DCCCVII.
The Jews boast they are Abraham’s children; and, indeed, `twas a higher honor of them, when the rich glutton in hell said, “Father Abraham,” etc. But our Lord God can well distinguish these children; for to such as the glutton he gives their wages here in this life, but the rewards and wages for the others he reserves until the life to come.
DCCCVIII.
The Jews are the most miserable people on earth. They are plagued everywhere, and scattered about all countries, having no certain resting place. They sit as on a wheelbarrow, without a country, people, or government; yet they wait on with earnest confidence; they cheer up themselves and say: It will soon be better with us. Thus hardened are they; but let them know assuredly, that there is none other Lord or God, but only he that already sits at the right hand of God the Father. The Jews are not permitted to trade or to keep cattle, they are only usurers and brokers; they eat nothing the Christians kill or touch; they drink no wine; they have many superstitions; they wash the flesh most diligently, whereas they cannot be cleansed through the flesh. They drink not milk, because God said: “Thou shalt not boil the young kid in his mother’s milk.” Such superstitions proceed out of God’s anger. They that are without faith, have laws without end, as we see in the papists and Turks; but they are rightly served, for seeing they refused to have Christ and his Gospel, instead of freedom they must have servitude.
If I were a Jew, the pope should never persuade me to his doctrine; I would rather be ten times racked. Popedom, with its abominations and profanities, has given to the Jews infinite offence. I am persuaded if the Jews heard our preaching, and how we handle the Old Testament, many of them might be won, but, through disputing, they have become more and more stiff-necked, haughty, and presumptuous. Yet, if but a few of the rabbis fell off, we might see them come to us, one after another, for they are almost weary of waiting.
DCCCIX.
At Frankfort-on-the-Main there are very many Jews; they have a whole street to themselves, of which every house is filled with them. They are compelled to wear little yellow rings on their coats, thereby to be known; they have no houses or grounds of their own, only furniture; and, indeed, they can only lend money upon houses or grounds at great hazard.
DCCCX.
I have studied the chief passages of Scripture, that constitute the grounds upon which the Jews argue against us; as where God said to Abraham: “I will make my covenant between me and thee, and with thy seed after thee, in their generations, for an everlasting covenant,” etc. Here the Jews brag, as the papists do upon the passage: “Thou art Peter.” I would willingly bereave the Jews of this bragging, by rejecting the law of Moses, so that they should not be able to gainsay me. We have against them the prophet Jeremiah, where he says: “Behold, the time cometh, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah, not as the covenant which I made with their fathers,” etc. “But this shall be the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel; after this time, saith the Lord, I will give my laws into their hearts, and will write it in their minds,” etc.
Here, surely the Jews must yield, and say: the law of Moses continued but for awhile, therefore it must be abolished. But the covenant of the circumcision, given before Moses time, and made between God and Abraham, and his seed Isaac in his generation, they say, must and shall be an everlasting covenant, which they will not suffer to be taken from them.
And though Moses himself rejects their circumcising of the flesh, and presses upon the circumcising of the heart, yet, nevertheless, they boast of that everlasting covenant out of God’s Word; and when they admit that the circumcision justifies not, yet, nevertheless, say they, it is an everlasting covenant, thinking it is a covenant of works, therefore we must leave unto them their circumcision.
I, for my part, with all God-fearing Christians, have this sure and strong comfort, that the circumcision was to continue but for awhile, until Messiah came; when he came, the commandment was at an end. Moses was wise; he kept himself within bounds, for in all his four books after Genesis, he wrote nothing of physical circumcision, but only of the circumcision of the heart. He dwells upon the Sacrifices, the Sabbath, and showbread; but leaves this covenant of circumcision quite out, making no mention thereof; as much as to say: “Tis little to be regarded. If it had been of such importance and weight as the Jews make it, he would doubtless have urged it accordingly. Again, in the Book of Joshua, mention is made of the circumcising of the heart. The papists, however, blind people, who know nothing at all of the Scriptures, are not able to confute one argument of the Jews; theirs is truly a fearful blindness.