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347

A CONFERENCE

go a Fishing for Arguments, and which moft cer y would never have been dreamt of, but that fome ng Chriftian or other, was willing to pick up fomeng about Chrift, in the beginning of his Bible. Cred. But indeed, Sir, you have mightily mistaken Matter, for none of all this is any Chriftian Invention; and if you remember, in a former Difcourfe, Conf. Theift, Part I. I made appear to you, that the ancient Jews, under the Old Teftament, owned that the Devil was the Occafion of Man's Fall. And now I will fhew, that the ancient Jews likewife understood the Words we are now fpeaking of to be a Prophefy of the Meffias: Onkelos, the old Chaldee Paraphraft, explains the Words thus: I will put Enmity between thee, O Serpent, and the Woman, and between thy Son, and her Son; he fhall retali ate as much Evil to thee, as thou haft done to her. And the Targum of Jonathan, another old Jewish Paraphraft fpeaks thus. I will put Enmity between thee, and the Woman, and between the Seed of thy Children, and her Children. And it shall come to pass, when the Children of the Woman fhall keep the Precepts of the Law, then they fhall be watchful to wound thee in the Head: And when they shall for fake the Precepts of the Law, then thou shalt be watchful to strike them in the Heel. But they fball have a Remedy, and thou shalt have no Remedy. And it fall come to pass, that they shall make to themselves a Plaifter for their Heel, in the Days of Meffias the King. And the Targam of Je rufalem not much unlike; And it shall be when the Sons of the Woman fball meditate upon the Law, and fall do the Precepts, they fhall be intent to strike thee upon the Head, and fball kill thee. And when the Sons of the Woman fball defert the Precepts of the Law, and not do its Commands, then thou shalt be intent to hurt them in their Heels, and fhalt make them fick. But there fhall be a Remedy to the Sons of the Woman; but to thee, O Serpent, there shall be no Remedy, forafmuch as Time fhall come, when one of them fhall make a Plaifter for the other in the Heel, in the end of Extremity of Days, in the Days of King Meffias. Thefe are fuch evident and home Proofs of a moft ancient Tra

dition, and received Opinion of the Meffias being promifed in thefe Words, that if the fufpicious Jews had not had the keeping of thefe Books, all along, 'tis an hundred to one but that the Devil had been dealing with Tome Critick or other, to have branded thefe Paffages with a Pia Frams in their Fore-head, for the Service of the Infidels. Now if we confider this ancient Interpretation of this Paffage of Scripture, in the Jewish Church, and the Reafon of the Thing it felf, how rational it is, that the Devil fhould have his Share of Punishment allotted him in the Malediction; and how agreeable it is to the Goodness of God to reach out this Mercy, and to declare this comfortable Promife, to them upon their unhappy Fall, who from this and other Promifes, all along the Patriarchal Times, had a conftant Expectation of a Meffias to come, to repair this fatal Milcarriage; I fay, to a Man that confiders all this, there cannot be any other Interpretation of this Place, which can be equally fatisfactory. I do not fay that this Prophelys as it is recorded in Mofes, is one of the cleareft of those which are found in Scripture, or that I would have particularly chofen this to convert an Infidel; for I know there are others, which are lefs liable to Cavils: But I think I have proved, that this is liable to no juft Exceptions; and, I am fure, I have faid more for it, than the Infidels, or Criticks either, can poffibly fay against it. This Interpretation has been allowed by the Church in all Ages; and among our Moderns, the most Judicious and Pious, both of Lutherans, Calvinifts, and Papifts as well as those of our own Church, do explain the Place this Way. Nay, if we may believe the Relations of two very learned and fober Men, the Devil has owned this Charge against himself, and has been terrified with the bare repeating of this Prophefy. Johannes Brentius, in the Preface to the fifth Tome of his Father's Works, about the End of it, has this remarkable Relation. The Preface is directed to the Senate of the City of Hall in Swedeland. When Chriftopher Haafs was Governour of this famous Republick, who was my God-father, and a Gen

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hom I cannot but mention with Honour, and one dinary Prudence and Piety: When this Gentleman Death-Beds a few Days before his Death, there the Room a certain Perfon, whom he took to be d with Pens Ink and Paper, who fitting down at us Spoke to the fick Man: Chriftopher, (fays Account of all the Sins of your Life, for I am jent by God to take an Account of them, and to bring them before his Tribunals where you shall answer for whatever have done. The fick Man lifting up himself, as well as he could, in his Bed, and now underfanding that he had to do with a wicked Spirit, anfuered with a courageous Mind, Let a Title be wrote to the Inftrument firft, which hall be this, Semen mulieris conteret caput Serpentis, The Seed of the Woman fall bruife the Serpent's Head. Under this Title I will put all my Sins, both of Commiffion and Omiffion. And the Devil, upon hearing this Anfier, vat nifhed. A like Story is related by Johannes Wolphins, in his famous Book Lectiones Mirabiles, Tom. z. p. 396. of an old Man of Friburg, who, upon his Death-Bed, drove away the Devil by the fame Text of Scripture. I do not mention this to you, Philologus, as if I thought fhould be able to convince a Man of your Character, of the Truth of this Relation; but only to fhew the ge neral Opinion of Chriftians, and Jews, concerning this Text of Scripture, being to be underflood, as a Prophefy of Chrift. Though thus much I would have you obferve, by the Way, that thefe are no Popish legendary Stories, but are related by two very fober and learned Proteftants.

