The judgment of the ancient Jewish church against the Unitarians

Front matter

THE

JUDGMENT

OF THE

Preface

Although the Jews, by mistaking the prophecies of Scripture concerning the kingdom of their Messias, expected he should have a temporal kingdom ; and because our Lord Jesus was not for that, therefore they would not acknowledge him for their Messi as ; yet, all things considered, there is no essential difference between our religion and theirs. We own the very same God whom they formerly worshipped, the maker of the world, and their lawgiver. We receive that very Messi as whom God promised them by his prophets, so many ages before his coming. We own no other Spirit of God to have inspired the Apostles, besides the Holy Ghost, who spoke by the Prophets, and by whose manifold gifts the Messias was to be known, as one in whom all nations should be blessed.

This plainly appears in the way and method which both Christ and his Apostles followed in preaching the Gospel. They endeavoured to take otf the prejudices the then Jews laboured under, concerning the nature of the Messias, and the characters by which he was to be known : for they argued all along from the books of Moses and the Prophets, and never proposed any thing to their disciples but what was declared in those writings

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which the Jews acknowledged as the standard of their religion ; which may be seen in Christ's discourse to the Jews, John v. 46. and to his disciples after his resurrection, Luke xxiv. 27. and 44. in the words of St. Peter, Acts x. 43. and of St. Paul, Acts xxvi. 22.

The truth is, in those sacred Books, although one only God be acknowledged, under the name of Jehovah, which denotes his essence, and therefore is incommunicable to any other; yet not only that very name is given to the Messias, but also all the works, attributes, and characters peculiar to Jehovah, the God of Israel, and the only true God, are frequently bestowed on him.

This the old Jewish authors, as Philo and the Targumists, do readily acknowledge. For in their exposition of those places of the Old Testament which relate to the Messias, they generally suppose him ,to be God ; whereas the modern Jews, being of a far different opinion, use all shifts imaginable to evade the force of their testimonies. The Apostles imitated in this the synagogue, by applying to Christ several places of the Old Testament, which undoubtedly were primarily intended of the God of Israel.

But because they sometimes only touch at places of the Old Testament, without using them as formal proofs of what they then handled; Socinus and his disciples have fancied that those citations out of the Old Testament, which are made use of by the Apostles, though they represent the Messias as being the same with the God of Israel; yet for all this are but bare allusions and accommodations, made indeed

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V by them to subjects of a like nature, but not at all by them intended as arguments and demonstrations.

Nothing can be more injurious to the writings of the New Testament, than such a supposition : and there can hardly be an opinion more apt to overthrow the authority of Christ and his Apostles, and to expose the Christian religion to the scorn both of Jews and heathens. For the bare accommodation of a place of Scripture cannot suppose that the Holy Ghost had any design in it to intimate any thing sounding that way; and consequently the sense of that Scripture so accommodated is of no authority. Whereas it is a most certain truth, that Christ and his Apostles did design, by many of those quotations, to prove that which was in dispute between them and the Jews.

To what purpose should Christ exhort the Jews to search the Scriptures of the Old Testament, because they testified of him, John v. 39. if those Scriptures could only give a false notion of him, by intimating that the Messias promised was the God of Israel? This were to suppose that Christ and his Apostles went about to prove a thing by that which had no strength and no authority to prove it : and that the citations out of the Old Testament are like the works of the Empress Eudoxia, who writ the history of Christ in verses put together and borrowed from Homer, under the name of 'OfAYjpoKevTpa; or that of Proba Falconia, who did the same in verses and words taken out of Virgil.

It follows at least from such a position, that in the Gospel God gave a revelation so very new, that it has no manner of affinity to the Old, although he

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caused this old revelation to be carefully written by the Prophets, and as carefully preserved by the Jews to be the standard of their faith, and the ground of their hopes, till he should fulfil his promises contained in it; and although Christ and his Apostles bid the Jews have recourse to it, to know what they were to expect of God's promises.

The Christian Church ever rejected this pernicious opinion. And although her first champions against the ancient heretics did acknowledge that the new revelation, brought in by Christ and his Apostles, had made the doctrines much clearer than they were before, (which the Jews themselves do acknowledge, when they affirm that hidden things are to be made plain to all by the Messias,) yet they ever maintained that those doctrines were so clearly set down in the books of the Old Testament, that they could not be opposed by them, who acknowledge those books to come from God ; especially since the Jews are therein told, that the Messias, when he came, should explain them, and make them clearer.

