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NOTES.

THERE are a few ready objections against the views set forth in the preceding discourse, which are usually proposed at the outset as a sufficient reason for discarding any further examination of the subject. But we cannot perceive that the matter is to be disposed of so easily. We have endeavored to consider these objections honestly. The result is, that to our mind these objections are either founded on a misconception of millenarian views;-or they assume a meaning for certain scripture terms, which the Scriptures themselves do not warrant;—or upon examination, they are found to be beside the point. The object of the following notes is to show that this remark is true.

NOTE A, p. 32.

It is often insinuated as a decisive objec

tion that "there is all the difference between the views here presented and the truth, that there is between Judaism and Christianity." It is asked with some asperity-"Shall we go back to Judaism ?"

This seems like an attempt to answer the argument by a slur. The apostles had so much trouble with the false teachers among the Jews, that the opinion has become current that every doctrine held by the Jews, or advocated by them, was either wrong in itself, or else was a very low and unspiritual form of the true doctrine. Hence, to receive any truth as the believers before Christ received it, is considered as retrograding. This is called Judaizing. And to Judaize, in anything, is thought to be another scriptural term for returning to "weak and beggarly elements.”

But we think that this wholesale condemnation is by no means supported by the scriptures. There were some things in which the Jews of the apostles' time were plainly wrong—and wrong by forgetting to "search their own scriptures ;" and hence

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none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should comethat Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should show light unto the people, and to the Gentiles." Acts xxvi. 22, 23. Luke xxiv. 44-48. But there were far more things in which the Jews were as plainly right-and right, because they "believed the things which are written in the law and in the prophets." For example-"They had hope towards God, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and of the unjust; which they themselves also allowed." Acts xxiv. 14, 15. According to the scriptures, then, to receive a doctrine as it was generally received by the Jews before Christ, by no means necessarily proved that doctrine as so received to be either wrong or incomplete.

Now, with regard to the particular doctrines advocated by the discourse, we cannot perceive the fairness of the reproach. We do not Judaize in a bad sense. Let us There are two forms of

look at the case.

error mentioned in the scriptures, with which the term Judaism is associated in a bad sense. The first is the Jewish denial

that "Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ of God." 1 John i. 22,-v. 1. But does any

one really believe the doctrines set forth by us as chargeable with this heresy? The other is the early attempt of the "believing Pharisees," and others, to maintain that the blood of Christ was not of itself sufficient for salvation; and, therefore, that "it was needful to circumcise the Gentiles, and to command them to keep the law of Moses." In other words, the Gentiles must become outwardly Jews, or "they could not be saved." Acts xv. 1-5. But here, again, we cannot believe that our brethren would seriously charge us with denying that the "blood of Christ cleanses from all sin."

The slur attached to the name, then, being removed from us, we may now return and ask-how does the fact that the doctrines we have advocated were received by the Jews before Christ, necessarily prove that they are wrong? For what, after all,

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