To discover the evidence of this demonstration, as confirmed in our Prolegomena, I shall here also briefly add some considerations of the miserable entanglements of the Jews in seeking to avoid the argument here intimated unto them by the apostle. “It is a com- mon tradition among them that all things were made for the Mes- siah; whereby they do not intend, as some have imagined, the whole old creation, but all things of their church state and worship. So the Targum, Ps. xl. 8, in the person of the Messiah, ‘I shall enter into life eternal when I study in the volume of the law xo‘nonN7 snbwax,’—‘ that was written for my sake.’ By ‘the law’ they un- derstand their all, All depended on their Messiah, all was written for him. They see by experience that there was a coincidence of all these things in the last days, when Jesus came. No sooner had he done his work but sceptre and scribe departed from Judah; they ceased to be a church and nation. The temple, which the Lord whom they formerly sought came to, was destroyed; their sacrifices, wherein they trusted, caused to cease; and the nations of the earth were gathered into the faith of Abraham. From that time they have no more been a people, nor have had any distinction of tribes or families, temple, priesthood, or sacrifice, nor any hope of a retrieve- ment into their pristine condition. Let us then see what course they do or have taken to countenance themselves in their infidelity. Two ways to relieve themselves they have fixed on:—
“1. Granting that the Messiah was to come to their government and worship, they laboured to keep them up, and to restore them being cast down, that so they might prolong their expectation of that as to come which indeed was already past. This, in the righteous and holy providence of God, proved the means of their ruin; for
_ struction only is intended; which is a gloss evidently contrary to _ *.
VER. 1, 2.] EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 15
their endeavour to maintain their liberty, rule, and government, after the coming of the Messiah, was the cause of the utter overthrow of all rule, authority, and public worship amongst them, by Vespasian and Titus his son. Their endeavour to restore themselves into a state and people, under their false Messiah Bar-Cochba, was the means of their utter desolation from all hopes of being a people and nation any more, by Adrian ; as also of their extermination for ever out of that country, wherein they were separated from all nations for that end which God appointed unto them. After this, once more,—still to avoid the thoughts that the Messiah was come, and had put an end unto their former condition,—they endeavoured, and were en- couraged by Julian the emperor, to rebuild their temple and restore their sacrifices. And this attempt also God turned to their further confusion; for whereas in former days, in the building of the temple, he encouraged and supported them against all difficulties and oppo- sitions, being now upheld and strengthened by the favour and wealth of the Roman empire in the same work, he sets himself against them, and scatters them with no less indignation than he did the builders of Babel of old. When he would have a temple amongst them, he punished them with famine for building their own houses, and suffering his to lie waste, Hag.1. 2-11. Now they may build houses for themselves where they please; but if they take in hand to build a temple God is against them. In this state they have now continued for sixteen hundred years; and were not blindness come upon them to the utmost, they could not but see that it is not the will of God that they should be a people, state, or church, on the former account, any more. What then is become of their Messiah, who was to come unto them whilst they were a state and church, seeing they were so, by their own confession, only for his sake? This puts their later masters to their last miserable shifts; for,—
“2. Contrary to the evident nature of all things relating to them from the appropriating of the promise to the family of Abraham, contrary to the whole design of the Scripture, and to the express testimonies of it before mentioned, with many other to the same purpose, they deny that their Messiah was to come to them, or at least to abide with them, for the work whereunto he was destined,
whilst their state, temple, and sacrifices continued. In the manage- _ ment of this shift of unbelief, they are wofully divided amongst
> pee Sd “(d) For the continuance of their state until the coming of the Gen. xlix. 10, some say that by ‘Shiloh’ the Messiah is not intended ; ; who are confuted by their own Targums, all rendering the word Messiah, and by the constant tradition of the elder doctors. Some say that by the ‘sceptre and scribe’ the rod of affliction and in-
: _
16 AN EXPOSITION OF THE [CHAP. I.
the design of the prophecy, to the use of the words im all places where their sense is not restrained by evident circumstances, to the Targums, and to all old writers; asserting that which was not pecu- liar to Judah, nor true in itself, that tribe having for so long a sea- son enjoyed as flourishing a condition as any people in the world,— as good as the Jews look for under the Messiah. Their state, then, is utterly gone, and their Messiah, as it seems, not come.