This observation is particularly of force against those who formerly opposed the doctrine of the blessed Trinity, and that of our Saviour's being God. These heretics thought they followed the opinion of the ancient Jews. Therefore they that confuted them, undertook to satisfy them that the Christian Church had received nothing from Christ and his Apostles, about those two articles, but what God had formerly taught the Jews, and what necessarily followed from the writings of Moses and the Prophets ; so that those doctrines could not be rejected,

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vii without accusing the Divine Spirit, the author of those books, of shortness of thought, in not foreseeing what naturally follows from those principles so often laid down and repeated by him.

These old writers solidly proved to those heretics, that God did teach the Jews the unity of his essence, yet so as to establish at the same time a distinction in his nature, which, according to the no^- tion which himself gives of it, we call Trinity of Persons : and that when he promised that the Messias to come was to be man, at the very same time he expressly told the Jews, that he was withal to be God blessed for ever.

The force and evidence of the proofs of those doctrines is so great, and the proofs themselves so numerous, that heretics could not avoid them, but by setting up opinions directly opposite to the Scriptures. On the other side, the heretics were so gravelled, that they broke into opinions quite contrary one to another, which greatly contributed to confirm the faith of them whom they opposed in those articles, so that it still subsisted; whereas the opposite heresies perished in a manner as soon as broached.

The meanness of Christ, and his shameful death, moved the Ebionites, in the very first age after him, to look upon him as a mere man, though exalted by God's grace to the dignity of a prophet. But the Cerinthians, another sort of heretics, maintained that the Word did operate in him, though at the same time they denied the personal and inseparable union of that Word with this human nature.

In the beginning of the third century, some had viii

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much ado to receive the doctrine of the Trinity, by reason that they could not reconcile it with that of the unity of God. But Praxeas, Noetus, and Sabellius, who opposed that doctrine, were soon obliged to recant: and then from one extremity they shortly fell into another. For being satisfied that the Scripture does attribute to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, the Divine nature, which is constantly in the Old Testament expressed by the name Jehovah; they undertook, contrary to the plain notions of Scripture, to maintain, that there was but one Person in God, which had appeared the same under three differing names. Whereas some others did so plainly see the distinction which the Scripture makes between the Persons, that they chose rather to own three distinct Essences, than to deny that there are three Persons in God, as the Scripture does invincibly prove.

Two sorts of heretics did formerly oppose the Divinity of Christ. Some did acknowledge, that, as to his Divine nature, he was before the world, and that by it he had made the world ; though himself, as to that nature, was created before the world : and these afterwards formed the Arian sect. Others, but very few, such as Artemas and Theodotus, denied that Christ was before he was born of the Virgin : they acknowledged in him no other besides the human nature, which, said they, God had raised to a very high dignity, by giving to it a power almost infinite: and in this they made his Godhead to consist.

But these two sorts of heretics were happily destroyed one by the other; for the Arians on the one side did confound Artemas's disciples, by proving

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ix from places of Scripture, that Christ was before the Virgin, nay before the world. And on the other side, absurdity and idolatry were proved upon the Arians, both because they acknowledged more than one Divine nature, and because they worshipped a creature ; whereas by the Christian religion, God alone ought to be worshipped.

Artemas's disciples were so few, and so severely condemned, even whilst the Church laboured under persecutions, that their name is hardly remembered at this day ; which clearly shews how strange their doctrine appeared to them who examined it by the books of the Old and the New Testament.

As for the Arians, they made, it is true, more noise in the world, by the help of two or three of Constantine's successors, who by violent methods endeavoured to spread their opinion. But that very thing made their sect odious, and in a little time quite ruined the credit of it. Within a hundred and fifty years, or thereabouts, after their first rise, there hardly remained any professors of it ; which plainly shews, that they could not answer those arguments from Scripture which were urged against them.

I observe this last thing, that AriusV heresy was destroyed by proofs from Scripture for the eternal Divinity of our Saviour, (though it was a long time countenanced by the Roman emperors, by the Vandal kings in Afric, and by the kings of the Goths both in Spain and in Italy;) lest any should fancy it was extinguished only by imperial laws and temporal punishments. Besides, that the first inventors of that heresy had spread it before such time as Constantine, by vanquishing Licinius, became mas-

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ter of the world. Whoever shall consider that the Christian religion had, before Arius, already suffered ten persecutions without shrinking under them, will easily see that all the power of Constantine, and of his orthodox successors, who punished the Arian professors, had never been great enough to suppress their opinion, if it had been a Gospel-doctrine : not to say that these laws, and their authority, extended no further than the Roman empire.

