries, to try if they could discover any thing of deceit in them. And although his personal ministry was confined to one nation, yet the miracles wrought by his disciples, in his name and by his power, for the confirmation of his being the Messiah, were spread all the world over; so that all mankind were first filled with the report of them, and then satisfied with their truth, and lastly the generality of them with faith in him which they directed unto. The notoriety, therefore, of his miracles far exceedeth that of those of Moses. And for the means whereby the certainty of them is continued unto us, whether we respect the nwmber of persons confirming it, or their quality, or their disinterest as to any carnal advantage, or their suffering for their testimony, it is notorious that the Jews’ condition, confined merely to themselves, is no way to be compared with it. So that we may truly say, that no Jew can possibly, on any rational account, give credit unto the truth of the miracles wrought by Moses, and deny it unto them wrought by the Lord Jesus.