himself, after he came down from the mount; (3.) Constitutions and orders, drawn, by various ways of arguing (thirteen, as Rambam tells us), out of the written law; (4.) The answers and decrees of the sanhedrim and other wise men in former ages; (5.) Immemorial customs, whose original being unknown are supposed to be divine. 9. The whole is divided into six parts, noted with the initial letter of the word which signifies the chief things treated on in it. As the first by 1, z; that is, Dy, "zeraim," "seeds;" which is divided into eleven "massicktot" or treatises, containing all of them seventy-five chapters. The second by, m; that is, T, "moad," or "appointed feasts;" which is distributed into twelve "massicktot," containing in them eighty-eight chapters. The third by, that is, pw, "of women;" and is distributed into seven treatises, containing seventyone chapters. The fourth by, that is, 'p", "nezikim," about "loss and damage;" and is divided into eight "massicktot," whereof ,בבא קמא בבא מציעא the first is divided into three parts, called , "the first, middle, and last port," or entrance; containing in them thirty chapters, whereunto forty-four are added in the following parts. The fifth by p, that is, Dp, "kodoshim," of "sanctifications;" and is divided into eleven books, containing ninety chapters. The sixth with, that is, л, "teharoth," of "purifications," in twelve books, and one hundred and twenty-six chapters. 10. Unto the Mishnah of Rabbi Judah they annex the 'din, the "Tosiphot," or additions of Rabbi Chaiah his scholar, expounding many passages in his master's works. To them a more full explanation of the same doctrine of the Mishnah, which they call Baracetot, is subjoined, being the collection of some ante-Talmudical masters. About three hundred years after the destruction of the temple, [A.D. 270,] R. Johanan composed the Jerusalem Talmud, consisting of expositions, comments, and disputes, upon the whole Mishnah, excepting the last part, about purifications. A hundred years or thereabouts after that, [A.D. 420,] Rabbi Ashe composed the Babylonian Talmud, or Gemara. Thirty-two years, they say, he spent in this work, yet leaving it unfinished; seventy-one years after, it was completed by his disciples, And the whole work of both these Talmuds may be referred unto five heads; for,—(1.) They expound the text of the Mishnah; (2.) Decide questions of right and fact; (3.) Report the disputations, traditions, and constitutions of the doctors that lived between them and the writing of the Mishnah; (4.) Give allegorical, monstrous, expositions of the Scripture, which they call Midrashoth; and, (5.) Report stories of the like nature. 11. This at length is their oral law grown into; and in the learning and practising of these things consist the whole religion and worship of the Jews, there being not the most absurd saying of any of their doctors in those huge heaps of folly and vanity that they do not equal unto, nay, that they are not ready to prefer before, the written word, that perfect and only guide of their church, whilst God was pleased with it. In the dust of this confusion, here they dwell, loving this darkness more than light, because their deeds are evil. Having for many generations entertained a prejudicate imagination, that these traditional figments, amongst which their crafty masters have inserted many filthy and blasphemous fables against our Lord Christ and his Gospel, are of divine authority, and having utterly lost the spiritual sense of the written word, they are by it sealed up in blindness and obdurateness; and shall be so until the veil be taken away, when the appointed time of their deliverance shall come. A brief discovery of the falseness of this fancy of their oral law, which is the foundation of all that huge building of lies and vanities that their Talmuds are composed of, shall put an end to this discourse. 12. (1.) The very story of the giving of the law at Mount Sinai sufficiently discovers the folly of this imagination. This oral law the Jews are ready, on all occasions, to prefer before that which is written; and do openly profess that without it the other is of no use unto them! I desire, then, to know whence it is that all the circumstances of the giving and teaching of the less necessary are so exactly recorded, but not one word is spoken of this oral law, either of God's revealing of it to Moses, or of Moses' teaching of it to Joshua or any others. Strange! that so much should be recorded of every circumstance of the less principal, lifeless law, and not one word of either substance or circumstance of that which is, if these men may be believed, the very life and soul of the other. Maimonides, in Jad Chazachah, tells us there is mention made of it in Exod. xxiv. 12: "I will give thee," saith the Lord, "a law and commandment." in, saith