Works

SECTION I.

THE Temple was burnt down, as Josephus a spectator setteth the time, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , On the tenth day of the month Lous: which he saith was a fatal day to the Temple, for it had been burnt down by the Babylonians before on that day, De Bell. lib. 6. cap. 27. And yet his Countrymen that write in the Hebrew Tongue, fix both these fatalities to the ninth day of that month which they call the month Ab; and they account that day fatal for three other sad occurrences besides: On the ninth day of the month Ab, say they, the decree came out against Israel in the wilderness that they should not enter into the Land: On it was the destruction of the first Temple, and on it was the destruction of the second. On it the great City Bitter was taken, where there were thousands and ten thousands of Israel, who had a great King over them [Ben Cozba] whom all Israel, even their greatest wise men thought to have been Messias: But he fell into the hands of the Heathen, and there was great affliction, as there was at the destruction of the Sanctuary. And on that day, a day allotted for vengeance, The wicked Turnus Rufus plowed up the place of the Temple, and the places about it, to accomplish what is said, Zion shall become a plowed field. Talm. in Taanith. per. 4. halac. 6. Maymon. in Taanith per. 5.

It is strange men of the same Nation, and in a thing so signal, and of which both parties were spectators, should be at such a difference: and yet not a difference neither, if we take Josephus his report of the whole story, and the other Jews construction of the time. He records that the Cloister walks commonly called The Porches of the Temple, were fired on the eighth day, and were burning on the ninth, but that day Titus called a Council of War, and carried it by three voices, that the Temple should be spared: but a new busling of the Jews caused it to be fired, though against his will, on the next day: Joseph. ubi supr. cap. 22. 23, 24. Now their Kalendar reckons, from the middle day of the three that fire was at it as from a Center: and they state the time thus: It was the time of the evening, when fire was put to the Temple, and it burnt till the going down of the Sun of the next day. And behold what Rabban Jochanan ben Zaccai saith: If I had not been in that generation I should not have pitched it upon any other day, but the tenth, because the most of the Temple was burnt that day. And in the Jerusalem Talmud it is related that Rabbi, and Joshua ben Levi fasted for it the ninth and tenth days both. Gloss. in Maym. in Taanith per. 5.

Such another discrepancy about the time of the firing of the first Temple by Nebuchadnezzar, may be observed in 2 King. 25. 8, 9. where it is said, that In the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, came Nebuzaradan Captain of the guard, and burnt the House of the Lord. And yet in Jerem. 52. 12. it is said to have been In the fifth month, on the tenth day of the month. Which the Gemarists in the Babylon Talmud reconcile thus: It cannot be said on the seventh day, because it is said On the tenth: Nor can it be said, On the tenth day, because it is said On the seventh. How is it then? On the seventh the aliens came into the Temple, and eat there and defiled it, the seventh, eighth and ninth days, and that day towards night they set it on fire: and it burnt all the tenth day, and was the case also with the second Temple. Taanith fol. 29.

The ninth and tenth days of the month Ab on which the Temple was burnt down, was about the two and three and twentieth of our July: and the City was taken and sacked the eighth day of September following: Joseph. ubi supr. cap. 47. That day being their Sabbath day, Dion fol. 748.

After eleven hundred thousand destroyed and perished in the siege and sacking, and ninety seven thousand taken prisoners, Titus commanded City and Temple to be razed to the ground, only three of the highest Towers left standing, Phasaelus, Hippicus and Mariamme, and the Western Wall of the City: those, that they might remain as monuments of the strength of the place, and thereby of the renown of the Roman Conquest: and this, that it might be of some use to the Roman Garrison that was left there, which was the tenth Legion. Their chief Captain was Terentius Rufus, a man of exceeding frequent mention in the Hebrew Writers, but his former name a little shortened, yet a little added which makes it long enough, for they constantly call him 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Turnus Rufus the wicked one. There are endless disputes betwixt him and R. Akibah mentioned, about the Jews Law and Religion, and when he died R. Akibah married his widow, now become a Proselitess.

Amongst those that perished in the fate of the City, the names most famous were Jochanan, Simeon and Eleazar, the three ringleaders of sedition, names famous for faction. But the person of the best rank that perished, was Rabban Simeon, the President of the Sanhedrin, a man educated with Paul at the foot of Gamaliel his father. The Sanhedrin had sitten at Jabneh a long while, but the Feast of the Passover had now brought them up to Jerusalem, and there he is caught. The Bab. Talmud in the place lately cited, relates, that he was once in danger, but one of the Roman Commanders was a means of his delivery: But at last he was caught and slain, and in the Jews Martyrology he is set the first of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 The ten slain by the Kingdom: meaning ten eminent ones that were put to death by the Romans. All the ten are reckoned by Midras Tillin upon Psal. 9. fol. 10. col. 3. He forgetteth not, saith he, the cry of the poor: that is, he forgetteth not the blood of Israel to require it of the Nations: nor the blood of those Righteous ones that were slain: viz. Rabban Simeon the son Gamaliel, Rabbi Ishmael the son of Elisha, R. Ishbab the Scribe, R. Hotspith the Interpreter, R. Jose, R. Judah ben Baba, R. Judah Hannachtom, R. Simeon ben Azzai, R. Hananiah ben Tera • ion, and R. Akibah. But the Author of Tsemach David reckoning up these, next after Rabban Simeon nameth Ananias the Sagan, or the second Priest, and saith that he was slain at the destruction of the City when Rabban Simeon was slain. Of this Ananias Sagan there is mention in the Talmud Text several times: we will take but one instance, Shekalim per. 6. halac. 1. There were thirteen worshippings or bowings in the Temple, but the house of Rabban Gamaliel, and the house of Ananias Sagan made fourteen. The Sagan was, as it were, Vice-High priest, the next to him in Dignity and Office, and is sometimes called the High priest, as Luke 3. 2. And it may be this was the man, and bare that title, Act. 23. 2, 4. the enemy of Paul, and whose character and doom he reads, that he was a whited wall, and God would smite him: accomplished when he perished in the fall of the City.

We may not omit the calculation of the time that the Jews make further, of the Temples burning: When the first Temple was destroyed, say they, it was the evening on the ninth of Ab, it was the go •• g out of the year of release, and it was the going out of the Sabbath: And so was it with the second Temple. Tal. Bab. ubi supr. Observe, by their confession the Temple was burnt down upon the Lord's day, or on the Christian Sabbath. Fire put to it upon their Sabbath, and it burnt all ours: And so the City fell upon their Sabbath, as was mentioned out of Dion even now.

SECTION II.

WE will first begin at Jerusalem itself. It was laid so desolate, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , That travellers by could see no sign that it had been ever inhabited: they are the words of Josephus De Bell. lib. 7. cap. 1. The Friars there, and the Maps here with us, that point out places so punctually, as to tell you Here was Pilate's Palace, here the Highpriests, here the dolorous way, &c. must receive more courtesy from your belief, then they can give proof to their assertion.

It appears by the constant and copious testimony of the Jews, that the City and Temple were not only laid flat by fire, ruin, and demolishment, but that Turnus Rufus brought a plow over them to make good that Prophesy, Zion shall be plowed as a field: The plowman would find but rugged work: They allot it, as observed before, to have been on the same day of the year, and so a twelvemonth at the least must intercede.

What the beauty of the place had been, needs no Rhetoric to set it forth, nor what the populousness; the Temple, if there had been no other goodly structures, was enough to speak the one, and the multitude of their Synagogues the other: their own records sum them up to four hundred and threescore. R. Phinehas in the name of R. Hoshaiah saith there were 460 Synagogues in Jerusalem, and everyone had a house for the Book of the Law for the publickreading of that, and a house for the public teaching and explaining the traditions. Jerus. Chetub. fol. 35. col. 3. which in Megillah fol. 73. col. 4. and in R. Solomon upon the first of Isaiah are reckoned up to four hundred and fourscore. But now not one relick left, of Temple, Synagogue, Midrash, House, o • anything else but rubbish and desolation. Her people used this custom while she stood, that on all other days of the year the unclean walked in the middle of the street, and the clean by the house sides, and the unclean said unto them, Keep off: But on the days of the Festivals, the clean walked in the middle of the street, and the unclean by the house sides, and then the clean bid Keep off. Jerus. Shekalin fol. 51. col. 1. But now where is that company, that niceness, nay where are the streets? Titus himself some time after the desolation, coming that way, could not but bemoan the fall of so brave a City, and cursed the Rebels that had occasioned so fatal a destruction: Joseph. De Bell. lib. 7. cap. 15.

How the Country near about was wasted with so long and terrible a siege, and indeed the whole Country with so dreadful a War, it is easier conceived then expressed. Josephus tells particularly much of it, and this thing for one, That all the timber twelve miles about the City was cut down, and brought in to make forts and engines for the siege, lib. 6. cap. 40.

