Exercitations on the Epistle to the Hebrews

§ 74 They have yet another pretence to preserve themselves from the efficacy of this self-conviction. But this is so perfectly Judaical; that is, so full of monstrous, ridiculous figments, that nothing but an aim to discover their present desperate folly, and with what unmanly inventions, they endeavour to cover themselves from the light of their own conviction, can give countenance unto the repetition of it. Besides the Fable its self is vulgarly known, and I shall therefore only give a brief compendium of it, seeing it may not be wholly avoided.

The story they tell us is this; There was a stone in the Sanctum Sanctorum, under the Ark, wherein was written Shem Hamphorash, (so the Cabalists call the Name Jehovah) He that could learn this Name, might by the virtue of it, do what miracles he pleased. Wherefore the Wise men fearing what might ensue thereon, made two Brazen Dogs, and set them on two Pillars before the door of the Sanctuary: And it was so, that when any one went in, and learned that Name, as he came out, those ⟨p. 241⟩Dogs barked so horribly, that they frighted him, and made him forget the Name that he had learned. But Jesus of Nazareth going in, wrote the Name in Parchment, and put it within the skin of his leg, and closed the skin upon it; so that though he lost the remembrance of it at his coming out, by the barking of the brazen Dogs, yet he recovered the knowledge of it again out of the Parchment in his leg; and by virtue thereof, he wrought miracles, walked on the Sea, cured the lame, raised the dead, and opened the eyes of the blind. That alone which from hence we aim to evince, is the conviction that the most stubborn of the Jews had of the miracles of our blessed Saviour. Had they not been openly performed, and undeniably attested▪ no Creatures that ever had the shape of men, or any thing more of modesty then the Brazen Dogs they talk of, would have betaken themselves to such monstrous foolish figments, for a countenance and pretence unto the rejection of him and them. He that should contend, that the Sun did not shine all the last year, and should give this reason of his Assertion, because a certain man of his acquaintance climbed up to Heaven by a Ladder, and put him in a Box, and kept him close in his Chamber all that while, would speak to the full, with as much probability and appearance of truth, as the grand Rabbins do in this Tale. Every word in their story is a Monster. The stone, the writing of the name of God in it, the virtue of the pronunciation of that name, the Brazen Dogs, the entrance of a private man into the Sanctum Sanctorum; the barking of the Dogs, are Dreams becoming men under a penal infatuation and blindness, not much distant from those Chains of Darkness wherewith Satan himself is kept bound unto the Judgement of the Great Day.