he, is the "written law;", the "oral:" when the next words are, Dinan," Which I have written, that thou mayest teach them;" the written law being on several accounts expressed by both those terms, and no other. How know they that any such law was given to Moses as they pretend, what testimony, witness, or record of it was had or made at the time of its giving, or in many generations, for two thousand years afterwards? -a 13. (2.) Did their forefathers at any time before the captivity transgress this oral law, or did they not? If they say they did not, but kept it, and observed it diligently, we may easily see of what importance it is, that the, most strict observation of it could not preserve them from all manner of wickedness; and what a hedge it is to the written law, when, notwithstanding the obedience yielded unto it, that was utterly despised and neglected. If they shall say, that law also was broken by them, I desire to know whence it comes to pass, that whereas God by his prophets doth reprove them for all their other sins, and in particular for contempt of his written law, the statutes, ordinances, and institutions of it, he nowhere once mentioneth this their greater guilt of despising the oral law, but there is as universal a silence concerning its transgression as there is of its giving and institution. Can we have any greater evidence of its being fictitious than this, that whereas it is pretended that it is the main rule of their obedience to God, God did never reprove them for the transgression of it, though, whilst he owned them as his church and people, he suffered none of their sins to pass by unreproved, especially not any of that importance which this is by them pretended to be of? (3.) Moses was commanded to write the whole law that he received from God, and did so accordingly, Exod. xxiv. 3, 4, xxxiv. 28; Deut. xxxi. 9, 24. Where was this oral law, which they say was not to be written, when Moses was commanded to write the whole law that he had received of God, and did accordingly? This new law was not then coined, being indeed nothing but the product of their apostasy from the law which was written. (4.) The sole ground and foundation of this oral law lies in the imperfection of the written law. This is that which they plead for the necessity of it: "The written law extends not to all necessary cases that occur in religion; many things are redundant, many wanting in it;" and hereof they gather great heaps of instances: so that they will grant that if the written law had been perfect, there had been no need of this traditional one. But whom in this matter shall we believe?-a few ignorant Jews, or God himself, bearing witness that his law is perfect, and requiring no more in his worship but what is in that law prescribed? See Ps. xix. 7, 8; Prov. xxx. 5, 6; Deut. iv. 1, 2. And this perfection of the written law, though it be perfectly destructive to their traditions, not only the Karaites among themselves do earnestly contend for, but also sundry of their Gemarists do acknowledge, especially when they forget their own concernments out of a desire to oppose the gospel. And to this head belong all the arguments that divines make use of to prove the perfection of the Scripture against the new Talmudists in Christianity. (5.) God everywhere sends his people to the written law of Moses for the rule of their obedience, nowhere unto any Cabala, Deut. x. 12, 13, xi. 32, xxviii. 1; Josh. i. 7, 8, xxiii. 6; 2 Chron. xxx. 16; Isa. viii. 20. If there be such an oral law, it is one that God would not have any man to observe, which he calls none to the obedience of, nor did ever reprove any man for its transgression. 14. And many more arguments of the like nature may be added, to prove the vanity of this pretence. And yet this figment is the bottom of the present Judaical religion and obstinacy. When the apostle wrote this Epistle, their apostasy was not yet arrived at this "rock of offence;" since their falling on it, they have increased their blindness, misery, and ruin. Then they were contented to try their cause by what God spake to their fathers "in the prophets;" which kept open a door of hope, and gave some advantages for their conversion, which are now shut up and removed, until God shall take this veil away from their faces, that they may see to the end of the things that were to be done away. 15. By this means principally have they, for many generations, both shut out the truth and secured themselves from conviction. For whatever is taught and revealed in the Scripture concerning the person, office, and work of the Messiah,-seeing they have that which they esteem a revelation of equal authority herewithal, teaching them a doctrine quite of another nature, and more suited unto their carnal principles and expectations,-they will rest rather in any evasion