Chapter II.
Of the same among the Jews, and of the duty of that people distinct from their church officers.
Concerning the Jews after the giving of Moses’ law: The people of God were then gathered in one, and a standard was set up for all his to repair unto, and the church of God became like a city upon a hill, conspicuous to all, and a certain rule set down for every one to observe that would approach unto him. As, then, before the law, we sought for the manner of God’s worship from the practice of men, so now, since the change of the external administration of the covenant, from the prescription of God. Then we guessed at what was commanded by what was done; now, at what was done by what was commanded. And this is all the certainty we can have in either kind, though the consequence from the precept to the performance, and on the contrary, in this corrupted state of nature, be not of absolute necessity; only, the difference is, where things are obscured, it is a safer way to prove the practice of men by God’s precept, charitably supposing them to have been obedient, than to wrest the divine rule to their observation, knowing how prone men are to deify themselves by mixing their inventions with the worship of God. The administration of God’s providence towards his church hath been various, and the communication of himself unto it, at “sundry times,” hath been in “divers manners;” especially, it pleased him not to bring it to perfection but by degrees, as the earth bringeth forth fruit; “first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.”1 Thus, the church, before the giving of Moses’ law, seems to have had two main defects, which the Lord at that time supplied; — one in discipline or government, in that every family exercised the public worship of God within itself or apart (though some do otherwise conclude from Gen. iv. 26), which was first removed by establishing a consistory of elders; the other in the doctrine, wanting the rule of the written word, being directed by tradition, the manifold defects whereof were made up by a special revelation. To neither of these defects was the church since exposed. Whether there was any thing written before the giving of the law is not worth contending about. Austin thought Enoch’s prophecy was written by him;2 and Josephus affirms that there were two pillars erected, one of stone, the other of brick, before the flood, wherein divers things were engraven;3 and Sixtus Senensis, that the book of the wars of the Lord was a volume ancienter than the books of Moses; — but the contrary opinion is most received: so Chrysost. Hom. 1. in Mali.4 After its giving, none ever doubted of the perfection of the written word for the end to which it was ordained, until the Jews had broached their Talmud to oppose Christ, and the Papists their traditions to advance Antichrist; doubtless the sole aim of the work, whatever were the intentions of the workmen.
The lights which God maketh are sufficient to rule the seasons for which they are ordained. As, in creating of the world, God” made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night;” so, in the erection of the new world of his church, he set up two great lights, the lesser light of the Old Testament to guide the night, the dark space of time under the law, and the greater light of the New Testament to rule the glorious day of the gospel. And these two lights do sufficiently enlighten every man that cometh into this new world. There is no need of the false fire of tradition where God sets up such glorious lights. This be premised for the proneness of men to deflect from the golden rule and heavenly pole-star in the investigation of the truth, especially in things of this nature concerning which we treat, wherein ordinary endeavours are far greater in searching after what men have done than what they ought to have done; and when the fact is once evidenced from the pen of a rabbi or a father, presently to conclude the right. Amongst many, we may take a late treatise, for instance, entitled, “Of Religious Assemblies and the Public Service of God,”5 whose author would prescribe the manner of God’s worship among Christians from the custom of the Jews; and their observations he would prove from the rabbis, not at all taking notice that from such observances they were long ago recalled to the “law and to the testimony,” and afterward for them sharply rebuked by Truth itself.6 Doubtless it is a worthy knowledge to be able, and a commendable diligence, to search into those coiners of curiosities; but to embrace the fancies of those wild heads, which have nothing but novelty to commend them, and to seek their imposition on others, is but an abusing of their own leisure and others’ industry. The issue of such a temper seems to be the greatest part of that treatise; which because I wait only for some spare hours to demonstrate in a particular tract, I shall for the present omit the handling of divers things there spoken of, though otherwise they might very opportunely here be mentioned, — as the office and duty of prophets, the manner of God’s worship in their synagogues, the original and institution of their later teachers, scribes and Pharisees, etc., and briefly only observe those things which are most immediately conducing to my proposed subject.