We may take a view of the whole Country as to the surface and situation of it in this prospective of their own: The Land [say they] that Israel possessed that came out of Babylon, was these three Countries, Judea, Galilee, and Beyond Jordan, and these were severally tripartite again. There was Galilee the upper, and Galilee the nether, and the Vale. From Caphar Hananiah upward, all that bears not Sycamores, is Galilee the upper, and from Caphar Hananiah downward, all that doth bear Sycamores is Galilee the lower, and the border of Tiberias is the Vale. And in Judea, there is the Mountanous, and the Plain, and the Vale. And the plain of Lydda is as the plain of the South, and the mountainous thereof as the mountain royal: From Bethoron to the Sea is one Region: Shiviith per. 9. halac. 2. The Jerusalem Gemarists do ad • thus, What is the vale in Galilee? The vale of Genezareth and the adjoining. What is the mountainous in Judea? This is the mountain royal; and the plain thereof is the plain of the South, and the vale is from Engedi to Jericho. And what is the mountainous beyond Jordan? R. Simeon ben Eleazar saith, The hills of Ma • var, and Gedor: And the plain thereof Heshbon and all her Cities, Dibon, Bamoth Baal, and Beth Baal Meon. And the vale is Beth Haran, and Beth Nimrah. Sheviith fol. 38. col. 4.

It were endless to trace the footsteps of the War particularly in all these places, let Josephus be consulted for that: we may say in short, that hardly any considerable place escaped, but such as were peaceable, or such as were unaccessible. Of the later sort the mountainous of Judah was the chiefest place, Joshua 21. 1. Luke 1. 39. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 The mountain royal, as the Hebrew Writers do commonly call it [a place incredibly populous as they testify, Jerus. Taanith fol. 69. col. 1.] Hither Christ gives his Disciples warning before hand to flee, when these evils should come, Matth. 24. 16. Which warning we cannot judge but they took, and so planted here as in a place of safety by his warrant.

Though therefore the Country were extremely wasted, with so long and so furious a War, yet was it not utterly waste, nor the Nation destroyed from being a people, though it were destroyed from being what it had been. Those places and persons that had quietly submitted to the Roman power, if they had escaped the fury of their own seditious ones, were permitted to live in quiet, yea to enjoy their own Religion and Laws, they in the mean while demeaning themselves as peaceable subjects, to that power that had brought them under. And for one acknowledgment of that subjection, they were enjoined to pay that Didrachma or half shekel that they usually paid to the Temple for their lives, to Jupiter Capitolinus, Xiphil. apud Dionem. pag. 748.

Their Sanhedrin continued in the same luster and state, as it had done for many years before the City fell: and their Synagogues in the same posture, and their Religion in the same condition, save only those parts of it which were confined to Jerusalem, which was now in the dust. And generally the places and people that had escaped the War, if they would live quiet, did enjoy their quietness, as well as men could do in a Land in such a condition as into which it was now brought.

SECTION III.

ALthough Rabban Simeon the President of the Council, was caught in Jerusalem as in a trap, and so lost his life, yet Rabban Jochanan ben Zaccai his Vice-President, and who was also then in the City with him, made a shift to escape. He spake and acted for Caesar as much and as long as he durst, and when he saw he could no longer be in safety in the City, he caused his Scholars R. Joshua and R. Eliezer to carry him forth upon a Bier as a dead corps [for a dead corps might not rest in Jerusalem all night, and so he escaped and was brought to Caesar. ] Thus R. Nathan tells the story, Avoth per. 4. This Rabban Jochanan forty years ago, when the Temple doors flew open of their own accord, foresaw its ruin in that presage, and accordingly applied that saying of the Prophet Zechariah, Open thy doors O Lebanon that the fire may devour thy Cedars. Therefore when he saw the enemy now so straitly besieging the City, and such forerunners of ruin apparent, it is no wonder if he used all persuasion to the people to yield and to save their City, as the same Author also tells us he did, and if he went and gave himself up to him that he knew should be Conqueror. Nor needed he any Prophetick spirit to foresee these things, but the very sickly condition and distemper of the Nation might plainly enough tell him, that her death could not be far off.

He finding favor with Caesar, petitioned of him, that the Sanhedrin might repair to its old place Jabneh, and there settle, and he obtained it. Jabneh was near unto Joppa upon the Sea coast: there is mention of it, 2 Chron. 26. 6. Here had the Sanhedrin sitten as we have mentioned, many years before the Temple fell, a good part of Gamaliel's time, and all Rabban Simeon's his son.

He sat President here five years: and these are the men of note that sat with him: Rabban Gamaliel, son to Rabban Simeon that was slain at the fall of the City: R. Zadok, one who had spent his body with extreme fasting since the Temple doors had opened of their own accord, taking that for an omen of its ruin approaching: R. Eliezer his son: R. Judah and R. Joshua the sons of Betirah: R. Eliezer ben Hyrcanus the Author of Pirke Eliezer: R. Joshua, R. Eliezer ben Erech, R. Ishmael, R. Jose, R. Simeon ben Nathaniel, R. Akibah, and divers others, who outlived Rabban Jochanan the most of them a long time. They made many Decretals in his time, especially about those things that had had immediate reference to the Temple, as see Rosh hashanah per. 4. Shekalim per. 1, &c.

SECTION IV.

WHEN Rabban Jochanan died, Rabban Gamaliel succeeded him in the Presidency seven years. He is commonly called by the Hebrew Writers 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Rabban Gamaliel of Jabneh. But for the right stating of his Presidency there, two things are to be observed. The first is mentioned in Babyl. in Rosh hashanah fol. 31. 1, 2. where all the flittings of the Sanhedrin are reckoned in the Gemara thus: From the room Gazith it flitted to the Taberna [in the mountain of the Temple] from the Taberna into Jerusalem, from Jerusalem to Jabneh, from Jabneh to Osha or Usha, from Osha to Shepharaam, from Shepharaam to Beth Shaaraim, from Beth Shaaraim to Tsipporis, and from Tsipporis to Tiberias. Now the marginal Gloss teacheth us how to understand these removes. When the President was in any of these places, saith it, the Sanhedrin was with him, and when he or his son went to another place, it went after him. It was at Jabneh in the days of Rabban Jochanan, at Usha in the days of Rabban Gamaliel, but they returned from Usha to Jabneh again: but in the days of Rabban Simeon his son it went back again [ to Usha. ] So that the time that Rabban Gamaliel sat at Jabneh instantly upon Rabban Jochanans death, was not long, but he went to Usha, and his time at Usha was not long neither, but to Jabneh again. And as we are to observe thus about his time and place, so there is a second thing to be taken notice about him, and that is the mixture of his Presidency.

The Talmudists do speak oft 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Of placing R. Eliezer the son of Azariah in the Presidency. Tsemach David speaks it out thus; R. Eliezer ben Azariah was a Priest, and was exceeding rich: he was made President in the room of Rabban Gamaliel, but afterward they were joined in the Presidency together: which is still obscure enough; but the Jerusalem Gemarists give the full story in Taanith fol. 67. col. 4. in these words: A certain scholar came and asked R. Joshua, What is Evening Prayer? He answered, A thing Arbitrary. The same scholar came and asked Rabban Gamaliel, What is Evening Prayer? And he said, A bounden duty. He saith to him, But R. Joshua saith it is a thing Arbitrary. He saith to him, To morrow when I come into the Congregation, stand forth and ask this question: So the scholar did ask Rabban Gamaliel, What is Evening Prayer? He answered, A bounden duty. How then, saith the scholar, doth R. Joshua say it is a thing Arbitrary? Rabban Gamaliel saith to R. Joshua, Art thou he that saith it is a thing Arbitrary? He answered, No. He says to him, Stand upon thy feet that they may bear witness against thee. R. Joshua stood upon his feet, whilst Rabban sat and was expounding, so that all the Congregation repined at him [for making him to stand so.] And they said to R. Hotspith the Interpreter, Dismiss the people, and they said to R. Zinnun the Minister say Begin, and they said all Begin, and stood upon their feet too. And they said to him [Rabban Gamaliel] Against whom hath not thy mischief passed continually? They went presently and made R. Eliezer ben Azaria President, who was but sixteen years old, but very grave. R. Akibah sat by and took it ill, and said, It is not because he is better studied in the Law then I, that he is thus prefered, but because he is nobler born then I. Happy is the man who hath Ancesters to privilege him. Happy is the man that hath a nail to hang upon. And what was the nail that R. Eliezer ben Azaria had? He was the tenth from Ezra. How many benches of scholars were there sitting there then? R. Jacob bar Susi saith, Fourscore besides the people that stood behind them. R. Josi ben R. Bon saith, Three hundred. Rabban Gamaliel went presently to everyone at his own home and sought to pacific him, &c. So that by this it appears how and why Gamaliel was outed of his Presidency, namely for his pride and passion [of which we might show you other examples also] but he was restored again to be partner in the dignity with R. Eliezer whom they promoted now.

