Exercitations on the Epistle to the Hebrews

That they had multiplied many superstitious Observances amongst them under the name of Traditions, is most clear in the Gospel; and it doth not appear that then they knew whom to assign their original unto, and therefore indefinitely called them the Traditions of the Elders, or those that lived of old before them. After the Destruction of their Temple, when they had lost the life and spirit of that Worship, which the Scripture revealed, betaking themselves wholly unto their Traditional figments, they began to bethink themselves how they might give countenance to their Apostasy from the Perfection and Doctrine of the written Law. For this end they began to fancy that these Traditions were no less from God, than the written Law it self. For when Moses was forty days and forty nights in the Mountain, they say that in the day time he wrote the Law from the mouth of God, and in the night, God instructed him in the Oral Law, or unwritten Exposition of it, which they have received by Tradition from him. For when he came down from the Mount, after he had read unto them the Written Law, as they say, he repeated to Aaron and Eleazer and the Sanhedrin, all that secret instruction which he had received in the night from God, which it was not ⟨p. 61⟩lawful for him to write; but in especial he committed the whole to Joshua. Joshua did the same to Eleazer, as he did to his Son Phinehas, after whom they give us a Catalogue of several Prophets that lived in the ensuing generations, all whom they employ in this service of conveying down the Oral Law to their Successors. The High Priests also they give a place unto in this work; of whom there were eighty three from the first Institution of that Office, to the destruction of the Temple; Joseph. lib. 20. cap. 18. From Aaron to the building of Solomons Temple thirteen; from thence to the Captivity eighteen; all the rest take up the troublesome time of the Apostasy of their Church unto the final ruin of it; their Rulers being many because of their wickedness, as themselves observe.

That they had multiplyed many superstitious Observances amongst them under the name of Traditions, is most clear in the Gospel; and it doth not appear that then they knew whom to assign their original unto, and therefore indefinitely called them the Traditions of the Elders, or those that lived of old before them. After the Destruction of their Temple, when they had lost the life and spirit of that Worship, which the Scripture revealed, betaking themselves wholly unto their Traditional figments, they began to bethink themselves how they might give countenance to their Apostacy from the Perfection and Doctrine of the written Law. For this end they began to fancy that these Traditions were no less from God, than the written Law it self. For when Moses was forty dayes and forty nights in the Mountain, they say that in the day time he wrote the Law from the mouth of God, and in the night, God instructed him in the Orall Law, or unwritten Exposition of it, which they have received by Tradition from him. For when he came down from the Mount, after he had read unto them the Written Law, as they say, he repeated to Aaron and Eleazer and the Sanhedrim, all that secret instruction which he had received in the night from God, which it was not