What had happened in those ancient times, soon after the Christian Church was established, happened likewise again in the last century, at the re^ « formation of the western Church. As in those early days there arose many heresies entirely opposite one to the other ; so in these latter times the very same was seen among us. For when God raised up many great men to reform the Church in this and our neighbouring kingdoms, there appeared soon after some men, who being weary of the Popish tyranny, both in doctrine and worship, did fancy that they might make a more perfect reformation, if they could remove out of the Christian religion those things which human reason was apt to stumble at. And the Roman Church having obtruded upon her votaries such mysteries as were directly repugnant to reason, they imagined that the doctrines of the Trinity, and of Christ's Divinity, were of that number ; and thus used all their endeavours to prove that they were absurd and contradictory.

Had not these doctrines been grounded on the authority of the books of the Old and the New Testament, they might easily enough have confuted them. But being forced to own the authority of

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those books, which they durst not attack for fear of being detested by all Christians, they fell into the same opposite extremes, into which those heretics of old had fallen, when they opposed these fundamental doctrines of Christianity ; and thus were as divided in opinions about those matters, as the ancient heretics had been before them.

For whilst some of them, as Lselius Socinus, and his nephew Faustus, denied the Divinity of Christ, and thus revived the opinion of Artemas and his disciples ; others seeing how absurd the answers were that Socinus and his followers gave to those places of Scripture, which assert the Trinity, and the Divinity of Christ, run so far to the contrary of this Socinian heresy, that they acknowledged three Gods. And not only the adversaries of Socinus, but even some of his disciples did oppose his opinion, moved thereto by the authority of Scripture. For he held it a fundamental article of the Christian faith, that Christ is to be adored ; in which he was a downright idolater, in adoring Christ as true God, when he believed Christ to be a mere creature. But his disciples building upon this firm maxim of Scripture, that God alone is to be adored, justly concluded against him, that he was not to be adored, since strictly speaking he was but a creature, and no God.

This division was plainly occasioned by the strength of Scripture-proofs, which on the one hand clearly shew, that none can be a Christian without adoring Christ ; and on the other positively affirm, that none but the true God ought to be adored. Thus these two opposite parties did unwillingly do xii

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the business of the true Churchy which ever opposed to the enemies of the Trinity, and of the Godhead of Christ, the authority of the holy Scripture, which teaches that Christ ought to be adored, and withal convinces the Arians of idolatry, who adored Christ without owning him to be the true God, though they bestowed on him a kind of a Godhead inferior to that of the Father.

I cannot but admire, that they who within these few years have in this kingdom embraced Socinus's opinions, should consider no better how little success they have had elsewhere against the truths and that upon the score of their divisions, which will unavoidably follow, till they can agree in unanimously rejecting the authority of Scripture. Neither doth it avail them any thing to use quibbles and evasions, and weak conjectures, since they are often unanswerably confuted, even by some of their brethren, who are more dexterous than they in expounding of Scriptures.

But being resolved by all means to defend their tenents, some chief men amongst them have undertaken to set aside the authority of Scriptures, which is so troublesome to them : and the author of a late book, entitled Considerations, maintains that the Gospels have been corrupted by the orthodox party, and suspects that of St. John to be the work of Cerinthus.

It is no very easy task to dispute against men whose principles are so uncertain, and who in a manner have no regard to the authority of Scripture. It was much less difficult to undertake Socinus himself, because he owned however the au-

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xiii thority of Scripture, and that it had not been corrupted. But one knows not how to deal with his disciples, who in their opinion seem to be so contrary to him, and one another.

They do now affirm the adoration which is paid to Christ is idolatrous, thus renouncing Socinus's principles, who looked upon it as an essential piece of Christianity. So that they can no longer be called Socinians, and themselves affect the name of Unitarians : and as their chief business seems to be to accuse the sincerity of Scripture writers, so the main work of them who undertake to confute them, must be the establishing both the sincerity and authority of it, which is no very hard task : for even Mahometans, though they take some of the same objections, that the Socinians are so full of, against the Divinity of Christ, yet are so far from accusing Christians of having corrupted the Scripture, that they furnish us with weapons against the Unitarians of this kingdom, as the reader will find at the end of this following book.

And although there be but small hopes of bringing to right again men of so strange dispositions and notions, yet they ought by no means to be left to themselves. They have been often confuted by them that argued from the bare principles of Christianity, that is, the authority of Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, which are the very word of God. And it has been plainly shewed them that what alterations soever they have made in Socinus's opinions, yet their new conceits are neither more rational than his, nor more agreeable to Divine revelation.

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I say that their opinions are not more agreeable than his to right reason* For when all is done, to affirm, that Christ received from God an infinite power to govern the world, without being essentially God, is to affirm a downright contradiction, viz. that without partaking of the Divine essence he received one of the attributes which are essential to God.

