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maketh it to be seventy years.

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R. Elhazar forty years. "These all differ, and yet were not altogether rash in their opinions. For R. Eliezer computed, according to the time of "the Egyptian captivity, four hundred years. R. Elhazar Ben Hazariah, according to the Babylonian captivity, seventy years. And R. Elhazar forty years, according to the time of the perigriI nation of the Jews in the wilderness. And each of them, to "confirm his own opinion, brings forward Psalm xcv, 15, Make us glad, according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil.' In book iii, c. 2, R. Menasse, having noticed that some refer these things to the time of the Messiah, says: in Midras a-Nehelam we find "it written, That the congregating or gathering together of the captive [Jews] shall anticipate or precede the resurrection of "the dead the space of forty years.' And if this last opinion "be received and delivered by the ancients, it may be soundly

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admitted, because it implies no contradiction, nor doth it "contain any difficulty. k If it so seem good to any, he may "refer the glorious things aforesaid in some sort unto the times of the Messiah, because both periods are connexed, the one on "to the end of the other; and again, because the end of the "resurrection is, that the raised may enjoy the happiness of that age. Those admirable verses of the kingly prophet David do not a little serve our purpose : All wait (or hope) upon thee. Thou givest them their meat in due season, &c. Thou "hidest thy face, they are troubled thou takest away their "breath they die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest "forth thy spirit, they are created, and thou renewest the face "of the earth.' (Psalm civ, 27-30.) Here the prophet saith, that, after death, the soul the second time returns to the "body, and then the earth is renovated.”

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In the seventh and four following chapters the following questions are put and resolved: 1st, whether then shall be the day of judgment? To which the Rabbins answer out of many Scriptures and allegations of antiquity; "That after the world shall "be made new, and the dead raised, then shall be a day of judg

k Thus R. Menasse out of the Rabbins; but compare Dan. xii, 1, 2, touching the troubles at the time when Michael shall stand up to deliver his people, with verses 12 and 13, touching the resurrection of the dead.

"ment.

In part God judged afore the living, in the way of "Gog and Magog, excepting a third part of them; and after"wards he shall come to judge the dead." 2d, Whether then shall be the restauration of the place and parts of worship, and a settlement of the fruition of the holy land? To which is answered, "Yea." 3d, Whether there shall be the use of food, and prolification? To which Gerundensis answers, "That then shall be no other than a spiritual life" though some Rabbins are of another mind. 4th, Whether they that are raised shall die any more? To which the general answer of the Rabbins is

negative.

9. Thus far you have heard the opinion of the Jews concerning the glorious state on earth yet to come ; next hear the learned Mr. Mede give you the sum of them. "Though the ancient

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Jews (whilst they were yet the church of God) had no distinct knowledge of such an order in the resurrection as first and second, but only of the resurrection in general, to be in die "judicii magni; yet they looked for a resurrection wherein those "that rose again should reign some time upon earth, as appeareth 'by Wisdom iii, 1-8; where it is expressly said, 'That the "souls of the righteous which are departed shall in the time of

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their visitation shine, and that they shall judge the nations, and have dominion over the people, and their Lord shall reign for ever." This opinion is also here and there dis"persed in the Chaldee paraphrase, and in the Talmud, as of "ancient tradition; and in the opinion of the Jews at this "day who, as they look not for the kingdom of the Messiah "until the day of the great judgment; so they expect, that their "forefathers (at least such as were just and holy) shall arise " at the beginning of the same, and reign in the land of Israel with their offspring under the Messiah. I can hardly believe that all this smoke of tradition could arise, but from some fire "of truth anciently made known to them. Besides, why should the Holy Ghost in this point speak so like them; unless he would induce us, mutatis mutandis, to agree with them? In 'fine, the second and universal resurrection with the state of "the Saints after it, now so clearly revealed in christianity, seems to have been less known to the ancient church of the "Jews, than the first and the state to accompany that."

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10. Let us close this discourse, of the suffrage of the Jews touching the glorious state on earth yet to come, with the prophecy of Tobit or Tobias about to die concerning the two-fold captivity of the Jews and the last state of things, according to the most exact Hebrew copy. 1 And it came to pass when Tobias was old, that he called his son Tobias, together with "his six sons which were borne to him, and said unto him: My

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son, thou knowest that I am now spent with old age; take "heed therefore after my death, that thou stay no longer at Nineveh; for certain it is, and clear to thee, that it shall "come to pass that the prophecy of the prophet Jonah shall be confirmed. Wherefore take thy sons, and all that thou hast, " and go into the land of the Medes; for there shall be peace "unto the appointed time.

