Reuchl. ib. p. 629. paradise of God. And this notion is repeated, Rev. xxii. 2, 14. Again they remark that God said, Behold, Adam is become like one of us, Gen. iii. 22. And they maintain that he speaks not this to the angels, who had no common likeness to the unity or essence of God, but to him who was the celestial Adam, who is one with God. As Jonathan has also observed in his Targum on these words of Genesis, calling him the only-begotten in heaven. Now it is plain that St. Paul has described Jesus Christ as this heavenly Adam, 1 Cor. xv. They assert that the first prophecy, Gen. iii. 15. was understood by Adam and Eve of the Saviour of the world; and that Eve, who was full of the prospect of this, being delivered of her first son, she Gen. iv. 1. called him Cain, saying, I have got a man, or this man from the Lord; believing that he was the promised Messias. They tell us farther, that Eve being deceived in this expectation, as also in her hopes from Abel, asked another son of God, who gave her Seth; of whom it is said, that Adam begot another son after his own image; another with respect to Abel that was killed, not to his posterity by Cain, for they did bear the image of the Devil, Reuchl. ib. rather than that of God. They maintain the name of Enos to have been given to Seth's son upon the same account, because they thought him that excellent man whom God had promised. They make the like remarks on Enoch, Noa, and Sem, and Noah's blessing of Sem they looked on as an earnest wish, that God in his person would give them the Redeemer of mankind. p. 630, et 631. Reuchl. ib. p. 632. They affirm that Abraham had not been so ready to offer up his son Isaac a sacrifice, but that he hoped God would save the world from sin by that means; and that Isaac had not suffered himself to be bound, had he not been of the same belief. And they observe that it was said to Abraham, and afterwards to Isaac, on purpose to shew them the mistake of this opinion, In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. A plain argument that the Jews anciently thought that these words did relate to the Messias, as did also St. Paul, Gal. iii. 16. p. 633. They maintain, that Jacob believed that God Reuchl. ib. would make good to him the first promise made to Adam, till God undeceived him by inspiring him with a prophecy concerning Judah, Gen. xlix. 10. and by signifying to him, (which things also Jacob tells his sons,) that the Messias should not come but in the last days, ver. 1. when the sceptre was departed from Judah, and the lawgiver from between his feet, ver. 10. They declare that ever since this prophecy, the Reuchl. ib. coming of the Messias for the redemption of mankind has been the subject of the discourses of all the Prophets to their disciples, and the object of David's and all other prophets' longings and desires. They maintain that David did not think himself Reuchl. ib, to be the Messias, because he prays for his coming, P. 634. Psalm xliii. 3. Send out thy light, i. e. the Messias, as R. Salomon interprets it. And from hence they conclude, that he speaks also of the Messias in Psalm lxxxix. 15. They did think Isaiah spake of him, ch. ix. 6. So R. Jose Galilæus præfat. in Eccha Rabbati, as it is to be seen in Devarim Rabba Paras. л at the end of it; and in Jalk. in Is. §. 284. And indeed what he there saith could not be meant of Hezekiah, who was born ten years before; nor was his kingdom so extensive nor so lasting, as is there foretold the Messias's should be, but was confined to a small part of Palestine; and ended in Zedekiah, one of his successors, not many generations afterwards. And it is the general and constant opinion of the Jews, that Malachi, the last of the Prophets, spake of him, ch. iv. under the name of the Sun of Righteousness: for this see Kimchi. 4. It ought to be well considered, that we owe the knowledge of the principles on which the Holy Ghost has founded the doctrine of types, to the Jews, who are so devoted to the traditions of their ancestors; which types, however they who read the Scripture cursorily, do ordinarily pass by, as things light and insignificant; yet it is true what St. Paul hath said 1 Cor. x. 11. that all things happened to the fathers in types, and were written for their instruction, upon whom the ends of the world are come, or who live in the last times, as the economy of the Gospel is called, and the last days by Jacob, Gen. xlix. 1. That is, acknowledged by the wise men of the nation in Shemoth Rabba Parasha 1, and by Menasseh ben Israel q. 6. in Isaiah, p. 23. Indeed the Jews, besides the literal sense of the ancient Scriptures, did acknowledge in them a mystical