There is exceeding much mention of this Gamaliel in the Talmuds, and he is a very busy man there: the Reader there meets with him as oft as with any one man whosoever. He had a servant named Tobi very oft spoken of, whose eye he struck out, and let him go free for it: when he died he much bemoaned and commended him. Bera •• th per. 2. halac. 6. Whilest he sat at Jabneh, in his curiosity for the exquisite taking of the new Moons, he had scored upon his wall several forms and appearances of it, and those that came to bear witness that they had seen the new Moon he brought thither, and asked, How saw you it? In this form, or this, or the other, &c. Rosh hashanah per. 1. hal. 8.

SECTION V.

THE twelve years of Rabban Jochanan and Rabban Gamaliel, reached from the second year of Vespasian, when the Sanhedrin was first settled at Jabneh, to the second year of Domitian: there begins R. Akibah his Presidency, and sat forty years, namely to the time of the sacking of the Town Bitter or Beth tar, which the Jews generally six fifty two years after the fall of the Temple, or at most fifty five: So that he sat all the time of Domitian and Trajan, to the fifth or at most the eighth year of Hadrianus.

His time was a troublesome time with the Jews. In Domitians days, Judaicus fiscus praeter caeteros acerbissime actus, Above all others the Jews were plagued with taxes and con • iscations. Suetonius in Domit. cap. 12. where he adds, I remember when I was a boy, I was present when a man of ninety years old was searched before a great company whether he were Circumcised or no.

In Trajan 's time was that horrd insurrection of the Jews, mentioned by Dion. lib. 68. about Cyrene, where they murdered Romans and Greeks, to the number of two hundred and twenty thousand; eat their flesh, devoured their entrails, and daubed themselves with their blood: And the like insurrection they made in Egypt and Cyprus, and murdered to the number of two hundred and forty thousand. Tsemach David makes Ben Coziba a chief leader in this business: who if he were, received his just reward in the time of Hadrian. He took on him to be Messias; made himself a King, stamped Coyn of his own: 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Jerus. Maasar Sheni fol. 52. col. 4. brought the Romans against him, who destroyed him and the City Bitter, and multitudes of thousands of Jews with him. The Jews commonly write it 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , but in Jerus. Taanith. fol. 68. col. 4. it is written 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Beth tar: which properly signifies the house of spies. And there a story is told that makes it no better, of the great ones that had escaped at the ruin of Jerusalem, and dwelt here, and entrapped any man that they saw go toward Jerusalem. Eusebius Hist. lib. 4. cap. 6. calls it Betheka, and saith it was not far from Jerusalem: which Barronius boldly translates Bethlehem. The Jews do character the doleful slaughter at this place as the saddest stroke that ever they received, but the fall of Jerusalem. Rabbi Akibah himself perished in it, dotingly having become Armor bearer to Ben Coziba, as holding him to be the Messias. You may observe what kind of a Messias they expect.

Dion tells that in this War Severus, whom Hadrian had sent to quel them, took fifty of their strongest Garrisons, and destroyed nine hundred fourscore and five fair Towns. And he also destroyed all the Olive trees in Judea. Jerusal. Peah. fol. 20. col. 1. How they themselves record the slaughter at Beth tar, may be seen in the Jerusalem Talmud in Taanith, the place cited above, and the Babylonian in Gittin fol. 57. 2.

Whence their first tumultuating took its rise, is of some obscurity, only it may be resolved into God's just judgment upon them to stir to their own ruin. Yet Spartianus speaking of their stirring in the time of Hadrian saith, it was because they were forbidden Circumcision. Moverunt ea tempestate & Judaei bellum quod vetabantur mutilare genitalia. In vit. Hadrian. Trajan put a restraint upon Christianity and persecuted it. Plin. Epist. lib. 10. ep. 97. It may be he did the like upon Judaism, and that might move them to an insurrection. The horrid Massacres that they committed in Cyrene, Egypt and Cyprus might be looked upon as a just judgment for his persecution of Christianity, if multitudes of Christians did not also perish in those slaughters, if Ben Coziba were ringleader in them: For Justin Martyr, Apol. 2. saith, that Barchochebas brought Christians only to torture, unless they would deny Christ and blaspheme him. And Euseb. in Chron. Chocebas the ringleader of the Jews., put to death with all exquisite torture those Christians that would not assist him against the Romans. That is worth observing which is spoken by Jerus. Jevamoth. fol. 9. col. 1. There were many that had retracted their foreskin in the days of Ben Coziba, were Circumcised again: which R. Nissim speaks out more at large: There were many Circumcised ones in the days of Ben Coziba, who had retracted their foreskin perforce, in the Town of Bitter, but the hand of Ben Coziba prevailed, and reigned over them two years and an half, and they were Circumcised again in his days. In Alphes. in Jevam. fol. 428. their retracting their foreskin perforce speaks much like to that which was mentioned before out of Spartianus.

In these times also [of Trajane I suppose] there was an Edict against the Jews Ordination upon pain of death to him that did Ordain, and him that was Ordained, and ruin of the place where any Ordination should be Talm. Bab. Avodah Zarah. fol. 8. 2.

And from the time of these tumults forward that began to take place which is spoken in Jerus. Sanhed. fol. 24. col. 2. That in the days of R. Simeon ben Jochai [who was now alive] the judging even in pecuniary matters was taken away. In fol. 18. col. 1. This is said to have been in the days of Simeon ben Shetah: but that is a mistake which is corrected in the place cited.

Upon these Wars and Tumults Hadrian forbids the Jews to go to Jerusalem, or so much as to look upon it from any hill where it might be seen. Euseb. hist. lib. 4. cap. 6.

Triphon the Jew that hath the long dispute with Justin Martyr, fled from these Wars Justin. Dial. cum Tryph. he might very well be R. Tarphon, a great associate with R. Akibah, and one much mentioned in the Talmuds.

SECTION VI.

THUS did the just vengeance of God follow the Nation, but far were they from being rooted out, and as far from laying to heart any plague that light upon them. Besides R. Akibah, we can hardly name you another of note that perished in all those deadly combustions, though some of them were in the thickest of the danger; but reserved as it seemeth as a further plague for the seduction of their Nation. Some of their expressions about the sad slaughter at Bethtar or Bitter are to this purpose: The horses waded in blood up to the nostrils: There were slain 400000: And Adrian walled a Vineyard of sixteen miles about with dead bodies a man's height. And there were found the brains of 300 children upon one stone, and three chests full of tattared Phylacteries containing three bushels every chest. Rabban Simeon ben Gamaliel saith there were 500 Schools, and to the least there belonged 500 Scholars, and they said, If the enemy should come against us we could prick out their eyes with our pens: But when it came to it, they folded them all up in their books and burnt them, and there was not one of them left but only I. Not that he reckons himself in the number of the children, for he was now well in years, but that none of all that great University was left but himself: And yet besides the eminent men that we have named, there were R. Meir a great speaker in the Talmud, but most commonly against the common vote. R. Simeon ben Jochai and Eleazar his son, the first Authors of the book Zohar. R. Nathan the Author of Avoth. R. Josi Galileus and his son Eliezer. R. Jochanan ben Nuri. Ben Nanas. R. Joshua ben Korcha. R. Eliezer ben Chasma: and why should we reckon more when Berishith Rabba makes this Summa Totalis on Gen. 25. That R. Akibah had 24000 disciples. Of some decretals made at Usha, you may read Jerus. in Rosh. hashan fol. 58. col. 3. Chetub. fol. 28. col. 3.

In these times of Hadrian which we are yet upon, Aquila the Proselyte was in being and in repute. In Jerus. Chagig. fol. 77. col. 1, he is introduced discoursing with Hadrian about the universe being supported by a Spirit. In Megil. fol. 71. col. 3. It is said that Aquila the Proselyte interpreted the Law before R. Eliezer and R. Joshua, and they highly commended him for it and said, Thou art fairer then the children of men. By which it may be conjectured what a translation this was, when these men so extolled it. The Jerusalem Gemarists do cite his version, Megil. fol. 73. col. 2. Succah fol. 53. col. 4. Joma fol. 41. col. 1. and several other places.

Rabban Simeon now President, sat about thirty years, namely from about the sixth or eighth of Hadrian, to the fifteenth or sixteenth or thereabout of Antoninus Pius: the honor and power of that Bench growing low and in the wane every day more then other. This Rabban Simeon you have a great spokesman in the Talmud: his grandfather of the same name that died with Jerusalem, is seldom introduced speaking there: Once you have him swearing by the Temple, Cherithuth per. 1. halac. 7.