It is true, some Popish Divines allow the soul of Christ to be all-knowing, by reason of its immediate union to the Divine nature ; wherein they do much service to the Socinians, in holding as they do that a creature is capable of receiving such attributes. But Protestant Divines reject this notion as altogether false, as false as many of the Schoolmen's speculations, even the absurdest of them that are exploded by the Socinians.

They have been also further refuted as to what they aver, that Justin Martyr was the first that taught the doctrines of the Trinity, of Christ's eternal Godhead, and of his Incarnation.

And at last, that learned divine Dr. Bull having observed, that the Jewish tradition was favourable to those doctrines of which the Socinians make Justin to have been the first broacher ; howsoever M. N. treats him for this, neither like a scholar, nor a Christian, I shall venture his displeasure in making out this observation, without meddling at all with his arguments drawn from the Fathers, to shew clearly, that the like exceptions of M. N. against Philo, as being a Platonic, and against the ancient Jews, and their tradition, can help him no way in the cause he has taken in hand.

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The doctrine of our Church being the same which was taught by Christ and his Apostles, it will be an easy matter to prove it by the same places of Scripture by which Christ and his Apostles converted the Jews and the Gentiles over to the Christian faith ; and by which the heretics were confuted, who followed or renewed the errors which the Jews have fallen into since Christianity begun.

But I will go farther, and prove, that the ancient Jewish Church yield the same principles which Jesus Christ and his Apostles builded upon ; and by this method it will plainly appear, that the Socinians or the Unitarians, let them call themselves what they please, must either absolutely renounce the authority of Scripture, and turn downright Deists, or they must own those doctrines of the Trinity, and the Divinity of Christ, as being taught us by God himself in the holy Scriptures, and acknowledged by the ancient Jewish Church.

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THE

TABLE OF CHAPTERS.

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Chap. I

The design of this book, and what matters it treats of P. 1 CHAP. II.

That in the times of Jesus Christ our blessed Saviour, the Jews had among them a common explication of the Scriptures of the Old Testament, grounded on the tradition of their fathers, which was in many things approved by Christ and his Apostles 9

Chap. III

That the Jews had certain traditional maxims and rules for the understanding of the holy Scripture - 25

Chap. IV

That Jesus Christ and his Apostles proved divers points of the Christian doctrine by this common traditional exposition received among the Jews, which they could not have done, (at least, not so well,) had there been, in those texts which they alleged, such a literal sense only as we can find without the help of such an exposition 42

Chap. V

Of the authority of the apocryphal books of the Old Testament - - - - - - 53

Chap. VI

That the works which go under the name of Philo the Jew are truly his; and that he writ them a long while before the time of Christ's preaching the Gospel; and that it does not appear in any of his works that he had ever heard of Christ, or of the Christian religion 60

XVlll

The Table of Chapters,

Chap. XV

That all the appearances of God, or of the Angel of the Lord, which are spoken of in the books of the Old Testament after Moses's time, have been referred to the Word of God by the Jews before Christ's incarnation 187

The Table of Chapters.

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Chap. XXIII

That neither Philo, nor the Chaldee paraphrasts, nor the Christians, have borrowed from the Platonic philosophers their notions about the Trinity; but that Plato hath more probably borrowed his notions from the books of Moses and the Prophets, which he was acquainted

Chap. XXVII

That the Unitarians in opposing the doctrines of the Trinity, and,our Lord's Divinity, do go much further than the modern Jews, and that they are not fit persons to convert the Jews - - - - - - 332

A Dissertation concerning the Angel who is called the Redeemer, Gen. xlviii. ------ 349

THE

JUDGMENT

OF THE

ANCIENT JEWISH CHURCH

AGAINST THE

UNITARIANS, &c.

I

Chap. I

The design of this booh, and what matters it treats of.

F the doctrines of the ever blessed Trinity, and of the promised Messias being very God, had been altogether unknown to the Jews before Jesus Christ began to preach the Gospel, it would be a great prejudice against the Christian religion. But the contrary being once satisfactorily made out, will go a great way towards proving those doctrines among Christians. The Socinians are so sensible of this, that they give their cause for lost if this be admitted : and therefore they have used their utmost endeavours to weaken, or at least to bring under suspicion, the arguments by which this may be proved.