or spiritual sense; and this St. Paul lays down for a maxim, 1 Cor. x. 1, 2, 3, &c. where he applies to things of the New Testament all these following types; namely, the coming of Israel out of Egypt, their passage through the Red sea, the history of the manna, and of the rock that followed them by its water. We see in Philo the figurative sense which the Jews gave to a great part of the ancient history: he remarks exactly, (and often with too much subtilty, perhaps,) the many divine and moral notions which the common prophetical figures do suggest to us. We see that they turned almost all their history into allegory. It plainly appears from St. Paul's way of arguing, Gal. iv. 22, &c. which could be of no force otherwise. We see that they reduced to an anagogical sense all the temporal promises, of Canaan, of Jerusalem, of the temple; in which St. Paul also followed them, Heb. iv. 4, 9. quoting these words, if they shall enter into my rest, from Psalm xcv. 11. which words he makes the Psalmist speak of the Jerusalem that is above; and this also is acknowledged by Maimonides de Pœn. c. 8. This remark ought to be made particularly on the mystical signification which Philo the Jew gives to several parts of the temple; of which the Apostle St. Paul makes so great use in his Epistle to the Hebrews. Josephus in those few words which he has concerning the signification of the tabernacle, Antiq. iii. 9. gives us reason enough to believe, that if he had lived to finish his design of explaining the Law according to the Jewish Midrashim, he would have abundantly justified this way of explication, followed by St. Paul, with respect to the tabernacle of the covenant. It is hard to conceive how the Apostles could speak of things which came to pass in old time, as types of what should be accomplished in the person of the Messias, without any other proof than their simple affirmation: as for instance, that St. Peter should represent Christ as a new Noah, 1 Pet. iii. 21. and that St. Paul should propose Melchizedek as a type of the Messias in respect to his sacerdotal office, Heb. vi. vii. unless the Jews did allow this for a maxim, which flows naturally from the principle we have been establishing; namely, that these great men were looked on as the persons in whom God would fulfil his first promise; but that not being completely fulfilled in them, it was necessary for them that would understand it aright to carry their view much farther, to a time and a person without comparison more august, in whom the promise should be perfectly completed. It may be asked, why the prophecies seem sometime so applied to persons then living, that one would think he should not need to look any farther to see the fulfilling of them; as namely the prophetical prayer, as in behalf of Solomon, which is in Psalm lxxii. as the birth of a son promised to Isaiah, chap. vii. and chap. ix. 6. and where Isaiah seems to speak of himself, when he saith, Isa. lxi. 1. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, and the like. But it is not hard to give for this a reason; with which the ancient Jews were not unacquainted. And it is this; that though all these predictions had been directed to those persons, yet they had by no means their accomplishment in them, nor these persons were in any degree intended and meant in the prophecy. To be particular, Solomon was in wars during the latter part of his life; and so he could not be that King of peace spoken of in the prophecy; and his kingdom was rent in his son's time, the smaller part of it falling to his share, as the greater was seized by Jeroboam; so far was the kingdom of Solomon from being universal or everlasting, Isa. vii. 14. The son born to Isaiah, neither had the name of Emanuel, nor could he be the person intended by it; as neither was his mother a virgin, as the word in that prophecy signifies: and for the Prophet himself, though the Spirit of the Lord was upon him, and spoke by him, as did it by all the other Prophets, 2 Pet. i. 21. yet that the Saadia Ga- unction here spoken of, Isaiah Ixi. 1. did not benoth c. 18. long to him, but to the Messias, is acknowledged et D. Kim- by the Jewish writers, and seems to have been so chi in rad. understood by those that heard our Saviour apply on Emu .משח this prophecy to himself, Luke iv. 22. So that nothing was more judiciously done, and more agreeable to the known principles of the synagogue, than the question proposed to Philip by the eunuch, who reading the 53d of Isaiah, asked from him, Of whom did he speak ? of himself, or of another? Again, it may be asked, why the Prophets called the Messias, David? and John the Baptist, Elias ? |