SECTION VII.

UPON the death of Rabban Simeon, his son Rabbi Judah succeeded him: a man of note equal with, if not above any named before him: he bare not the title of Rabban as his Ancestors had done for five generations before him, yet had he those appellations that dignified him equal with it: he was called sometimes eminently Rabbi and no more: sometime R. Judah the holy: sometimes our holy Rabbi: sometime R. Judah the Prince: and oft in the Jerus. Talmud. R. Judan. Vid. Jerus. Sanhedr. fol. 30. col. 1. where it speaks of all his Titles. There are innumerable stories of him, we shall only pick up those that are most pertinent to our present subject. Juchasin. fol. 2. tells us that he was with the Seventy of the Sanhedrin in Bethshaaraim, Tsipporis and Tiberias, and Tilerias was the tenth and last flitting that the Sanhedrin had. How long in Bethshaaraim is uncertain, and little is mentioned of that place: but Tsipporis 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 is famous: It was the greatest City of Galilee, Joseph. de Bell. lib. 3. cap. 3. a place planted in a fruitful situation, for sixteen miles about it, saith Talm. Jerus. was a Land flowing with milk and honey. Biccurim fol. 64. col. 2. Rabbi Judah sat here seventeen years, and he applied that to himself, Jacob lived in the Land of Egypt seventeen years, and Judah lived in Tsipporis seventeen years. There are these two memorable stories of this place: That a Butcher cozened the Jews here with carcases and beasts torn, and made them eat them, nay he made them eat dogs flesh. Jerus. Trumoth. fol. 45. col. 3. And divers of Tsipporis were glad to wear patches on their faces to dissigure them that they might not be known when inquisition was made after them. Id. Jevamoth fol. 15. col. 3. and Sotah fol. 23. col. 3. The numerous passages about the Doctors and disputes and Scholastic actions in this place would be too tedious to mention, though with the briefest touch we could.

From Tsipporis the Sanhedrin removed to Tiberias, upon the brink of the lake of Gennesaret. This was about eight or nine miles from Tsipporis. Id. Sanlied. fol. 21. col. 1. the Jews hold it to be the same with Rakkath in Josh. 19. 35. Megil. fol. 70. col. 1. And that Hammath there mentioned also, was a place that joined to it. Erubhin fol. 23. col. 4. so called from the hot bathes there. Bab. Megil. fol. 6. 1. How long Rabbi sat here is uncertain.

Their Records do make him exceedingly in favor with Antoninus the Emperor, but whether Pius or Philosophus they name not: it is generally held to be Pius: whithersoever it was, there are abundance of discourses 'twixt R. Judah and him dispersed in their Writings: and they stick not to tell you, that he became a Proselyte, and when the Proselytes of righteousness shall come, in the world to come, Antoninus shall come in the head of them. Jerus. Megil. fol. 74. col. 1. Antoninus Philosophus or Marcus Aurelius was the likelier to converse with Scholars. R. Judah outlived them both, and Commodus also.

Two famous things, as that Nation reputed it, did this man in his time. First, he gathered up and compiled into one Volume all the traditional Law that had run from hand to hand to his time [the Mishuah that we have now in our hands] which is the Jews great pandect according to which they live: He saw their state wane daily more and more, and though they had now many Learned Schools, yet their Cabbala or great stock of traditions, he thought might fail and be lost, now the Sanhedrin failed, therefore he thought to make sure work, and committed it to writing, that it might be preserved to the Nation, and so he helped to rule them. And a second thing that he did, was, that he took care that there should be 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Scribes and Teachers of the Traditions in all the Cities in the Land of Israel. Jerus. Chagigah fol. 76. col. 3. In the same Tract, fol. 77. col. it is reported of him that at six portions of the Scripture when he came to read them he wept. He compiled the Mishnah about the year of Christ 190, in the later end of the reign of Commodus: or as some compute in the year of Christ 220, an hundred and fifty years after the destruction of Jerusalem.

SECTION VIII.

BESIDES the places where the Sanhedrin had sitten, which yet continued Schools when it was removed, there were divers other places that were great Schools and copiously furnished with Learned men, both in Galilee and Judea: and hence that distinction that the reader of the Jerusalem Talmud will meet with, of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 a Southern man and a Galilean. Chagig. fol. 79. col. 3. that is, a Scholar of the one, or of the other. Hence there is mention of R. Jacob 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the Southern man. Erubh. fol. 24. col. 2. and the Elders of the South, ibid. col. 3. R. Joshua of the South, Challah fol. 57. col. 2. Of all the places in Judea, next Jabneh and Bitter, Lydda was most eminent, where R. Akibah sat as President of a School, before he was of the Sanhedrin at Jabneh. Rosh hashanah per halac. 7. and this continued a School all along to these times of Rabbi Judah: In Galilee there was Mugdala, Hammath, and Cesarea, if you will reckon that in Galilee, besides others.

R. Judah left two sons behind him, Rabban Gamaliel and Rabbi Simeon: Rabban Gamaliel was promoted in his fathers life time: but after R. Judah was dead Rab. Chaninah sat chief, and that by R. Judah's appointment, and with him were R. Chaiia, R. Hoshaiah Rabba, R. Joshua ben Levi, Kaphra, Bar Kaphra, Rabh and Samuel, which two last went away to the University in Babylonia. This generation is the first of the Gemarists, explaining the Mishnah, and producing the opinions of the Ancients upon it.

After R. Chaninah, who sat ten years, R. Jochanan was President eighty years. He compiled the Jerusalem Talmud, as is generally held, in the year of Christ two hundred and thirty or thereabout, which was about the middle of the reign of Alexander Mammaeae; yet there is that in the Talmud itself that would make you believe that you meet with the name of the Emperor Dioclesian there. Beracoth fol. 6. col. 1. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 When King Docletinus [to speak it according to the letters] came hither, R. Chaiia bar Abba was seen getting upon a grave to see him. Sheviith fol. 38. col. 4. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Dicletianus afflicted the men of Paneas, &c. In Kilaim fol. 38. col. 3. and Chetuboth fol. 35. col. 2. They say the Land of Israel was encompassed with seven Seas, and the last of them they name is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 The Sea of Apamia. [The Samaritan version on Numb. 34. 10, 11. renders Stepham, Apamia. ] Now this, they say, is the Sea or lake Mahaz: 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Dicletianus gathered the Rivers and made it. And it might very well be, that Rabbi Jochanan that compiled the Talmud might live beyond the times of Diocletian: but in Trumoth fol. 46. col. 3. this Dicletianus they speak of, is plainly asserted to be in the days of Rabbi Judah haccadosh in this story: The sons of Rabbi Judah princeps, beat Diclot the swine-herd, who afterward was made a King. He comes to Paneas and sends letters to the Rabbins, See ye be with me at the going forth of the Sabbath, &c. When they come to him, he says to them, You despise the Kingdom: They answer him, Diclot the Swine-herd we despise, but Diocletianus the King we despise not: which is far from meaning Dioclesian the Emperor. If this were a place to dispute about the exact time of writing this Talmud, we might also take into examination the meaning of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 spoken of in Chagigah fol. 79. col. 4. whether it mean Denarius Gordiani or no, but we shall not insist upon that here.

After the compiling of this Talmud there is little further mention of the Schools or Scholars of Judea or Galilee [the Universities in Babylonia from henceforward bearing all the renown] yet were they not utterly extinct: and out of them at last ariseth the famous R. Hillel grandchild of R. Judah, who stated the Jews Almanac into that posture in which it stands at this day: And Jerome had for his help in the Hebrew Tongue a learned man of Tiberias.

SECTION IX.

HAVING taken this brief account of their Scholastic and Magistratick History, as also of some general occurrences that befell the Nation in these times, let us a little observe the carriage and temper of the men, for the better discerning of the Lord's dispensing in reference to them, as a people of his curse, rejection and abhorring. They themselves little thought it, but were yet as proud and self-confident of their being the only people of God as ever; and unless it were in their plague by Ben Coziba, a stander by, would hardly think they lay under those curses that had been so oft and so terribly denounced against them: and it may yet appear the more strange, when we do consider the settled way of their Religion, in which they walked with as much confidence and security as ever. The Land full of Synagogues, these frequented every Sabbath, and the second and fifth days of the week, their paying Tithes, observing purifyings, clean and unclean meats and drinks, and in a word, all their Rites, but what inseparably belonged to the Temple, in as settled a course as they had done before the Temple fell. But in this very thing was their misery and the vengeance upon them; and that which they accounted was their happiness, and with which they sweetened their Captivity and desolation of their City, was that very thing that was their unhappiness and undoing.