than give way to the testimony thereof. And whilst they have a firm persuasion, as they have, received by the tradition of many generations, that the written word is imperfect, but a half revelation of the mind of God, in itself unintelligible, and not to be received or understood but according to the sense of their oral law, now recorded in their Talmuds, what can the most plain and cogent testimonies of it avail unto their conviction? And this hath been the fatal way and means of the grand apostasy of both churches, Judaical and Christian. How far that of the Jews was overtaken with it in the days of our Lord's conversation on the earth, the Gospel doth abundantly declare; and how they have brought it unto its height, we have given now some brief account. That of the Roman church hath been the very same; and hath at length arrived unto almost the same issue, by the same degrees. This some of them perceiving, do not only defend the pharisaical opinion among the Jews about the oral law and succession of their traditions, as consonant to the pretensions of their own church, but also openly avow that a very great number of their several respective traditions are either the same, or that they nearly resemble one another; as doth expressly Josephus de Voysin in his Prooemium to the Pugio Fidei of Raymundus Martini. And because it is evident that the same have been the way and means whereby both the Judaical and Roman church have apostatized and departed from the truth, and that they are the same also whereby they maintain and defend themselves in their apostasy and refusal to return unto the truth, I shall, ws iv rapódy, manifest their consent and agreement in this principle about their traditions and authority of them, which have been the ruin of them both. 16. (1.) The Jews expressly contend that their oral law, their mass of traditions, was from God himself. They say, it was partly deli vered unto Moses on Mount Sinai, and partly added by him from divine revelations which he afterwards received. Hence the authority of it with them is no less than that of the written word (which hath all its authority from its divine original), and the usefulness of it is much more. For although they cannot deny but that this and that particular tradition,—that is, practice, custom, or exposition of any place of Scripture,—were first introduced, expressed, and declared, at such or such seasons, by such masters or schools amongst them, yet they will not grant that they were then first invented or found out, but only that they were then first declared, out of the cabalistical abyss wherein they were preserved from their first revelation; as all of them agree who have written any thing about the nature, propagation, and continuance of their oral law. And this is the persuasion of the Romanists about their Cabala of traditions. They plead them to be all of a divine original, partly from Christ, and partly from his apostles. Whatever they have added unto the written word, yea, though it be never so contrary thereunto, still they pretend that it is part of the oral law which they have received from them by living tradition! Let one convention of their doctors determine that images are to be adored; another, that transubstantiation is to be believed; a third, add a new creed with an equal number of articles unto the old;-let one doctor advance the opinion of purgatory; another, of justification by works: all is one,—these things are not then first invented, but only declared out of that unsearchable treasure of traditions which they have in their custody. Had they not inlaid this persuasion in the minds of men, they know that their whole fabric would, of its own accord, have long since sunk into confusion. But they highly contend, at this day, that they need no other argument to prove any thing to be of a heavenly extract and divine original, but that themselves think so, and practise accordingly. 17. (2.) This oral law being thus given, the preservation of it, seeing Moses is dead long ago, must be inquired after. Now, the Jews assign a threefold depository of it;-first, the whole congregation; secondly, the sanhedrim; and thirdly, the high priest. To this end they affirm that it was three times repeated, upon the descent of Moses from Mount Sinai, as to what of it he had then received, and his after additions had the same promulgation. First, it was repeated by himself unto Aaron; secondly, by them both unto the elders; and thirdly, by the elders unto the whole congregation: or, as Maimonides in Jad Chazachah, Moses delivered it unto Eleazar, Phinehas, and Joshua, after the death of Aaron; by whom the consistory was instructed therein, who taught the people as occasion did require. What the people knew of it is uncertain, but what they did know was quickly lost. The consistory, or great sanhe |