11. Lastly, Suppose there should be any particular promise or promises, relating unto the times and kingdom of the Messiah, either accomplished or not yet accomplished, the full, clear, and perfect sense and intendment whereof we are not able to arrive unto, shall we therefore reject that faith and persuasion which is built on so many clear, certain, wndoubted testimonies of the Scrip- ture wtself, and manifest in the event, as tf it were written with the beams of the sun? As such a proceeding could arise from nothing but a foolish, conceited pride, that we are able to find out God unto perfection, and to discover all the depths of wisdom that are in his word; so it would, being applied unto other things and affairs, over- throw all assurance and certainty in the world, even that which is necessary to a man to enable him to act with any satisfaction unto himself or others. What, then, we understand of the mind of God we _ faithfully adhere unto; and what we cannot comprehend, we humbly leave the knowledge and revelation of unto his divine majesty.
12. On these and the like principles,—which, most of them, are clear in the Scripture itself, and the rest deduced immediately from the same fountain of truth,—it is no hard matter to answer and re- move those particular instances which the Jews produce to make good their general argument, whereby they would prove the Messiah not yet to be come, from the non-accomplishment of the promises that relate unto his coming and kingdom. It were a work endless and useless, to undertake the consideration of every particular promise which they wrest unto their purpose, They are not the words themselves, but the things promised, that are in controversy. Now
436 JEWS’ OBJECTIONS AGAINST [EXERC. XVIII.
these, though expressed in great variety, and on occasions innume- rable, yet may be referred unto certain general heads, whereunto they do all belong; and, indeed,-unto these heads they are usually gathered by the Jews themselves in all their disputes against Christians. These, then, we shall consider, and show their consist- ency with that truth which we have abundantly evinced from the scriptures of the Old Testament, the common acknowledged prin- ciple between us.
18. First, then, They insist upon that wniversal peace in the whole world which they take to be promised in the days of the Messiah. To this purpose they urge the prophecy recorded Isa. 1. 2-4: “ And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lorp’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lorp, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lorp from Je- rusalem. And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plough-shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” This pro- phecy is in the same words repeated, Mic. iv. 1-4, where there is added unto the close of it, “ But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig-tree; and none shall make them afraid.” And the like things are spoken of in sundry other places of that prophecy.
14. In this we agree with the Jews, that this is a prophecy of the time of the Messiah, of his kingdom in this world, and do willingly subscribe to that rule of Kimchi on the place, on these words, “In the last” (or “latter”) “days:” mwon mo sn DDT NNN. WNW DrpD 53; —‘“Tn every place where there is mention of the last days, the days of the Messiah are intended :” which we have formerly made use of. We also consent unto him, that the mon, “the teacher,” that shall from Jerusalem instruct us in the law and will of the Lord, is 95y nwon, “Messiah the king;” which manifests him to be a prophet no less thana king. And he also is the judge that shall “judge among the nations.” Only, we differ from them in the exposition of “The mountain of the house of the Lorp ;’—which they take to be Mount Moriah; we, the worship of God itself. And whereas both of us are necessitated to depart from the letter, and allow a metaphor in the words,—for they will not contend that the hill Moriah shall be plucked up by the roots, and taken and set on the tops of other mountains they know not where, nor can they tell unto what pur- pose any such thing should be;—so our interpretation of the words,
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SECT. 13-15. ] CHRISTIAN RELIGION ANSWERED. 437
which admits only of the most usual figurative expression, the place being taken for the worship performed in it, on the account whereof alone it was ever of any esteem, is far more easy and natural than any thing they can wrest the remainder of the words unto, sup- posing Mount Moriah to be literally understood. And in this sense we aftirm the first part of the prophecy to be long since really, and to the full, accomplished. For whereas the worship of God before the coming of Christ was confined unto the temple at Jerusalem, attended unto by one poor, small, enslaved nation, and that in such outward contempt and scorn that it was no way to be compared with the glory of the false worship of the nations, and the com- pliance of multitudes of people unto it, the mountains being far more wisible, conspicuous, and stately, than that at Jerusalem ;— upon his coming and giving out the law of God unto the nations of the world, the most, the greatest, and the most glorious of them, consented unto the acceptance of it, and with one consent gave themselves up to the worship of the God of Jacob; whereby the worship of the true God was not only exalted and made more con- spicuous than the lofty hills and “ high places” of the world, wherein they. worshipped their idols, but the most eminent mountains of the whole earth, as that of Diana at Ephesus, and of the Capitol at Rome, were destroyed and deserted, and the glory of the worship of God was lifted up above them. So that what the Jews think to plead for themselves doth indeed, in a manifest and open event, wholly evert their unbelief. But avoiding the consideration hereof, that which they principally insist upon is the peace promised under the kingdom of the Messiah; which, as it seems to them, is not accom- plished. Yea, saith one of them, “Men are so far from beating their swords into plough-shares, that within a few hundreds of years, new instruments of war, never heard of in the world before, have been invented among them who pretend to believe in the Messiah.” And this, as they think, makes it appear that really he is not as yet come into the world; the vanity of which pretence may easily be discovered from our former rules, which we shall briefly make application of unto its removal.