A double badge of reprobation they visibly carried, though themselves could not see it, namely their doting upon their wretched Traditions, and their rancor and enmity against the Gospel, besides what other brands of a curse may be read upon them.

He that reads their Talmuds may observe this mark of perdition upon them in every page, that the generations after the destruction of Jerusalem, were more mad, if possible, after their foolish and wicked Rites and Traditions, that made Faith and the Word of God of no effect, then the generations before had been. A man that reads there may stand amazed to see a people of a lost and languishing condition, yet building up of those toys and trifles an airy structure, as if they were building an everlasting Kingdom. It speaks a palpable blindness upon them, that they took so little advertisement by the fall of their City, of the fall of their carnal and beggarly Rites, that they set them up more zealously then ever before. Let any man observe who they are that make the greatest noise in the Talmuds, and they will see this plain: This minds me of a fancy of the great women among them, a ridiculous way that they used for the remembrance and mourning for Jerusalem, namely by wearing a golden Crown upon their heads, wrought in the fashion of a City, they called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 The golden City: It is spoken of in Jerus. Shabb. fol. 7. col. 4. where they are disputing whether the women might go forth with this Ornament upon their heads on the Sabbath: And there they tell that R. Akibah made a golden City for his wife, and when Rabban Gamaliel's saw it, she was envious at it: A pretty way of mourning by pride, and to carry Jerusalam in gold on their heads, when Jerusalem lies in ashes under their feet: Much like did they by their Ceremonies and Traditions, when at the ruin of the City they should by right have been all buried in ashes with it, they enhanced them and made them more high and gallant then ever before.

It is needless to instance their derision and detestation of Christ and Christianity, their blasphemy against his blessed name, their hatred and mischievousness against the professors of it: their Writings proclaim their impiety, and when many of the ancient Fathers have been put to write against the Jews, it argues they were busy and stirring as far as they might. They had continual opposings among themselves, yet they all agreed like Simcon and Levi, brethren in evil, to oppose, vilify and blaspheme the Gospel. Hardly one of the Grandees that we have named, but he had 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 his opposite, one or the other that stood out in contestation of opinion with him: Nay they went sometimes to it by the ears; as R. Eliezer and R. Josi are so struggling together that they rent the Book of the Law betwixt them. Jerus. Shekalim fol. 47. col. 1. and as we observed before, the Shammaeans and Hillelians fought it to blood and death: Rabban Gamaliel at Jabneh, deposed R. Akibah from his Rectorship at Lydda. Rosh. hashan. fol. 57. col. 1. And divers such bickerings which still ended in an unanimous consent to oppose Christianity as much as possible.

We speak before of the commonness of Magic amongst them, one singular means whereby they kept their own in delusion, and whereby they affronted ours. The general expectation of the Nation of Messias coming when he did, had this double and contrary effect; That it forwarded those that belonged to God, to believe and receive the Gospel: and those that did not, it gave encouragement to some to take upon them they were Christ or some great Prophet, and to others it gave some persuasion to be deluded by them. These deceivers dealt most of them with Magic, and that cheat ended not when Jerusalem ended, though one would have thought that had been a fair term of not further expecting Messias, but since the people were willing still to be deceived by such expectation, there rose up deluders still that were willing to deceive them. The Jerusalem Talmud will furnish us with variety of examples of this kind, and I cite it the oftener because it was made among these men we are speaking of, the Jews in Judea.

To begin with dreamers and interpreters of dreams, which was a degree of delusion with them. In Maasar Sheni fol. 45. col. 2, 3. there is mention of Rabbi Josi ben Calpatha, of this trade, and R. Ishmael ben Rabbi Josi, and R. Lazar, and R. Akibah; and there are many dreams recorded that they interpreted: and it seemeth by a passage in the place, that they taught their Scholars this trick as a piece of their learning: And finding of R. Akibah in this Catalogue, we cannot but think how well Ben Coziba and he were met: for if the one were a cheater in one kind, the other was a deceiver in another. If that of the Apostle Jude in his Epistle ver. 8. These filthy dreamers, should be construed in this literal sense, it would find enow in those times to make it good.

In Shabb. fol. 3. col. 2. it speaks of an apparition to one of their religious men that was studying the Law.

Ibid. fol. 8. col. 2, 3. and fol. 14. 3. there is mention of several charmings, as reading some verses over a wound, laying the Book of the Law or Phylacteries upon a sick person, charming against serpents and an evil eye, &c. And now we are speaking of an evil eye, or witchery, we may take in that Sanhedr. fol. 18. col. 3. Four and twenty of the School of Rabbi Judah came to Lydda to intercalate the year, and an evil eye came in among them and they all died.

In Sotah fol. 16. col. 2. A story related of R. Meir and an Inchantresse, and he proving hard enough for her.

In Sanhedr. fol. 25. col. 4. There are three stories of Magical feats done by 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Heretics, one at Tiberias and two at Tsipporis, but R. Joshua outvying one of them, and a fourth at Rome, and he making his part good there too. What may be meant by Heretics must be divided betwixt Samaritans, and some wretches that had forsaken their Judaism, and professed Christianity, but were such as the Apostle calls false Apostles.

And to conclude all, the many stories they have of Bath kol or a voice from Heaven [most commonly coming for the magnifying of some of their Doctors, as see, Sotah. fol. 24. col. 2.] are either forgeries, or if there were any such seeming voices, they were forged upon the anvil of Magic: How can a Nation but carry the visibe mark of perdition, when vain traditions are their standing Religion, and Magic and Inchantments a common practice?

To this kind of legerdemain, we may add another, not altogether indeed of so deep a die, yet that which came from the same father, and that was, the loud legends they invented of their great Rabbin's, thereby to awe the people to the reverence of their Persons, Memories and Doctrines: and of others devoutly zealous in their doting Religion, of whom they tell strange wonders for the magnifying of it. I shall name none for shame: these are they that do most disgrace their writings, and make them most ridiculous.

A last thing to be named that they did toward the intayling folly, unbelieve and obduration upon their Nation to all posterity, is their engaging them to their Canons and Traditions, as they delivered them: especially to the Mishnah when Rabbi Judah had published it, and to the two Talmuds when they came forth, especially the Babylonian, which stands as a Standard to all the Nation for her Rule and Religion to this day: they being generally Pharisaical, and scarce a Karaite that we hear of amongst them.

SECTION X.

WE need not speak of their crossing the Gospel, and persecuting and mischieving the professors of it, when it lay in their power; that needs no clearing: A twofold infection, more especially, they diffused into the Christian Church, which tainted many, and where it caught proved pestilential enough, even that which was the least dangerous: and these were, that out of this sink rose the desperate heresies of the first Ages of the Gospel, and from these men came the Allegorizing of the Scriptures, which was but one degree less profitable, if not less deadly then their traditions.

How damnable Heresies arose from among them in the Apostles times, we have seen copiously as we have come along through the Epistles, some unbelieving Jews and some Apostates diffusing poison so deadly and so affluent, that it undid multitudes by backsliding. The venom was of a contrary malignity, yet both extremes met alike in this point, that they proved most deadly. The unbelieving Jews standing upon the strictness of the Law, preverted divers to turn from the Gospel, to the precise course of their Judaism to seek Justification by works. And the Apostatizing, as far misjuding of the liberty of the Gospel, introduced all manner of licentiousness and heedlessness of their ways, as to eat things sacrificed to Idols, and to commit fornication. These were the most notorious, as striking directly at the root of Justification by faith, and of holiness of life: but these were not all, but other roots of gall and wormwood growing upon the same soil, as denying of the resurrection altogether, as did the Sadducees, or denying the Resurrection of those that started from Judaism, and worshipping of Angels, and whatsoever else, the Apostles speak of this gangrene in their Epistles, which though they grew and were at full ripeness before Jerusalem fell, yet did they fade but little when she was down.

As the first wretched stock of Heretics that rose, Simon, Cerinthus, Meander, Ebion, Basilides, &c. appeared either in Judea, or at least there where there were multitudes of Jews, as Basilides at Alexandria, so the most of those damnable opinions that they sowed, and which grew for a long while after, had some root or other in Judaism, or received some cursed moisture from thence to nourish them. By Judaism I here understand the body of the Jews Religions though differing within itself, yet all contrary to Christianity. Look upon Palestine, and you have it thus stocked in the times that we are upon.

