Sad and Serious Political Considerations, Part 12
XII.
I have heard many Jews discoursing of this their glorious Restauration and Religion to come.Evidences out of Scripture that the ten Tribes shall be brought out of Tartaria & India, and converted to the Gospel, as well as our Western Iews. They say, they never possessed (no not in the time of David and Solomon, when their Kingdom was largest) an half of that which God promised in Deuteronomy and Ioshua. Indeed it is said in Ioshua, No good thing failed of what God promised, but this is to be understood of their peaceable settlement in what Ioshua then conquer'd, not of the utmost boundders of what they were to possesse towards the end of Time. From Euphrates to the red Sea, all the Coasts on the West to the great Mediterranean Sea, with Tyrus and Sydon, on the North Hemath and Cel…syria, even in length from L…banon to Egypt, was to be the confines of this sacred Commonwealth. Now if we consider, what a Moity of this was possessed by Lot, Ammon, Esau, the Kings of Tyrus and Sidon, the Philistines with Syria, we may plainly see, that more then an half was never their own, of what God promised. In confidence of possessing which, and all the world beside in time to come, in their great Hosanna they shake Palmes in their hands, in triumph towards the four coasts of heaven, to intimate that in their universall Empire every tree of the wood shall clap hands, and sing for joy. It is strange, and makes me give more credit to Esdras then otherwise I would, to see how pat he goes with our Saviour Christ, in affirming the second Captivity of the Jews to be long, and that their return should be about the ruine of the Roman Empire. He relates how the ten Tribes (soon after their Captivity by Salmanasser) travelled through a great River or strait (perhaps the Streits of Anian) in a long journey of many moneths or years to a Country not inhabited. Yea many good Authors, who write of the Histories of America, relate how the Maxicans have a Tradition (delivered from father to son, time out of minde) of a great multitude coming a great journey into those parts with an Ark carried before them on mens shoulders, with their God inclosed therein. These people certainly were Jews, from whom they learned Circumcision (which our travellers finde in most of their Coasts) with other Rites of Tribes, Heads of Tribes and Families, with some handsome Ceremonies of Marriages, Funerals and Washings, directly the same with the Jews or Israelites. But to prove, that the Israelites were first placed in Media and Carmania, and from thence removed into India, A large Discourse of a probable co…jecture that the ten Tribes of Israel were placed by Salmanasser in Arme…ia and Media, & that from thence they passed into Tartaria, and so into India.let us return a little back, and survey Scriptures and some approved Authors. When Salmanasser King of Assyria carried the ten Tribes into Captivity (in the fifth year of the reign of Hezekiah King of Iudah) he was a Prince of spacious Dominions and invincible forces, as comprizing within his Empire all Media and Persia, Mesepotamia, Assyria, all Arabia and Ethiopia inferiour to the confines of Egypt, all Syria and Palestine (save only the poor exhausted Kingdom of Iudah) and lastly Armenia with all the Coasts bordering upon the Caspian and Euxine sea, as farre as Tartaria. By this it will be hard to define in which Province of his Empire he placed them, out of his Dominions we may well think he would not abandon them. In the 2 King. 17.6. it is said that he placed them in Hala and Habor by the River of Gozan, and in the Cities of the Medes. Which Hala (or rather Chala) and Habor by affinity of pronuntiation, can be no other then Col…hies and Iberia, two Provinces of Armenia, the first bordering upon the Euxine, the latter upon the Caspian sea and the confines of the Tartars. East of Armenia lies Media, in the Cities of which, a great part of the Israelites were likewise placed to inhabit. North of Armenia is the entrance into those immense and indiscoverable Nations of Muscovites and Tartars, the utmost limits of whose Kingdoms were never yet fully known. The chief River of which Countries arising farre beyond the Hyperborian Territories, after a wearisome travel through many Nations and Provinces, disburthens it self at last into the Caspian sea, at the very entrance into Armenia, where it is called Zolga (though our Mariners call it Wolga) which is nothing else but a Metathesis or a bad