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 first, they expound the text of the Mishna; 2d, Decide questions of right and fact; 3d, Report the disputations, traditions and constitutions of the doctors that lived between them and the writing of the Mishna; 4th, Give allegorical monstrous expositions of the Scripture, which they call Midrashoth; and 5th, Report stories of the like nature.

§ 11. This at length is their oral law grown unto, and in the learning and practising of these things, consists 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 hold to be 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 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 thus sealed up in blindness and obdurateness; and shall be so, until the veil be taken away, when the appointed time of their deli, verance 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 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 circumst ince of that which is, if these men may be believed, the very life and soul of the other. Maimonides, in Jad Chazaka, tells us there is mention made of it in Exod. xxiv. 12. I will give you, saith the Lord, mypmi minn, a law and commandment. n. saith he, is the written law; 3, the oral; though the next words are, nah nan w, which I have

written, that thou mayest teach them; the written law, and no other, being on several accounts expressed by both those terms. 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?

§ 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 would not preserve them from all manner of wickedness; and what an 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 the written law, and of the statutes, ordinances and institutions of it, he no where 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 unreproved, especially not any of that importance of which this is by them pretended to be.

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 that he requires no more in his worship but what is in that law prescribed? See Psal. xix. S. Prov. xxx. 5, 6. Deut. iv. 1, 2. And this perfection of the written law, though it be en

tirely destructive of their traditions, not only the Karai 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 every where sends his people to the written law of Moses, for the rule of their obedience, no where unto any Kabal, Deut. xi. 32. x. 12, 13. and xxviii. 1. Josh. i. 7, 8. xxiii. 6. 2 Chron. xxx. 18. 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 foundation of the present Judaical religion and ob stinacy. 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 con viction. For they reject whatever is taught in the Scriptures concerning the person, office and work of the Messiah, seeing they have that which they esteem a revelation of equal authority, teaching them a doctrine quite of another nature, and more suited unto their carnal principles and expectations; and will rather rest in any evasions, than give way to the testimony of Scripture. And whilst they have a firm persuasion, as they have, received by the tradition of many generations, that the written word is imperfect, and 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 to their conviction? And here it must be remarked, that the Christian and the Jewish church have trodden the same path to their grand apostasy. 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 of the manner in which they have brought it unto its height, we have given now some brief account. The conduct 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 the 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 Proemium to the Pugio Fidei of Raimundus Martini. And because it is evident, that the way and means whereby both the Judaical and Roman church have apostatized and departed from the truth are the same, and that they maintain and defend themselves in their apostasy and refusal to return unto the truth by the same arguments, I shall, as god, nanifest their consent and agreement in this principle, about their traditions, and the authority of them, which have been the ruin of them both.

For

§ 16. First, The Jews expressly contend, that their oral law, their mass of traditions, was from God himself. They say that it was partly delivered 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. although they cannot deny, but that this and that particular tradition, that is practice, custom, or exposition of any place of Scripture, was 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 cabal of traditions. They plead that they are 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 fixed this persuasion in the minds of

men, they know that their whole fabric would, of its own arcord, 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 divine original, but that they think so, and practise accordingly.

§ 17. Secondly, 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. 1st, The whole congregation; 2dly, The sanhedrim; and, 3dly, The high priest. To this end they aflirm, that the part of it which Moses received on Sinai, was three times repeated upon his descent from the Mount, and that the additions which were afterwards made had the same promulgation. 1st, It was repeated by himself unto Aaron; 2dly, By them both unto the elders; and, 3dly, By the elders unto the whole congregation; or, as Maimonides in Jad Chazakah, Moses delivered it unto Eleazar; Phineas 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

as they call it, the בית דין של שבעים ואחד,great sanhedrin

House of Judgment, of Seventy and one, was more faithful in its charge. Hence Rab. Moses, in the same book, Tractat. 2

בית דון הגדול שבירושלם,of rebels or transgressors, teacheth us הם עיקר, תורה שבעל פה והם עמודי ההוראה ומהם חק

Sbb DoD, The great consistory (or house of judg ment) at Jerusalem, was the foundation of the oral law: These are the pillars of doctrine, from whom statutes and judgments went forth unto all Israel. And he afterwards affirms, with what

משהיה ביה דון הגדול קיים לא היתה,truth may be easily judged

Swampin, whilst this great consistory continued, there was no dissension in Israel. For not only the famous differences between Hillel and Shammai, with their disciples, which involved all the schools, Scribes, and lawyers among them, arose, and were propagated, whilst that consistory continued; but also the Atheistical sect of the Sadducees rose unto that height and interest, as to obtain the Presidentship in the sanhedrim itself. But the high priests are those whom they fix upon as the principal conservators of this oral law. To this end, they give us catalogues of them from first to last, that by their uninterrupted succession, we may be assured of the incorrupt preservation of their original traditions. Only it may here be added by the way, that they bind not themselves precisely in all their religious observances unto this oral law, to which they assign a divine origin; but ascribe an authority unto the sanhedrim and the high priest, to constitute things of themselves in the worship of God, besides and beyond the word. And whatever they