• 1. With Pharisees of seven sorts, as they be reckoned up, Beracoth fol. 13. col. 2. Sotah. fol. 20. col. 3.
• 2. With Sadducees, at the least of two sorts if not more.
• 3. With Samaritans.
• 4. With Esseans: Baithusaeans you may reckon with Sadducees or Samaritans whether you will. Now the variety, nay contrariety of opinions that was among this mixture, would afford nourishment to any evil weed of doctrine that could be sowed; these being as Manasseh against Ephraim, and Ephraim against Manasseh, but all against the Gospel. We have mention of the Baithusaeans going about to put a gull upon the Sanhedrin about the great business of stating the beginning of the year, Rosh hashan fol. 57. col. 4. The Sadducees laughing the Pharisees to scorn about washing the Candlesticks of the Temple, Chagig. fol. 79. col. 4. The Pharisees and Sadducees crossing one another in disputes, Jadaim, per. 4. halec. 7. Aud the Samaritans perpetually at enmity with the Jews in all stories. Now all these being alike enemies to Christianity, what mischief might not they severally do in poisoning and seducing those that were not sound in it? We find the names of some arch Heretics mentioned in the Talmuds, though we cannot say they were the same men. As 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Dositheus, Orlah per. 2. halac. 5. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Ebion, Jerus. Joma. fol. 4. col. 3. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Symmachus, Jevam. fol. 11. col. 3. Chetub. fol. 25. col. 3. And Papias also is a Talmud name, of which name there was one so zealous of traditions, Euseb. Hist. lib. 3. cap. 39.

We observed at the second Epistle to the Thessalonians, that the Jews, partly the unbelieving, and partly the Apostatized, were the first part of Antichrist, the mistery of iniquity that was then working when the Apostle wrote: and now we may observe how they continued bodied together, as a Corporation of iniquity, in Judea, till the times of Constantine the great, the succession of their Schools plainly to be read there: as we have showed in little. And when they wanted there, then did they flourish in their three Universities in Babylonia: and the succession of the Schools and names of the larned men known there, not only till the signing of the Babylon Talmud which was about the year of Christ 500, but even till the other part of the mistery of iniquity the Papal Antichrist arose at Babylon in the West: And as these two parts make one entire body of Antichrist, and as the latter took at the first to do the work that they had done, to deface the truth and oppose it, and that under the color of Religion, so did it in great measure take his Pandect of Errors from these his predecessors. Traditions, false Miracles, Legends, Ceremonies, Merit, Purgatory, implicit Faith, and divers other things so derived from this source, as is left by legacy from the one to the other.

A second taint we mentioned that these Primitive Jews set, not only upon their own posterity, but too much also upon the Church of Christ, was the turning of the Scriptures all into Allegory: which as it is well known how it was used by divers of the Fathers to their great loss of time, and little profiting of the Church: so it is easily to be known from whence it comes, by any that reads Philo Judaeus, and the Jewish Derushim. The Talmuds indeed are for the most part, upon disputes, but sometimes they bring in how such or such a Doctor did Darash, [mystically expound] such or such a place of Scripture: and then you have directly such stuff as this. Philo in his discourse concerning the Theraputae or Esseans, relateth that they had used this mystical kind of exposition of old. And how near the Christians of Judea that fled from the ruin of Jerusalem, might be supposed thenceforward to be planted to the Esseni, we might observe from Pliny and Mela that place the Esseni along the vale that coasted upon the dead Sea [the old habitation of the Kenites ] and from considering that the mountains to which Christ warns us those that were in Judea, to flee, was, the mountainous of Judea, as was touched.

SECTION XI.

HEre we cannot but clear them, as for mater of fact, of what some lay to their charge. [but they do it for their own ends] that they foisted a corrupt Text of the Old Testament upon Christians, and so befooled them in the very foundation of their Religion: So did their ancestors by Ptolemy King of Egypt, and so what these men would have done, if they could, it is easy to conjecture, but they did not, they could not so impose.

1. It was their great care solicitousness, as to themselves, and their own use, to preserve the Text in all purity and uncorruptness; and what our Savior says of not one Jota or one title of the Law perishing, they were of the same mind, and endeavored to maintain and assert that for true with all industry. It were too long here to speak of the work of the Masorites for this purpose, who altered not, added not, invented not a tittle, but carfully took account of everything as they found it, and so recorded it to posterity that nothing could be changed. We shall only bring in their own expositions which will attest to this truth to both those words that our Savior hath, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : It is little to be doubted that Christ speaking in their language, meaneth the letter Jod, which is far the least of all their letters. And about this letter the Jerusalem Talmud hath this passage: Sanhedr. fo. 20. col. 3. The book of Mishneh Torah [Deuteronomy] came and prostrated itself before God, and said unto him: O Lord everlasting, Thou hast written thy Law in me. A Testament that fails in part, fails in the whole. Behold Solomon seeks to root Jod out of me [viz. in 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 He shall not multiply wives. ] The Holy blessed God saith to it: Solomon and a thousand such as he shall fail, but a word of thee shall not fail. R. Houna in the name of R. Acha said: The Jod that the blessed God took from the name of our mother Sarah, was given half of it to Sarah and half to Abraham. There is a tradition of R. Hoshaiah: Jod came and prostrated itself before God and said; Lord everlasting, thou hast rooted me out from the name of a righteous woman. The holy blessed God saith to it: Heretofore thou wast in the name of a woman, and in the end of it, Henceforward thou shalt be in the name of a man and in the beginning. This is that which is written, Moses called the name of Hoshea, Jehoshua. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : one Tittle: It most properly means those little Apiculi that distinguish betwixt letters that are very like one to another: You may have the explanation of this in this pretty descant of Tanchuma fol. 1. It is written, saith he, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 You shall not profane my holy Name. He that makes the Cheth 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 a He 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 destroys the world: for he makes this sense, You shall not praise my holy Name. It is written 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord: He that makes the He 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 a Cheth 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 destroys the world; for he brings it to this sense, Let everything that hath breath profane the Lord. It is written 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 They lied to the Lord: He that maketh Beth 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Caph 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 destroys the world: for he maketh this sense, They lied like the Lord. It is written 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 There is none holy like the Lord. He that makes Caph 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Beth 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 destroys the world: for he maketh this sense, There is no holiness in the Lord. It is written 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 The Lord our God is one Lord. He that makes Daleth 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Resh 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 destroys the world: for he bringeth the sense to this, The Lord our God is a strange God, &c. In Chagig. fol. 77. col. 3. they speak more of the letter Jod, and so doth Midras Tillin in Psal. 114. In Deut. 32. 18. this little letter is written less then itself in the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and yet preserved in that quantity and not altered, and observed so by the Masorites.

2. Yet could they not for all their care but have some false Copies go up and down amongst them, through heedlessness or error of transcribers. In Shabb. fol. 15. col. 2. they are disputing how many faults may be in a part of the Bible, and yet it lawful to read in. The books of Hagiographa, say they, If there be two or three faults in every lea • 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 He may mend it, and read: The Books of Hagiographa they read not in their Synagouges, as they did the Law and the Prophets, therefore this is to be understood of a man's private reading, and of his own Bible, which if faulty, there were true Copies whereby he might mend it and so read. Nay in Taanith fol. 68. col. 1. there is mention of a faulty Copy that was laid up in the public records. They found three books in the Court of the Temple. The book 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the book 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and the book 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 In one they found written 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and in two it was written 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 [ Deut. 33. 27.] And they approved the two, and refused the one. In one they found written, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and in two it was written 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 [ Exod. 24. 5.] They approved the two, and refused the other. In one they found written 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and in two it was written 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; They approved of the two and resused the other. That alteration 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 which is the second mentioned, the Babylonian Gemarists, and Massecheth Sopherim per. 1. say was one of the thirteen alterations that the Septuagint made in the Law for Ptolemy King of Egypt. Which seems to argue that as they translated the Bible into Greek, in which they made thousands of alterations from the text, so that they copied an Hebrew copy for him, and in that made these, and this that was found in the Court of the Temple a transcript of that Copy.

3. In every Synagogue they had a true Copy: And it was their care everywhere to have their Bible as purely authentic as possible, as may be seen by the curious rules that are given to that purpose in Massecheth Sopherim newly cited, and Megillah. For this they accounted their treasure and their glory: And in the reading of the Law and the Prophets in the Synagogue, it was their great care that not a tittle should be read amiss: and for this purpose the Minister stood over those that read, and oversaw that they read aright: and from this, as Aruch tells us, he was called Chazan, that is Episcopus or Overseer: In Jerus. Sotha fol. 21. col. 3. the Samaritans are blamed by the Jews for willfully corrupting their own Pentateuch. R. Eliezer ben R. Simeon said, I said to the Scribes of the Samaritans, You have falsified your Law, and yet reap no advantage by it: for you have written in your Law, By the plain of Moreh which is Shechem; And was it not manifest enough without that addition that it was Shechem? But you construe not, a pari, as we do. It is said here, The plain of Moreh, and it is said elsewhere, The plain of Moreh: there it is no other but Shechem: no more must it be here. [The addition cavilled at, which is Shechem, is so in the Samaritan Pentateuch now extant, at Deut. 11. 30.] But amongst all the wickedness that Christ and his Apostles laid to the charge of the Jews, yet you never find them blamed in the least degree for this, that they went about to corrupt the letter of the Text: The sense indeed they spoiled with their glosses, and so made the Word of God of no effect, and this they hear of thoroughly, but not a word of their spoiling the letter of the Text.