pronunciation of the word Gozan. So that that saying of Ben-Gorion is true (if that Manuscript be his which Gallo-Belgicus fathers upon him, yet visible in Bibliothecâ Florentinâ) Salbumadzar (saith he) rex Assyrius, exciso Samariae regno, decem illas Tribus, quae à divino cultu tandiu ante desciverant ad Idololatriam, abductas in Captivitatem conlocavit in Fasso, Alvati, Loride, & Bascapante civitatibus Colchidos & Iberiae Arm…nicarum provinciarum, & in Ecbatan… & Bocchu urbibus Mediae juxta Pontum Euxinum, & mare Caspium. Thus by the testimony of this great Rabbi it is manifest that the Opinion of those men is fond who think the ten Tribes to be utterly lost; thus likewise is it plain that the Jews Conversion must first a…ise out of the East, and that Fassum, Alvatis, Loris, and Bascapan Cities of Colchis and Iberia, and Ecbatana and Bocchu Cities of Media were the places, where Salmanasser (called here Salbumadzar) placed these Israelites in name, but Pagans in nature. And Iohn Lunclay in his Pandects of the Turkish History, fol. 769. writes, how there are certain Hoords (Troops or Families) of people near the more Northern parts of Tartaria, which retain the names of Dan, Z…bulun and Nepthali, and in the vicinity of Rega there is a certain barbarous Nation of Letti, which for three moneths in the year perpetually wander up and down the fields, having these words Iure-shel…-mashalom continually in their mouth, as a kinde of lamentable tune or mournfull Ditty: by which words Authours credibly suppose are meant Jerusalem and Damascus the two head cities of Judah and Israel. He that diligen…ly reades the history of these X. Tribes in Scripture, after their revolt from the house of David, and combination with I…roboam in erecting Idolatry, may see that they were a Nation quickly overgrown with Heathenism, cruelty, and barbarousnesse, wholly become abominable Pagans in nature, manners, life, condition and conversations; as if they had had Numa Pomphilius to their Father, and not Abraham the faithfull: they only kept Circumcision and the names of their Progenitors in remembrance, but had quite forgotten the Stories of their religion and piety, thence it came to passe that in this their Captivity, being transported and implanted among those Nations, they quickly conjoyned and counited with them in marriage and affinity (being already long before coupled with them in Idolatry) and so ceased to be called Israelites, but being now all one people, were called by the names of Armenians and Medes. That these Israeltes likewise inhabited part of Tartaria, and from thence spread into India and the East, and that they likewise possessed a part of the Caucasian Mountains mingled with a people, which Herodotus calls foreign (a word not unakin to Turks) is manifest by these undeniable Reasons.
1. Because the Colchians, Iberians, and a great part of Tartaria used Circumcision in most ancient times, long before the building of Rome, which they could not have received from any people else but from these Israelites, who 30. years before the foundation of Rome were sent to inhabit among them.
2. The Crim-Tartars derive their Progeny from Sampson (hence so many of them have been called Camson, an obscure Notion of Sampson) and in imitation of him wear long hair; which could not have been, except they had had their Originall from those people from whom they had the memory of Sampson.
3. The names likewise of Moses, Aharon, Cham, Selim, or Solyman (a vitious Pronunciation of Shlemo or Solomon) were proper names of men amongst the Turks long before ever they broke into Asia. Now what times the Turks first broke into Asia, Chronologers agree not among themselves: Some say they broke through the Caspian Streits into Armenia major (now Turcomannia) An. 844. But I rather suppose their first Irr…ption into Asia was 20. years after the death of Alexander the great, about An. M. 3718. when the Parthians shook off the Macedonian yoke, and began their Empire: for in those times we reade in Mela, Pliny and Herodotus, that a ba…barous and savage people from the North had invaded and possessed Carmania, which could be no other then this Nation of the Turks. Thus it is plainly manifest, that when these Israelites passed into America, they left a great part of their Brethren behinde them in Asia, Tartaria, and India. Millions of them are in Persia, and their domineering at this present day in Carmania, is rightly observed by Benjamin the Jew in Eyre, by M…rcator, Ortelius, and other Geographers.