Pens of thofe Serpents, as ftudied to deceive you, and deprive you of the Evidences of your Faith, and the Benefits offered by Chrift, even of eternal Happinefs; and to bring you into the fame State as the Old Serpent, and they are, under Sentence of eternal Mifery; and that you will confider them as Enemies, in Proportion to that for which they extol one another, and for which thofe Rabbinical Men extol, or prefer fome before other that is, in Proportion to their Labour, Ability, or Malice, in depriving Chriftians of the Evidence in the Scriptures: And that there is no other Wisdom, but that the Devil instructed fuch a one to fay fo, and fo in it; and that you will confider those who recommend them, or their Rules, or Explanations, be it in writing, or in the Pulpit, in Proportion to their Abilities. of doing Mischief; as you may eafily diftinguish either as People of weak Judgements, who cannot; or as indolent, idle, cowardly Spirits, who dare not be at the trouble of examining the Scriptures, and trufting their own Faculties, to make them confiftent, fo that they will ftand the Examination of others; Or, who have Ambition to be thought Great, or have Envy to confound the Truth of Believers; Or,

as Devils transformed into Angels of Light, and confequntly fourfold more the Minifters of Hell than the Rabbies, their Mafters; and that, whatever induces them, the Effect upon you, if you truft them, is the fame. "Tis a lamentable Cafe to fee the Youth, of this Nation; in an Univerfity without Profeffor, or &c. who are capable of directing them; but left, from Age to Age, to an Apoftate Jew, who always attends to poifon them in the chief Point; and to Jefuits in the reft. So, these Apoftates have always taught their own, from Children, how to alter the Scriptures, to form Objections against the Chriftian Faith; and always taught your Youth, how they are to alter them, to defend the Articles of that Faith.

The Question in Iffue, concerning the Writings of thefe Apoftates, is very concife. Whoever allows any one Affertion, which any one of them makes, which is not pofitively expreffed in Scripture, as the Scripture is written without any of their Rules, Readings, or Pointings, denies the Authority of the Scriptures; believes not God, but him that made that Affertion; and, knowing him that made it to be an Apoftate, is, as I have fhewed

t

in GLORY or GRAVITY, fourfold more the Child of Hell, than if he had not taken it from an Apoftate, but only forged it himself.

Thefe Forgeries are pretended to be founded upon the Authority of oral Tradition from Mofes, I fuppofe, only about his Writings; 'tis not pretended to be about any of the Scriptures by later Writers. They pretend not to fhew, by Scripture, or fo much as by Affertion, that the Jews, or their imaginary Sanhedrim, obferved or obeyed the Writings of the later Prophets, which contain many conditional Denunciations against their Church, and Nation, much lefs that they had any oral Tradition from them, about the Meaning of their Writings.

Thefe Traditions, they pretend, their Predeceffors had from Mofes; they say, were kept, by their own Confeflion, without Books, or Writing, near two thousand Years, fome much longer, during Apoftacy, Captivities, Wars, Confufions, Deftructions, and Difperfions; and without the Direction of the Holy Ghoft, or any other intelligible Manner of preferving them, for a great part of the Time; and for fome Hundreds of Years after the Covenant, the Law, those later Scriptures,

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Scriptures, all the hieroglyphical Exhibitions, all the Types, and all the Predictions were explained, brought to light, and accomplished in Chrift, and the Hiftory of those Completions, and Explanations, were committed to Writing, publifhed, and known to them; and after every Article had not only been contested with them, in preaching, by thofe infpired, and who had the Gift of Tongues, but, fucceffively, by their Followers, and by the Writings of the firft Fathers, &c. and, after all this, they committed these pretended Traditions to Writing.

So, these Writings were not forged, till the Jews had feen the Completion of not only the Exhibitions, Types, and Prophecies in the Old Teftament, by the New; but many of the Prophecies in the New Teftament, and their Completion; till their Guides had rejected Christ; and their Temple, and Nation were deftroyed, and the Remainder of them dispersed, over the Face of the Earth. Till feveral falfe Meffiahs had been fet up, and till the Guides of that Remainder, as was predicted, had followed them; and demonftrated, thereby, that they had no Knowledge of the Scriptures, by Tradition, or any other way; whereby they

could

could know, or would know a true Meffiah from a falfe one; fo, knew not the Marks or Evidence of the true Meffiah; nor the last and wickedeft of them, till after all thofe falfe Meffiahs, even Mabumed their last choice, for whom they forged the Alcoran, had failed, and difappointed them, and their common People were in defpair; and then to compleat all their Villanies, they forged thofe as they had done all along, under pretence of being Traditions. Wagenfel's Fiery Darts of Satan, p. 66. "I would not condemn what Cafaubon fays, Exerc. 1. ad Apparat. Annal. Baronii; that there is no Scholar but knows how little Credit the Rabbies deferve even in the facred Hiftory, for as to any other, they are blinder than Moles." Cocceius ad ultima Mofis. p. 307. § 1103. Talmud.—" that which is late, only has the Authority of Tradition with the Mafters. And they who published that, and whofe Sayings chiefly compose it, were the Enemies of Christ, or the Disciples of those who were fo." Ibid. p. 293. § 1058. "Hence appears the Truth of what Nahum fays of Jerufalem in his Time, cap. 1. II. There is one come out of Thee that imagineth Evil against Jehovah, a wicked Counfeller; which Words are certainly spoke of