4. Had they been never so desirous to have imposed upon Christians, by falsifying the Text, they could not possibly do it: For

First, Every Synagogue in the world having the purest Copy that possibly was to be got, how impossible was it such legerdemain should be, when there were so many thousand Copies to discover it [unless they were all corrupt alike] and multitudes out of the Synagogues, Rulers and People were converted to the Gospel.

Secondly, As learned men as any they had among them, and that as well understood what Text was pure, what corrupt, Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, Paul, and multitudes of the Priests embraced the Gospel: and so multitudes of pure Copies were in the hands of Christians, upon the first rising of the Gospel, and multitudes that had such Copies in their hands were converted daily.

5. To which may be added that the same power and care of God that preserves the Church, would preserve the Scriptures pure to it: and he that did and could preserve the whole, could preserve every part, so that not so much as a tittle should perish.

SECTION XII.

BY what hath been spoken concerning the state of the Jews in their own Land after the fall of their City, it may be observed wherein it is that the Lord's vengeance upon that Nation doth especially consist, namely in his rejection of them from being his people, and in their obduration. The unspeakable miseries and slaughter that they endured in the siege and ruin of Jerusalem, speak as dreadful punishment as ever fell upon a Nation, and yet this was but short and small, in comparison of that fearful blindness and hardness that lies upon them, and hath done for this sixteen hundred years together. Seventy years in bodily bondage in Babel, did finish the punishment of their forefathers, for all the Idolatry, bloodshed and impiety that they had committed: But these after above twenty times seventy years, under dispersion and obduration, have now as little appearance of amendment of their hearts and of their condition, as there was so many hundred years ago. The same blindness, the same doting upon traditions, the same insisting upon their own works for salvation, the same blind confidence that they are God's only beloved people, the same expectation of Messias to come, the same hatred of Messias already come, and the same opposition against the Gospel is in them still, that was in that first generation that crucified the Lord of life. That generation is plainly and often asserted by the Holy Ghost in the New Testament to be Antichrist, and the very same Antichristian spirit hath continued in all the generations of them, ever since even to this day.

Into the thoughts therefore concerning their Calling after so long and so extreme crossness against the Gospel and the Lord of it, I cannot but take these things into consideration. [For though I am unwilling to recede from that charitable opinion of most Christians that there shall once be a Calling of them home, yet see I not how that supposal of the universal Call of the whole Nation, as of one man, which some entertain, can be digested without some allay and mitigation.]

1. That all Israel, both Jews and they of the ten Tribes, have had as full an offer of the Gospel as any of the Gentiles have had, both in the time of the Apostles and since. Of the two Tribes there can be no scruple: and of the ten, almost as little, if their sin that cast them off the place of their seating when carried out of their own Land, and the carriage of the Gospel through the whole world, be well considered: Now that their refusing of the Gospel so offered to them, in that manner as they have done, should be followed with so universal a Call and Conversion, is somewhat hard to believe: especially when it is observed that the Gentiles despising the Gospel are doomed to the everlasting deprivation of it, and to a worse condition then Tyre and Zidon.

2. It is true indeed that God's Covenant with their fathers, is of special weight and observation in this business, and the Apostle toucheth it in this question, Rom. 11. 28. but how is this to be understood? God made a twofold Covenant with their fathers, viz. the Covenant of Grace, and the Covenant of Peculiarity; and the later was but a manner of the administration of the former. The Covenant of Grace was made with Adam, and belongs to all the seed of Christ, before the Law, under it, and after it, Jews and Gentiles. Now the Economy of Moses was such an administration of this Covenant of Grace as made Israel a peculiar people. This effect of the Covenant with their fathers, namely that they still are and ever shall be God's peculiar, is their conceit all along, but little warrant for us to hold it, since under the Gospel there is no distinction of Jew and Gentile: And as for the other, that many of them yet belong to Election and the Covenant of Grace made with their fathers, it is not to be doubted, which yet doth little make for so general a calling.

3. It was a good sign of the general conversion of the Heathen once to be, in that there were multitudes of them proselyted daily, before the general Call by the Gospel came [an hundred three and fifty thousand in the days of Solomon, and that when Religion was then in a very narrow compass:] But of these, how few, in comparison have come in, in all this long time, though they have had incomparably more means and opportunity then ever those had? Their sin that cast them off, was more horrid then the sin that cast off the Heathen, and so their blindness and obduration is beyond theirs. And which deserves observation, The sin of the two Tribes was beyond the sin of the ten.

4. Since the New Testament doth ordinarily style that first generation Antichrist: and since, as is apparent, the very same spirit is in the Nation to this day, I see not how we can look upon the conversion of the Jews under a lower notion then the conversion of a brood of Antichrist. Therefore can I no more look for the general calling of them, then I look for the general call of the Antichristian brood of Rome. We see indeed by happy experience that several Nations have fallen off from the Roman Antichrist, as the Protestant Countries that are at this day: but Antichrist is yet in being and strong, and his end will be, not by conversion, but perdition. So can I not but conceive of the Jewish Nation, That although numerous multitudes of them may at the last be brought into the Gospel as the Protestant party hath been, yet that to the end numerous multitudes also shall continue in the Antichristian spirit of unbelief and opposition and blaspheming: and both parts of Antichrist, the Roman and this so to perish together. Nor doth this opinion any whit cross any place of Scripture that is produced about the calling of the Jews, but rather settle its sense and explain it: That eminent place of the Apostle, Rom. 11. carrieth such a limitation throughout: and the very intent of his discourse speaketh to such a tenor all along: For his drift in that Chapter is not to determine whether all the Jews should be once called, but whether all the Jews were wholly cast off: and this he states that there is a remnant, ver. 5. that the election hath obtained, but the rest are blinded, ver. 7. and that blindness in part is happened to Israel, &c. v. 25. And this is the mystery that he there speaketh of, and not as some would wrest it, their universal conversion. A mystery indeed that God should cast off his old Covenanted people, and that they that had always had the light, and only seen of all the Nations of the world, should now sit in darkness and be blind, and that the Gentiles by their blindness should come to see. It is remarkable in this place and others of the Apostles Epistles, that though the destruction of Jerusalem were the most signal time, and evidence of God's casting them off, yet that they were indeed cast off long before: as, to spare more allegations, may be observed in the first Epistle to the Thessalonians, Ch. 2. ver. 15, 16. which was the first Epistle that the Apostle wrote. Whence punctually to date their rejection, whether from the death of Christ, or from the first sending the Gospel among the Gentiles, is not much material to inquire after here: it is enough for our present purpose, to observe, that they are given for cast off so early in the dispersion of the Gospel: So that the Apostle doth clearly include their conversion even at that first spreading of the Gospel, as well as their conversion in future times. He saith, their casting off was the riches of the Gentiles and the reconciling of the world, and their fullness should much more enrich the Gentiles, and be as life from the dead: By their fullness not meaning the whole number of their Nation, but the full number of God's Elect of them when they should be brought in. The casting off of the Nation enriched the Gentiles, in that they came in to be the Lord's people in their stead, but much more shall it be an enriching to them when the full number of them that belong to God shall come in also and be joined to the Gentiles, and help to make their body up. This is apparently the drift of the Apostle in those words, which that opinion is exceedingly wide of, that holds that the calling of the Jews shall not be till the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. It is true indeed that he saith, that blindness in part is happened to Israel till that time, v. 25. and so our Savior saith, that Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled, Luke 21. 24. but this means her final desolation, and the final blindness of that part that is blinded; not that Jerusalem should be built again when the fullness of the Gentiles is come in, which the Jews conceit: nor that then the Jews should be unblindfolded and become a Gospel Church, as the Gentiles had been: for what a strange world doth such a supposal imagine? And how often doth the Gospel gainsay any such distinctiveness and peculiarity? As we need not to go far for instance, that very place of the Apostle that is under our hands, doth hold out all along that the Gentiles and the Jews that belong to the election of grace, do make up but one Body. And that very passage that is chiefly pleaded for their universal Call, And so all Israel shall be saved, means no other. Therefore though it may be hoped that God hath multitudes of them yet to be brought in, from under their Antichristian darkness and opposition of the Gospel, yet that they shall be generally called, and no Antichristian party left behind, and that not till Antichrist of Rome be fallen and the fullness of the Gentiles be come in, as some circumstantiate the thing, needeth clearer evidence of Scripture to evince, then yet hath been produced.

SECTION I.

