ber of years will not be far unequal. And yet in my judgment it shall not be amiss, if a man make his calculation, having relation to those times whereof the Lord himself made mention in the evangelist Luke. And Jerusalem, saith he, shall be trodden under foot of the Gentiles, until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled.

But the knowledge of the certain moments and appointed minutes of that time we commit unto the Lord. This only we learn most assuredly out of St. Paul, that God hath decreed upon an infallible certainty of time, wherein the Gentiles shall mount to their fulness; and the Jews also after that fulness of time shall return unto the faith. For speedy and good success whereof, that one thing doth minister plentiful matter of good hope, that our Lord Jesus Christ hath vouchsafed to cleanse his church every where so happily in these our days, and hath purged them from all offences and stumbling blocks, which occasioned the Jews to withdraw themselves so long from the participation of our faith.

And here I might use offered opportunity to exclaim against the presumptuous boldness of those persons, whatsoever they were, which presume to thrust into temples and churches of Christians, images, and counterfeits of he saints and she saints at the first; and to convey the pure worshipping of the invisible God, to the representations of visible things, contrary to the prescript ordinance of the law of God, contrary to reason and nature, contrary to the approved custom of the elders, and contrary to all example of the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. Out of which puddle has issued wonderful stench; so amongst all other, nothing more noisome than those pestilent botches of image worship, bread worship, wine worship, cross worship, signs and portraits of visible creatures; the view whereof caused the true and sincere profession of the Christians to be loathsome to the Jews, to their great hinderance and prejudice. For what marvel was it if the Jews, that were taught by the prescript rule of God's law to abhor worshipping of images, entering into the churches of Christians and beholding the walls, pillars, and all the corners thereof bedaubed with painted and carved idols, besides innumerable other baubles of imagery; perceiving also open market to be made, not only of the picture of the cross, but of the sacrament of bread and wine also, displayed and blazed abroad, not after the manner of communicating, but gloriously

vaunted with singular magnificence, to be honoured and kneeled unto: what marvel was it, I say, if they, being offended with this open idolatry, did so long refrain from us and from the discipline of our faith?

But it is well now, thanked be Christ, that these offensive baggage and image worshippings are for the more part defaced and scraped out of Christian churches, and the ancient purity of Christian profession is begun to take so good footing, and now amongst us remain no dregs in our temples, in our religion, nor in our doctrine, that may minister just occasion of offence to the Jews, or any other enemies, though they inveigh against our religion ever so much. And I would to God, all other that profess thename of Christians would yield their like endeavour to the abolishment of all corruptions of religion, and incivility of living, out of their congregations, which may breed any further loathsomeness to the Jews. Truly this is much to be lamented, that our adversaries can find no blemish of just quarrel in the person of Christ Jesus, whose name we would seem to profess; and on the other side know in us nothing consonant and agreeable to the true touchstone of God's holy word and Christ's religion, whereof we bear the name, but all things repugnant and unlike the pure and first pattern thereof.

But I will not adventure further upon this quagmire; the sink is deeper than can be in this place or at this time scoured or drained. But since our present purpose is now to treat only of the conversion of the Jews; of the good success whereof, as there is no hope at all else than by purging and cleansing the filthy puddles of our superstitions, the unsavoury stench whereof the Jews can by no means digest; what remaineth for us to do, my dear brethren and honourable fathers in the Lord, but that every of us in our vocation, employ all our endeavour, faculty and power, that nothing may be committed amongst us, in our default from henceforth, whereby the true religion of Christ, which he gave most pure without spot or blemish, may be defiled and brought into hatred and obloquy, and blasphemed amongst the Jews, Turks, Pagans, and unbelieving infidels. My meaning here tendeth not to the determining of controversies in sects, nor of doubtful controversies debated in schools; the censure whereof commit to the great masters and doctors in divinity. Only my request at this time is, that those gross monuments of manifest idolatry,

those fantastical devices and frivolous forgeries of signs and images, and those stage-like gestures and pelting trumperies, frequented in churches; as are the praying for the dead, worshipping of creatures and signs, forbidding priests' marriages, and such like peevish absurdities, (wherewith the Jews were never acquainted,) which are manifestly repugnant to the express word of God, yea, and contrary to common reason almost, may be rooted out and banished from Christian churches and congregations; that so we may open an entry.to the Jews and Turks to conceive an inward desire to be joined to the Son of God; or, if we will not do this for the Jews' sake, let us yet, at the least, have due regard to our own estate. We have been plagued sufficiently enough by the Turks and Saracens for our idolatry, if we respect the sundry overthrows, famines, slaughters, and alterations of kingdoms, wherewith the Christians have been miserably tormented many hundred years, to the great delight of the Jews; neither is any hope scarcely of redress from great calamities like to ensue, unless we cast away this worshipping of idols out of Christian congregations and temples, as I said before, and thus enter upon a new course of better conversation and purer worshipping of God,

