sis, and in most of their appointed times they agree with us. But we may not receive the testimony of any one that is of the sect of the Rabbins, because they are divided from us in this; and although they be our brethren and our flesh, yet herein they have rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit. Having thus disproved the common and received opinion, and removed the false ground of this dif ference of time between our Saviour's Passover and the Jews, we come, in the next place, to lay down the true, which must be derived from that way of reckoning the months, and of determining the ww, the head or beginning of the month, -which was in use in our Saviour's time, which (as we have shewed already in general) was by the pάous so it will be expedient to describe the whole manner of it more particularly from authentic authors.* *Talmud Babyl. in Rosh Hashanah, et chod. In the great or outer court of the temMaimon. in ple, there was a house called Beth-JaKiddish Ha- zek, where the senate sat all the thirtieth day of every month, to receive the witnesses of the moon's appearance, and to examine them. And here they always had a feast provided for the entertainment of those that came, to encourage men to come the more willingly. In ancient times they did admit of strangers, and receive their testimony, if it were approved upon examination. But when the hereties (that is, the Christians) afterward grew up, by whom (they say) they were sometimes deluded, they began to grow shy, and to admit of none but such as were approved of to be of the Jews' religion. If there came approved witnesses upon the thirtieth day of the paois seen, then the chief man of the se nate stood up and pronounced MEKUDDASH, it is sanctified;--and the people standing by caught the word from him, and cried out MEKUDDASH, MEKUDDASH. Whereupon there was notice presently given to all the country; which was done at first by torches from mountain to mountain, tilk at length the Christians (they say) abused them in that kind also with false fires; wherefore they were fain to send messengers from place to place over the whole land, to give intelligence of the new-moon. But if, when the consistory had sat all the thirtieth day, there came no approved witnesses of the pάous, then they made an intercalation of one day in the former month, and decreed the following one-and-thirtieth day to be the calends. And yet, notwithstanding, if after the fourth or fifth day there should come some witnesses from afar, that testified they had seen the paorg in its due time, nay, though they came to the (אפילו באו בסוף החדש) wards the end of the month senate, when they had used all means by affrighting them from that testimony, that so, if it were possible, they might decline a new consecration (after they had already made an embolism in the former month) if the witnesses remained constant, were then bound to alter the beginning of the month, and reckon it, a day sooner, to wit, from the thirtieth day. Here we see the true ground of the difference of a day, that might arise continually about the calends of the month, and so consequently about. any of the other feasts, which did all depend on them; viz. between the true time of the moon's paris, upon the thirtieth day, and that of the se nate's decree, a day after. For since it appears out of their own monuments, how unwilling they were, having once made a consecration of the neomenia, to alter it again; it may be probably conceived, that, in those degenerated times, the senate might many times refuse to accept the testimony of undoubted witnesses: and then, it seems, בית רין שקדשו את,they had such a canon as this ההורש בין שגנים בין מוטעים הגה זה מקודש וחייבין חבל לתקן that whatsoever המועים על היזם אעפי שזח יורעשטעו time the senate should conclude of for the calends of the month, though it were certain they were in the wrong, yet all were bound to order their feasts according to it:-Which I cannot think was approved of by our Saviour, and the most pious Jews. And, therefore, I conceive it most probable, that this was the very case between our Saviour's Passover and the Jews', in that he followed the true paois, confirmed by sufficient and assured witnesses; but the other Jews superstitiously observed the pertinacious decree of the senate of Sanhedrin, which was for the day after. And now, at last, we are come again to the acme of the question that was first propounded, How our Saviour's passover, notwithstanding all this, might be sacrificed the day before those of the other Jews were.. To which I answer, that upon this ground, not only our Saviour and his apostles, but also divers others of the most religious Jews, kept the Passover upon the fifteenth day from the true paois of In Panario the moon, and not from the senate's decree, which I may confirm from the testimony of Epiphanius, that reports there was, at this time, 0ópußos, a tumult and contention, amongst the Jews about the Passover; and so we may easily persuade those other evangelists, that intimate Christ's Passover to have been solemnized, when many others kept it, to agree with St. John, who assures us, that it was also by divers Jews kept the day after. Now, it was a custom among the Jews, in such doubtful cases as these, which oftentimes fell out, to permit the feasts to be solemnized, or passovers killed, on two several days together. Maimonides affirmeth, that, in the remoter parts of the land of Israel, they always solemnized the feast of the newmoons two days together; nay, in Jerusalem itself, where the senate sat, they kept the newmoon of Tisri, which was the beginning of the year, twice, lest they should be mistaken in it. In the Talmud we have an instance of the Passover's being kept two days together, because the new-moon was doubtful, in Gemarah Rosh Hashanah, cap. i. Hence the Karraites, who still keep the ancient custom of observing the moon's paois, retain it as a rule to this day, wyb po, observare duos dies propter dubium.-Nay, the Rabbinical Jews themselves, since they have changed the phasis for the synod or conjunction of the moon in the middle motion, in imitation hereof, still observe to keep the Passover two days together, iisdem ceremoniis, as the learned author of the Jewish Synagogue reports; and Scaliger himself, not only of that, but also of the other feasts, "Judæi post institutionem hodierni computi eandem solennitatem celebrant biduo, propterea quod mensem incipiant a medio motu propter dubium מספק מחברות המארים lune: itaque conjunctionis luminarium, Pascha celebrant 15. et 16. Nisan, Pentecosten 6. et 7. Sivan, Scenopegia 15. et 16. Tisri; idque vocant Ah, Festum secundum exsiliorum. Now then we see, that nothing hinders, but that the Passover might be a sacrifice. And thus we have hitherto cleared the way. CHAP. IV. Demonstrated, that the Lord's supper in the Christian church, in reference to the true sacrifice of Christ, is a parallel to the feasts upon sacrifices both in the Jewish religion and heathenish superstition. BUT lest we should seem all this while to set up fancies of our own, and then sport with them, we come now to demonstrate and evince, that the Lord's supper, in the proper notion of it, is EPULUM EX OBLATIs, or a FEAST UPON SACRIFICE; in the same manner with the feasts upon the Jewish sacrifices under the law, and the feasts upon EIANAOOYTA, (things offered to idols) among the heathens: and that from a place of Scripture, where all these three shall be compared together, and made exact parallels to one another. 1 CORINTH. chap. x. 14. Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry. 15. I speak as to wise men, judge ye what I say. 16. The cup of blessing, which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread, which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? 18. Behold Israel after the flesh; are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar? |