THE Temple was burnt down, as Josephus a spectator setteth the time, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , On the tenth day of the month Lous: which he saith was a fatal day to the Temple, for it had been burnt down by the Babylonians before on that day, De Bell. lib. 6. cap. 27. And yet his Countrymen that write in the Hebrew Tongue, fix both these fatalities to the ninth day of that month which they call the month Ab; and they account that day fatal for three other sad occurrences besides: On the ninth day of the month Ab, say they, the decree came out against Israel in the wilderness that they should not enter into the Land: On it was the destruction of the first Temple, and on it was the destruction of the second. On it the great City Bitter was taken, where there were thousands and ten thousands of Israel, who had a great King over them [Ben Cozba] whom all Israel, even their greatest wise men thought to have been Messias: But he fell into the hands of the Heathen, and there was great affliction, as there was at the destruction of the Sanctuary. And on that day, a day allotted for vengeance, The wicked Turnus Rufus plowed up the place of the Temple, and the places about it, to accomplish what is said, Zion shall become a plowed field. Talm. in Taanith. per. 4. halac. 6. Maymon. in Taanith per. 5.

It is strange men of the same Nation, and in a thing so signal, and of which both parties were spectators, should be at such a difference: and yet not a difference neither, if we take Josephus his report of the whole story, and the other Jews construction of the time. He records that the Cloister walks commonly called The Porches of the Temple, were fired on the eighth day, and were burning on the ninth, but that day Titus called a Council of War, and carried it by three voices, that the Temple should be spared: but a new busling of the Jews caused it to be fired, though against his will, on the next day: Joseph. ubi supr. cap. 22. 23, 24. Now their Kalendar reckons, from the middle day of the three that fire was at it as from a Center: and they state the time thus: It was the time of the evening, when fire was put to the Temple, and it burnt till the going down of the Sun of the next day. And behold what Rabban Jochanan ben Zaccai saith: If I had not been in that generation I should not have pitched it upon any other day, but the tenth, because the most of the Temple was burnt that day. And in the Jerusalem Talmud it is related that Rabbi, and Joshua ben Levi fasted for it the ninth and tenth days both. Gloss. in Maym. in Taanith per. 5.

Such another discrepancy about the time of the firing of the first Temple by Nebuchadnezzar, may be observed in 2 King. 25. 8, 9. where it is said, that In the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, came Nebuzaradan Captain of the guard, and burnt the House of the Lord. And yet in Jerem. 52. 12. it is said to have been In the fifth month, on the tenth day of the month. Which the Gemarists in the Babylon Talmud reconcile thus: It cannot be said on the seventh day, because it is said On the tenth: Nor can it be said, On the tenth day, because it is said On the seventh. How is it then? On the seventh the aliens came into the Temple, and eat there and defiled it, the seventh, eighth and ninth days, and that day towards night they set it on fire: and it burnt all the tenth day, and was the case also with the second Temple. Taanith fol. 29.

The ninth and tenth days of the month Ab on which the Temple was burnt down, was about the two and three and twentieth of our July: and the City was taken and sacked the eighth day of September following: Joseph. ubi supr. cap. 47. That day being their Sabbath day, Dion fol. 748.

After eleven hundred thousand destroyed and perished in the siege and sacking, and ninety seven thousand taken prisoners, Titus commanded City and Temple to be razed to the ground, only three of the highest Towers left standing, Phasaelus, Hippicus and Mariamme, and the Western Wall of the City: those, that they might remain as monuments of the strength of the place, and thereby of the renown of the Roman Conquest: and this, that it might be of some use to the Roman Garrison that was left there, which was the tenth Legion. Their chief Captain was Terentius Rufus, a man of exceeding frequent mention in the Hebrew Writers, but his former name a little shortened, yet a little added which makes it long enough, for they constantly call him 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Turnus Rufus the wicked one. There are endless disputes betwixt him and R. Akibah mentioned, about the Jews Law and Religion, and when he died R. Akibah married his widow, now become a Proselitess.

Amongst those that perished in the fate of the City, the names most famous were Jochanan, Simeon and Eleazar, the three ringleaders of sedition, names famous for faction. But the person of the best rank that perished, was Rabban Simeon, the President of the Sanhedrin, a man educated with Paul at the foot of Gamaliel his father. The Sanhedrin had sitten at Jabneh a long while, but the Feast of the Passover had now brought them up to Jerusalem, and there he is caught. The Bab. Talmud in the place lately cited, relates, that he was once in danger, but one of the Roman Commanders was a means of his delivery: But at last he was caught and slain, and in the Jews Martyrology he is set the first of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 The ten slain by the Kingdom: meaning ten eminent ones that were put to death by the Romans. All the ten are reckoned by Midras Tillin upon Psal. 9. fol. 10. col. 3. He forgetteth not, saith he, the cry of the poor: that is, he forgetteth not the blood of Israel to require it of the Nations: nor the blood of those Righteous ones that were slain: viz. Rabban Simeon the son Gamaliel, Rabbi Ishmael the son of Elisha, R. Ishbab the Scribe, R. Hotspith the Interpreter, R. Jose, R. Judah ben Baba, R. Judah Hannachtom, R. Simeon ben Azzai, R. Hananiah ben Tera • ion, and R. Akibah. But the Author of Tsemach David reckoning up these, next after Rabban Simeon nameth Ananias the Sagan, or the second Priest, and saith that he was slain at the destruction of the City when Rabban Simeon was slain. Of this Ananias Sagan there is mention in the Talmud Text several times: we will take but one instance, Shekalim per. 6. halac. 1. There were thirteen worshippings or bowings in the Temple, but the house of Rabban Gamaliel, and the house of Ananias Sagan made fourteen. The Sagan was, as it were, Vice-High priest, the next to him in Dignity and Office, and is sometimes called the High priest, as Luke 3. 2. And it may be this was the man, and bare that title, Act. 23. 2, 4. the enemy of Paul, and whose character and doom he reads, that he was a whited wall, and God would smite him: accomplished when he perished in the fall of the City.

We may not omit the calculation of the time that the Jews make further, of the Temples burning: When the first Temple was destroyed, say they, it was the evening on the ninth of Ab, it was the go •• g out of the year of release, and it was the going out of the Sabbath: And so was it with the second Temple. Tal. Bab. ubi supr. Observe, by their confession the Temple was burnt down upon the Lord's day, or on the Christian Sabbath. Fire put to it upon their Sabbath, and it burnt all ours: And so the City fell upon their Sabbath, as was mentioned out of Dion even now.

SECTION II.

WE will first begin at Jerusalem itself. It was laid so desolate, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , That travellers by could see no sign that it had been ever inhabited: they are the words of Josephus De Bell. lib. 7. cap. 1. The Friars there, and the Maps here with us, that point out places so punctually, as to tell you Here was Pilate's Palace, here the Highpriests, here the dolorous way, &c. must receive more courtesy from your belief, then they can give proof to their assertion.

It appears by the constant and copious testimony of the Jews, that the City and Temple were not only laid flat by fire, ruin, and demolishment, but that Turnus Rufus brought a plow over them to make good that Prophesy, Zion shall be plowed as a field: The plowman would find but rugged work: They allot it, as observed before, to have been on the same day of the year, and so a twelvemonth at the least must intercede.

What the beauty of the place had been, needs no Rhetoric to set it forth, nor what the populousness; the Temple, if there had been no other goodly structures, was enough to speak the one, and the multitude of their Synagogues the other: their own records sum them up to four hundred and threescore. R. Phinehas in the name of R. Hoshaiah saith there were 460 Synagogues in Jerusalem, and everyone had a house for the Book of the Law for the publickreading of that, and a house for the public teaching and explaining the traditions. Jerus. Chetub. fol. 35. col. 3. which in Megillah fol. 73. col. 4. and in R. Solomon upon the first of Isaiah are reckoned up to four hundred and fourscore. But now not one relick left, of Temple, Synagogue, Midrash, House, o • anything else but rubbish and desolation. Her people used this custom while she stood, that on all other days of the year the unclean walked in the middle of the street, and the clean by the house sides, and the unclean said unto them, Keep off: But on the days of the Festivals, the clean walked in the middle of the street, and the unclean by the house sides, and then the clean bid Keep off. Jerus. Shekalin fol. 51. col. 1. But now where is that company, that niceness, nay where are the streets? Titus himself some time after the desolation, coming that way, could not but bemoan the fall of so brave a City, and cursed the Rebels that had occasioned so fatal a destruction: Joseph. De Bell. lib. 7. cap. 15.

How the Country near about was wasted with so long and terrible a siege, and indeed the whole Country with so dreadful a War, it is easier conceived then expressed. Josephus tells particularly much of it, and this thing for one, That all the timber twelve miles about the City was cut down, and brought in to make forts and engines for the siege, lib. 6. cap. 40.

We may take a view of the whole Country as to the surface and situation of it in this prospective of their own: