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authority of the rabbins, by saying, The Jews, if we may venture to believe the rabbins, received no 'proselytes but by baptisma,' &c. More generally in another place he says, The Jews seem to claim the privilege of cashiering their reason, and advance 'without any shame all the foolish whimsies in the 'world and would yet pass for men of very good 'sense. And to the same purpose he frequently speaks on other occasions.

Mons. du Pin, when he would give a treatise he is speaking of, the worst character he can, says, 'It was writ by somebody who was wholly besotted ' with the dreaming enthusiasms of the rabbins and cabalists". Mr. Dodwell, speaking of the use of the Jewish writings, says, Considering the fabulousness and suspiciousness of these rabbinical records in any thing historical, I should be much better satisfied with any information from those more ⚫ certainly ancient authors, which are extant in other 'tongues, such as Philo and Josephus, &c., and indeed shall not credit the rabbins any further than as they agree with such better attested monuments, or with the nature of things attested by ' them d'

Scaliger says of R. Ascher, who dwelt then at Amsterdam, that he was an ingenious man for a

a In Not. Gall. ad Matth. iii. 6. Les Juifs, si nous en croyons les rabbins, ne recevoient, &c.

b Bibliothèque Choisie, tom. xiii. p. 405. C'est là un privilége des Juifs, de ne faire presque aucun usage de leur raison, de débiter, sans honte, toutes sortes de rêveries, et de passer néanmoins pour habiles gens.

c Hist. Eccles. vol. i. p. 155. b.

d Letter of Advice, &c. i.

WALL, VOL. III.

P. 33.
B b

Jewe.' And a little after, It is very seldom ' that a Jew, who turns Christian, is good for any thing; they are always bad. Nauclerus says of the Talmud, that though it be full of the most palpable lies, and contrary to all the laws of God, the Scriptures, and the light of nature, yet it is enjoined under pain of death that no one presume 'to deny any one thing written therein "."

I have the testimony also of two unexceptionable judges in this matter; I mean the great Buxtorf, and our own incomparable Lightfoot; than whom none ever better understood, nor were more universally acquainted with the rabbins and their writings.

Buxtorf, after he has mentioned all the fine things which can be said to recommend the use and study of the Talmud, adds these words: Thus you see, reader, with what impudence and impiety this

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e Scaligerana, p. 218. Qui estoit honneste homme pour un Juif.

f Ibid. p. 218, 219. Raro Judæus aliquis Christianus factus, fuit bonus, semper sunt nequam.

g Gener. 14. Licet plenus est inextricabilibus mendaciis, et contra omnem divinam legem, sacram Scripturæ sc. et naturæ legem conscriptus, sub pœna tamen capitis edictum est, nequis neget quicquam eorum quæ in eo dicuntur. [This quotation out of Nauclerus must have been taken somewhere at second-hand. The author's own words at this place (loosely) cited are: 'Circa hæc tempora [A. D. 400.] componitur Thalmud Judæorum, id est Judaica doctrina, a duobus Rabinis, s. Rabina et Rabasse ; liber major decem bibliis, in quo sunt inextricabilia mendacia 'contra omnem legem divinam, naturæ, ac Scripturam. Videntes ⚫ enim legem suam in dies deficere, et fidem Christianam proficere in toto orbe, hos duos instigarunt rabbinos, prohibentes, sub pœna mortis, nequis aliquid negaret de his quæ in eo continentur. See Jo. Naucleri Chronica, fol. Coloniæ, 1579. vol. ii. Generat. 14. P. 553.]

'obstinate and blind people extol and magnify their

Talmud, and the authors of it: and can it seem 'strange that these neglect the law of God, to follow the traditions of their fathersh?'

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But Dr. Lightfoot's words are, if possible, fuller yet than any, and may serve for a compendium of all I have been hitherto saying. There are some,' says the doctor, who believe the holy Bible was pointed by the wise men of Tiberias. I do not wonder at 'the impudence of the Jews who invented the story; but I wonder at the credulity of Christians who applaud it. Recollect, I beseech you, the names ' of the rabbins of Tiberias, from the first situation of the university there, to the time that it expired; and what, at length, do you find, but a kind of men mad with Pharisaism, bewitching with traditions, and bewitched, blind, guileful, doting, they must ' pardon me if I say, magical and monstrous? Men, 'how unfit, how unable, how foolish, for the undertaking so divine a work! Read over the Jerusalem Talmud, and see there how R. Judah, R. Chaninah, &c., and the rest of the grand doctors among the rabbins of Tiberias behave themselves; how earnestly they do nothing; how childishly they handle serious matters; how much of sophistry, froth, poison, smoke, nothing at all, there is in their disputes! 'And if you can believe the Bible was pointed in 'such a school, believe also all that the Talmudists. ' write '.'

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h Abbreviat. &c. p. 241. Vides, lector, obstinatissimæ et obcæcatissimæ gentis, de suo Talmud et ejus compilatoribus, impudentissima et impia elogia. An ergo mirum, quod Dei verbum reliquerunt, et patrum traditiones secuti sunt ?

i Vol. ii. p. 73.

4. But above all, this appears from the divine authority of the Son of God himself, and his disciples; who often give us the worst character of the rabbins and governors of the Jews that it is possible to conceive. St. John calls the Pharisees, &c., that came to his baptism, a generation of vipers, Matt. iii.7, and our Lord himself says of them, chap. xii. 34, O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? and detects several of their enormities in the woes he pronounces against them, Matt. xxiii. and chap. xxi. 31. which represents them to be worse than the most profligate part of mankind, and such whose testimony would signify nothing in any case.

The protomartyr Stephen, Acts vii. 51, speaking to them, says, Ye stiffnecked- -ye do always resist the Holy Ghost, &c. But not to multiply instances of this nature, which every body is well acquainted with, I will add but one more, which reaches expressly the thing in dispute, and proves their traditions concerning washings made void the law. Mark vii. 8, &c. Laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups; and many other such like things ye do. And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandments of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered. And our Lord concludes his censure with these words, They be blind leaders of the blind, Matt. xv. 14. All which, if there be any thing sacred and awful, and that deserves our most serious regard, in our Saviour's words, must at least signify, that they are a dangerous sort of men, and rather to be shunned than followed: for he has expressly commanded us to beware of their leaven.

Since then the Jews and their writings are so much to be distrusted, and are so scandalous and fallacious; can what they say be called with any prudence, the true basis of infant-baptismk?' To conclude: what is built upon this basis, is a rabbinical tradition, and one of those washings which our Lord condemns; but not a Christian baptism.

I am, Sir,

Yours, &c.

k Dr. Hammond's Six Queries, page 195. margin.