But forasmuch as this notable enterprise of reformation of life and purer discipline, hath over many adversaries at this day, such as will by no persuasion suffer themselves to be allured from their accustomed impiety, and that this wicked age ministereth no hope of recovery by exhortation, and that nothing can avail now to bring this to pass but supplications and prayers; let every of us most humbly join together in earnest and hearty prayer to the eternal God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; beseeching him, for his dearly beloved Son's sake, that as he hath shut up all under unbelief because he will have compassion on all, so he will vouchsafe to deliver the Jews from their infidelity, all Christians from superstition and idolatry, and withal govern and sanctify his church in the same pure sincerity wherewith he did beautify it at the beginning. For which cause we humbly beseech thee also, most mild Saviour, who art appointed King over thy holy hill Sion, to manifest thyself a Redeemer unto thy people, out of that thy holy hill Sion, and to turn away ungodliness from Jacob. Then shall that come to pass which thou didst promise long ago by the mouth of the prophet, that the children of

Judah and the children of Israel being gathered together under one Head, shall all together with us, with one soul, one voice, and one mouth, acknowledge thee to be the true Son of the living God, shall magnify thee, our Redeemer, and attain eternal salvation of body and soul, together with us, in thy everlasting kingdom, through thee, our Lord and Saviour. Amen.

THE CONFESSION OF FAITH

Which Nathanael, a Jew born, made before the congregation in the parish church of Alhallows, in Lombard Street, at London, whereupon he was, according to his desire, received into the number of the faithful, and so baptized the first of April, 1577.-Written by himself first in the Spanish tongue, and after translated into English.

MEN and brethren, to whom God hath revealed in these later days the secret of his Son, which was hidden from you many ages; it is not unknown unto you, how that in the days of our forefathers God chose us to be a precious people unto himself, above all the people that are upon the earth. And he loved us and chose us, not because we were more in number than any people; for we were the fewest of all people: but he chose us only because he loved us, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto our fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. By virtue of which promise, the same our Lord and God, whose name is Jehovah, brought our fathers by a mighty hand, and delivered them out of the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, that they might know that the Lord their God is the God indeed, the faithful God which keepeth covenant and mercy unto them that love him and keep his commandments, even to a thousand generations. According to which great and unspeakable loving kindness, he kept and preserved our fathers in the land of Israel, which he had given them under the obedience of his law, in such service of sacrifices and other rites as he had appointed them to be done and practised all the days of their lives in the city of Jerusalem, where was his temple

built upon the mount Sion, so long as they kept themselves in obedience to the same law and ordinances. But when they forsook the Lord their God, and cleaved unto false gods, he rewarded them to their face because they hated him, and brought them to destruction by delivering them into the hands of many enemies; as into the hands of Nabuchadnezer, by whom they were carried into captivity to Babylon, and there remained the days foretold them by our prophet Jeremie; fulfilling thereby the words of our prophet Moseh, foretelling us that it should so be, if we forsook the Lord our God; and leaving us, their posterity, an example thereby, that if we followed like iniquity, like severity of punishment should overtake.us. As it came to pass, and is fulfilled in the eyes of all the world by this captivity which we are now in, and have been in, we and our forefathers, ever since the death of that righteous man, Jesus Christ; whom the scribes and pharisees, and elders of our people delivered into the hands of Pontius Pilate to be put to death, being before betrayed into their hands by one of his own disciples, that son of perdition, Judas Iscarioth. As our forefathers then pronounced against themselves, Let his blood be upon our heads, and upon our children; so it is come to pass by the righteous judgment of that mighty and dreadful God. For even from those days unto this present, the whole house of Israel, that is, we that come of the stock of Abraham after the flesh, is and are strangers out of the land of Israel, our own country, without law or prophets, without all exercise of his statutes and ordinances concerning his worship prescribed unto us by the hand of his servant Moseh.

This long and wearisome captivity hath consumed a great number of our forefathers, and hath caused some of us from time to time, through the grace and love of God, wherewith he loveth us for the promise sake, to think upon our promised Messhiach; conferring these days of sorrow and calamity with our former captivities of our fathers, which were nothing so many in number of years, nor so grievous for want of our prophets. These fifteen hundred years have we been strangers, and these fifteen hundred years have we lacked our prophets; a thing not seen at any time before when we and our fathers were carried into a strange land. For in Egypt they had Mosheh and Aaron; and in Babylon they had Jeremie and Daniel, besides Ezra, Nechemiah, and many other: only in this captivity