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But the rest of our brethren of Israel who are in Jerusalem, all of them shall go into exile, and Jerusalem shall be for heaps, and the mountain of the house for high places of a "forest, and shall remain desolate for a little time. And then shall the children of Israel go up and rebuild it, and also the temple, but not according to the former structure; and they "shall remain there many days, until a certain series of ages be fulfilled. Then shall they again go forth into a captivity, by "far the greatest they were ever in. m But the blessed Holy God "shall remember them, and shall gather them from the four quarters of the world. Then shall Jerusalem, the holy city, "be restored with a beautiful and excellent structure, as also "the temple shall be built with a famous structure, which shall

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1 Not that of Munster, tempered and patched up out of the Greek and Latin translations; but that most ancient Constantinopolitan copy set forth by Paulus Fagius; which was originally in Chaldee, and was translated most faithfully by some Jew, that was singularly learned in the Hebrew dialect.

m Those words "Then again they shall go into captivity by far the greatest they were ever in," are left out of the Greek copy, either by mischance or of purpose, because it savoured of our opinion; which the times then, when it was expunged, (probably in Jerome's time,) could not bear. And therefore Jerome even for that cause left out, not only that clause, but also two whole paragraphs in that place, to the utter routing of the coherence of the sense; even as he translated the whole exceeding perfunctorily, by his own confession. For in his prologue to that his translation, he saith "Because the Chaldee tongue is near in kin to the Hebrew, finding a ready man of speech in both languages, I snatched "the labour of one day; and what he expressed to me in Hebrew, that by a notary I expounded in Latin.

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not be destroyed nor demolished for ever, as the prophets "have said. Then shall the gentiles be converted to worship

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the Lord, and shall cast away the graven images of their gods, "and shall give laud and praise to his great Name.

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The horn

also of his people shall be exalted before all nations, and all the seed of Israel shall celebrate and glorify his great Name. Then shall his servants, that serve him in truth, be glad; all that do righteousness and godliness shall rejoice, and triumph "" before him."

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If all that I have produced, touching the Jews suffrage for the glorious state of things on earth yet to come, be not sufficient for some, (though perhaps I have quoted too much for others,) let such read the Chaldee paraphrase on the Bible, if but in the Latin translation; the Rabbins (at least as quoted in Mercer) on the minor prophets; Petrus Galatinus, Buxtorf's Jewish Synagogues. and the fourth book of Esdras: of which last, Mr. Mede's opinion is worth the hearing; which I note, lest any should think the Book of Esdras written after Christ. Whereas you say, (saith he, in answer to Mr. Haines,) that the "Jews since Christ brought in this opinion of the Roman being the fourth kingdom; that so they might the better maintain "their expectation of the Messiah yet to come, because that kingdom was yet in being; I say it was affirmed (whosoever "first affirmed it) without any ground, authority, or probability. "The contrary is easy to be proved; viz. that the Jews were of this opinion before our Saviour's time: as appears in Jonathan "Ben Uziel the Chaldee paraphrast, and by the fourth book of "Esdras; which, whatsoever the authority thereof may be, is "sufficient to prove this; being written by a Jew (for it is, saith "Picus, the first of their seventy books of Cabala) and before "our Saviour's coming, as appears by many passages of Messiah "expected, and yet to appear within four hundred years after "that supposed time of Esdras."

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We shall, for a close of this section, exhort the Reader to observe attentively, that this reigning of the Messiah or Christ, so often mentioned by the aforesaid Rabbins, cannot be in the highest heavens after the ultimate day of judgment; for then he lays down all, and delivers up the kingdom to God the Father. (1 Cor. xv, 24, 28.) Nor have these rabbinical predictions

And

been ever fulfilled on earth, as experience can witness. therefore necessarily they must be, in effect, of the same judgement as is contained in our position, or thesis; which consequently cannot be adjudged novel or singular.

Of Greek Antiquities.

II. Our Greek companions in this our position are divers. The first is Justin Martyr, who flourished about the year 141 after the birth of Christ, so near the time of John the Evangelist, who lived till the hundredth year after Christ; many of the disciples of the Apostles, as Polycarp and others, being then alive. In that 141st year, this Justin presented his Apology for the Christian Religion to Antoninus the Emperor. To allow -him a sufficiency of judgement and time to be a famous philosopher (at that period much famed) and to write that apology, we had need to allow him to be fifty years old, (as he himself testifies,) and so to suppose him living at least nine years before John was dead. This man, for his great learning renowned with the honourable title of philosopher, witnessed to be godly by his pious apology in those bloody, persecuting times, and sealed to be so in his death by the after-title and fame of Martyr ;I say this man, this great Justyn Martyr, professed himself, as did many other worthies in his time, to be of the same mind with our position. I quote his very words from the Paris edition of his works. " I, and all that are every way orthodox Christians, "do know both the future resurrection of the body, and the "thousand years in Jerusalem, that shall be re-edified, adorned,

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and enlarged, as the prophets Ezekiel, Isaiah, and others "declare. For Isaiah saith of this thousand years (Isaiah lxv, "17.) Behold, I create new heavens, and a new earth, and "the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind; but be ye glad and rejoice in those which I create for be"hold I create Jerusalem to triumph and my people to rejoice, "&c.'" Quoting "For the days of my people shall be as the days of the tree of life;" (v. 22;) he giveth this sense: "In

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these words we understand, that the one thousand years are

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