It is now about sixty years ago since one of that sect writ a Latin tract about the meaning of the word \oyo$ in the Chaldee paraphrases, in answer to Wechner, who had proved that St. John used

B this word in the first chapter of his Gospel, in the same sense that the Chaldee paraphrases had used it before Christ's time ; and consequently, that it is to be understood of a Person properly so called in the blessed Trinity: which way of interpreting that word, because it directly overthrew the Socinian doctrine, which was then, that St. John by the word Xoyog understood no other than Christ as man, it is no wonder that this author used all his wit and learning to evade it.

The construction which Socinus put upon the first chapter of the Gospel of St. John, was then followed generally by his disciples : but some years since, they have set it aside here, as being absurd and impertinent. And they now freely own what that Socinian author strongly opposed, that the Word mentioned by St. John is the eternal and essential virtue of God, by which he made the world, and operated in the person of Christ. Only they deny that Word to be a person distinct from the Father, as we do affirm it to be. And whereas Socinus taught, that Christ was made God, and therefore is a proper object of religious worship ; now the Unitarians, who believe him to be no other than a mere human creature, following the principles of Christianity better than Socinus, condemn the religious worship which is paid to him.

As they do believe that the Jews had the same notions of the Godhead and Person of the Messias which they have themselves, so they think they have done the Christian religion an extraordinary service in thus ridding it of this double difficulty, which hinders the conversion of the Jews. Mr. N. one of their ablest men, having read Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho, in which Trypho says, that he did not believe that the Messias was to be other than man, makes use of this passage of Trypho to prove, that the doctrines of the Divinity of the Messias, and by consequence of the Trinity, were never against the Unitarians.

CD acknowledged by the Jews. This he does in a book, the title whereof is, The Judgment of the Fathers against Dr. Bull.

His design being to prove, that Justin Martyr, about 140 years after Christ, was the first that held the doctrine of Christ's Divinity, and by consequence that of the Trinity, without which the other cannot be defended ; he found it necessary to assert,

1st. That since the Jews, byTrypho's testimony, did own the Messias to be nothing more than mere man, therefore the Jewish authors, quoted by Dr. Bull against the Socinian opinions, must have lived after the preaching of the Gospel.

2dly. That the books that are quoted against them were written by some Christians in masquerade, that lived since Justin Martyrs time ; and this he applies in particular to the works of Philo the Jew, and to the Book of Wisdom.

3dly. That since the Jewish authors could not possibly mention any thing like the doctrines of the Trinity, and of the Messias's being God too, to which they were such perfect strangers; whatsoever occurs in any of the ancient Jewish books, that favours those doctrines, must needs have been foisted in by the Christians after Justin Martyr's time.

Lastly, he supposes, that if any thing, either in the Scripture or Jewish authors, sounds that way, it probably came from the Platonics, of whom both Jews and Christians borrowed many notions, and mixed them with Christian doctrines, to persuade the Heathens the more easily to embrace the Christian religion.

Now though it seems unnecessary to dispute any further against him, having already clearly shewn, in my discussion of Mr. N.'s Judgment of the Fathers, that Justin Martyr was not the broacher of those doctrines, as Mr. N. pretends ; yet I am will-

B 2 ing to give a more full satisfaction to the world about it, by examining what either Mr. N. or any others have said or can say on this subject^ and shewing that the bold answers to Dr. Bull's proofs concerning the opinion of the Jews before Christ about those doctrines, are not better than Mr. N's supposition, that Justin Martyr was the first that maintained those doctrines.

I was particularly induced to undertake this task, in hopes that by examining this matter to the bottom, I might set these controversies in their true light; shewing how little credit some divines do deserve, who, playing the critics, have favoured the modern Jews and the Socinians with all their might, and do mislead those who upon such ungrounded authority too rashly believe, that these fundamental doctrines of Christianity came from Plato's school ; when on the contrary it is certain, that Plato himself, by conversing with the Jews in Egypt, borrowed of them the best notions he had of God.

To do this in the best method I can, I will first of all consider in general, what the Jewish tradition w as before Christ : let the reader give me leave to use that word as the Fathers commonly use it; not for a doctrine unknown in Scripture, but for a doctrine drawn from Scripture, and acknowledged for the common faith of the Church; and I shall shew, that both before and after Christ, the Jews had a current way of expounding the Old Testament, which they had received from their fathers ; and that Christ and his Apostles used and approved this way of expounding their Scriptures in many particulars.

2dly. I will examine the grounds the Jews went upon, to come to the understanding of the Old Testament, particularly of that part which contains the promises of the Messias, as they had it in Christ's time, and still have it to this day.

against the Unitarians.

3dly. I will shew by some examples, that Christ and his Apostles did prove many articles of the Christian doctrine by this exposition, commonly received among the Jews ; which thing they would hardly have done, had they had nothing else of their side, but only the letter of those places which they quoted.