A Handful of Gleanings out of the Book of Exodus, Section 27
SECT. XXVII. Articles of a beleeving Iewes Creed collected out of Moses Law.
1. I Beleeve that salvation is by Faith, not by Workes.
When the Talmudick Jewes make such a confession as is mentioned instantly before, wherein they reduce all the tenor and marrow of the Law under this one doctrine of living by Faith, Hab. 2. 4. The just by his Faith shall live: it is no wonder if the more ancient and more holy Jewes under the Law looked for salvation, not by their owne merits and workes, but onelyonly by Faith: This fundamentall point of Religion they might readily learne by these two things.
1. From the impossibility of their keeping the Law, which their consciences could not but convince them of, by their disabiliti… to heare it, and by their daily carriage.
2. In that they saw the holiest of their men, and the holiest of their services, to receive sanctitie, not from themselves, but from another. So they saw that the Priest [who was or should bee at least the holiest man amongst them] was sanctified by his garments, and that the sacrifices were sanctified by the Altar. From these premises they could not but conclude, that no man, nor his best service could be accepted as holy in it selfe, but must be sanctified by another.
2. I beleeve that there is no salvation without reconciliation with God, and no reconciliation without satisfaction.
The first part of this Article is so plaine that nature might teach it, and so might it the latter also; and laying hereto Moses his lex talionis, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, it made it doubtlesse.
3. I beleeve that satisfaction shall once be made.
This they might see by their daily sacrifice, aiming at a time when there should full satisfaction be made, which these poore things could not doe. No lesse did their Iubilee yeare intimate when men in debt and bondage were quitted; The very time of the yeare, when the Iubilee yeare began, calling all Israel to thinke of a Jubilee from sinne and Satans bondage, into which mankind fell at the same time of the yeare.
4. I beleeve that satisfaction for sinne shall be made by a man.
This is answerable to reason that as a man sinned, so a man should satisfie: but Moses Law about redemption of land by a kinsman, taught Israel to expect that one that should be akin in the flesh to mankind, should redeeme for him morgaged heaven: foreign in Hebrew is both a kinsman and a Redeemer.
5. I beleeve that he shall be more then a man.
This they learned from the common service about the Tabernacle, wherein the high Priest, a man as fully hallowed and sanctified as man could be, for his outward function; yet did he offer and offer againe for the people and himselfe, and yet they were uncleane still. This read a Lecture to every ones apprehension, that a meere man could not doe the deed of satisfaction, but he must be more.
6. I beleeve the redeemer must also be God as well as man.
The disabilitie of beasts to make satisfaction, they saw by their dying in sacrifice one after another, and yet mans conscience cleansed never the better. The unabilitie of man we saw before: The next then that is likely to doe this worke are Angels. But them Israel saw in the Tabernacle curtaines spectators onelyonly and not actors in the time and worke of reconciliation. From hence they might gather that it must be God dwelling with man in one person, as the cloud, the glory of God never parted from the Arke.
7. I beleeve that mans Redeemer shall die to make satisfaction.
This they saw from their continued bloody sacrifices, and from the covenants made, and all things purged by blood. This the heedlesse man-slayer might take heed of, and see that as by the death of the high Priest he was restored to liberty, so should mankind be by the death of the highest Priest to the glorious libertie of the sonnes of God. Their delivery from Egypt by the death of a Lambe taught them no lesse.
8. I beleeve that he shall not die for his owne sinnes, but for mans.
Every sacrifice read this lecture, when the most harmelesse of beasts and birds were offered.
9. I beleeve that he shall overcome death.
This Israel saw by necessary conclusion, that if Christ should fall under death, he did no more then men had done before. His resurrection they saw in Aarons Rod, Manna, Scapegoate, Sparrow, &c.
10. I beleeve to be saved by laying hold upon his merits.
Laying their right hand upon the head of every beast that they brought to be offered up taught them, that their sinnes were to be imputed to another, and the laying hold on the hornes of the Altar, being sanctuary or refuge from vengeance, taught them that anothers merits were to bee imputed to them, yet that all offenders were not saved by the Altar, Exod. 21. 12. 1 King. 2. 29. the fault not being in the Altar but in the offender, it is easie to see what that signified unto them.
Thus far…e each holy Israelite was a Christian in this point of doctrine, by earnest study finding these points under the vaile of Moses. The ignorant were taught this by the learned every Sabbath day, having the Scriptures read and expounded unto them. From these groundworkes of Moses, and the Prophets Commentaries thereupon concerning the Messias, came the schooles of the Jewes to be so well versed in that point, that their Scholars doe mention his very name Jesus: the time of his birth in Tisri: the space of his preaching three yeeres and a halfe: the yeare of his death they yeare of Jubile, and divers such particulars to be found in their Authors, though they knew him not when he came amongst them.