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Scepter of
Fudah,

Gen. xlix. 10. Prophery of Chrift.

Your next Objection is against the Prophesy of 74cob, Gen. xlix. 1o. The Scepter fhall not depart from Judah, nor a Law-gruer from between his Feet, till Shilo come, and to him shall the gathering of the Nations be, or, be fball be the Expectation of the Nations. Now, I think, this is a very clear Prophefy of our bleffed Saviour, and is a manifeft Proof of his being the true Meffias. That the ancient Fes underflood this Paffage of the Meffias, is evident from the old Paraphrafts, and other ancient Rab

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bins fo that you must not fay, this is a fancied Interpretation of the Chriftians only. Onkelos explains it thus t The Author of Royal Power shall not pass away from the House of Judah, nor the Scribe from the Children of his Children, till the Meffias comes, whofe is the Kingdom. For nathan paraphrafes thus: There fball not ceafe Kings, and Governours, from the House of Judah, and Scribes teaching the Law from his Seed, even to the Time when King Mef fias fhall come. And the Targum of Jerusalem, after this Manner: Kings fhall not fail from the Houfe of Judah, nor Scribes, Doctors of the Law, from the Sons of the Sons of Judah, until the Time that Meffias the King fhall come, whofe is the Kingdom, and to whom all Kings of the Earth fball be subjected. The like Explication is given by the Author of the ancient Books called, Berefbich Rabba, by Kimchi, Mofes Hadar fhan, and other ancient Jews. And the Reafon why fome modern ones have attributed this famous Paffage to Saul, or Solomon, or Nebuchadnezzar's is only the Malice they bear to our Saviour and our Re ligion, which they are grieved to fee defended by fo clear a Teftimony. Now, I fay, this does appear to be a clear Teftimony of Jefus Chrift's being the Meffias, if we confider the plain Senfe of the Words, which is; that about the Time of the coming of the Meffias, the Scepter fhall depart from Judah. The greatest Diffi culty is to know what is moft naturally to be under ftood by Scepter, and what by Judah. Now by Scepter must be understood one of these two Things, either Government by a King, or any other Monarchy whofe Authority the Scepter is the Emblem of; or elfe Go vernment in general, fo as to take in all the particulat Ways of Polity, a Nation may be ruled by. And by Fudah, must be understood either the Tribe of that Name, or elfe the whole Nation of the Jews, who were for called, from that moft eminent Tribe. To under ftand by Scepter, that there fhould be always, till the Meffiat fhould come, a ftanding Monarchy among the Fes, and particularly of the Tribe of Judah, cannot be allowed; for there was no Scepter among the Jews in

this Senfe, till Saul was King, and he was not of the Tribe of Judah neither; neither was there any King of that Tribe after Zedekiah; nor after the Captivity, had they any King at all, unless thofe of the Family of He rod, who were of a foreign Extraction, and were Jews only by Profelytifm. Neither can it be faid that any Kind of Government was conftantly entailed upon the Tribe of Judah, diftinct from the other Tribes; for during Mofes's Time, the Government of the Jews was in the Family of Levi; during the Time of the Judges, it was among diverfe of the Tribes; in the beginning of the Monarchy, it was in Saul, or the Tribe of Benja min; and after the Captivity among the Levites of the Afmonean Race. So that it can by no Means be faid; that the Ifraelitifs Government did always continue in the Tribe of Judah.

It remains therefore, that by Scepter is understood a fettled Polity; and by Judah is understood the People of the Jews, who derived their Name from that Tribe, which ever fince the Babylonian Captivity has made the greatest Body of that People; for the Ten Tribes being loft in that long Exile, the Tribe of Judah only, with the afcititious one of Benjamin, did compofe this Peo ple, as we now fee them, and as they have been for above these two thousand Years. Therefore the Senfe of the Prophefy must be this: That, till the Time of the Meffias, there fhall be always a fettled Polity, or Governs ment among the Jews; there fhall be a Scepter and Law giver, among them; they shall be a diftinct Nation of themfelves; and fhall be governed by their own Laws; but, after that Time, this Promise fhall ceafe, then they fhall have no more a Scepter or Law-giver, then they fhall be no longer a fettled People; but fhall be difperfed throughout all the Corners of the Earth, and live under the rigid Laws of other Nations, where-ever they chance to come. Now the Prophefy, in this Senfe, was moft manifeftly compleated, about the Time of our Saviour Chrift's Coming. For all along before, fince the Jew's were grown up, from a Family to a People, they were

governed

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