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two narratives of his birth, which are, in my judgment, manifeftly contradictory, I prefer that, as being agreeable to the tenor of prophecy, which reprefents him as the Son of Jofeph, to that which describes him as the fon of Mary alone.

These two accounts, I repeatedly declare, are, in my judgment, manifeftly contradictory, because I entirely difapprove of, and condemn, the practice of ingeniously refining away the plain obvious meaning of a direct affirmation, viz. I have found him of whom Mofes and the prophets did write, Jefus of Nazareth, the Son of Jofeph,' into as abfolute a negation, viz. that Jefus was not the fon of Joseph, but merely fo fuppofed to be by the unbelieving Jews. But, alas! the word of God muft be handled deceitfully, in order to make this affertion harmonize with the difcordant account of the fupernatural birth.

O wretched fophiftry! may I ever avoid thy artifices, bufied as thou art in darkening the truth with falfhood, and entangling it in thy cobweb snares! I intend to

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hold faft the fure word of prophecy,' confequently, reject the merely maternal origin of Chrift, as a fiction, and being unauthorized by prophecy, either to believe in a rational being of the mafculine gender, born of a woman, though unbegotten by a man,

to denominate fuch a being a man, do not hesitate to pronounce, that this monftrous undefinable creature can be found only in the brains of metaphyficians, engendered therein by the Gentile mythology of the Chriftian Platonists; men who knew not how to refufe' their former 'profane and old wives fables,' alluded to by Paul in 1 Tim. iv. 7. and were addicted to "vain bablings, the oppofitions of fcience falsely fo called, and the foolish and unlearned queftions, which engender ftrifes;' and which the fame great apostle exhorts his convert Timothy to avoid.' By the bye, to these schoolmen of Alexandria the Chriftian world feems to be indebted, for the introduction of the obfervation of faints days, engrafted on the celebration of the feria of the Heathen deities, and abfurdly established by law, in the Chriftian countries of England and Wales.

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And now, methinks, I fee a well meaning, half converted Ifraelite, who is halting between two opinions, hefitating between Judaifm and Chriftianity, advancing towards me, and thus, with an air of frankness and fincerity, accofting me, 'Chriftian friend! it is very plain, you revere the • divine prophecies delivered to my forefathers, found the Meffiahfhip of Jefus on thofe prophecies, and, above all, forsake not our common father, the God of my fathers, Abraham, Ifaac, and Jacob. It is impoffible for me to believe that the Jefus of Abraham Jacobs, that Jewish apoftate from the worship of the one true Jehovah, can be the promised Meffiah. Though I should admit, for argument fake, that he has already appeared about eighteen hundred years agone, as the followers of Jefus maintain, that our unbelieving ancestors crucified him, by the hands of the Romans, and that the predictions concerning a fuffering Meffiah, and a future king of Ifrael, relate to one and the fame perfon, and are, and will be • fulfilled in Jefus Chrift; yet it is easy to ⚫ convict this wretched renegado of a most H 3 • barefaced

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barefaced impofture, because he afcribes a 'character to his fictitious Meffiah, which our Scriptures deny to our real Meffiah. He blafphemously fets up the claim of his Jefus to one third part of self-existent Deity, fubftituting a three-one imaginary idol, in the ftead of the one fupreme God, in exprefs contradiction to the firft great • truth delivered by Mofes ;' "hear "O Ifrael! the Lord our God is one Lord," or Jehovah alone. But this unhappy man has forfaken him, is revolted, and gone from worshipping the Lord our God with all his heart, to the will worship of an

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idol; for this fuppofed triune divine ex

iftence, being a nothing in the world, bears all the effential characteristics of an idol, equally with Baalim and Ashtoreth, • the heathen vanities of our idolatrous forefathers. Jacobs's new God therefore be⚫ing plainly an idol, a trine portion of that • idol could not be our Meffiah; nor was it a thing practicable by our forefathers, to put to death a third part of the fupreme felf-exiftent God, he, the one Lord our God, being impaffible, or incapable of fuffering both in whole and in part,

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' yet

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yet this shockingly impious doctrine is neceffarily inferred from his aforefaid Athathanafion trinity in unity. He cannot

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' avoid this confequential tenet without adding inconfiftency to abfurdity, and retiring behind the impregnable fortrefs of incomprehenfible mystery, not aware that the man of implicit faith, who profeffes to believe what he cannot understand, is a dupe to his own inconceivable folly.

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From the Athanafian God Meffiah of the impoftor Jacobs, I pass to the Arian demi-god Meffiah, or God-man Meffiah. Certainly theArians must be acknowledged 'not to have deviated fo far from the plain beaten track of common fenfe, as the Athanafians, yet ftill they maintain an 'hypothefis inconfiftent with it, and utterly irreconcileable with the tenor of our prophecies concerning the Meffiah. To do them justice, they deny the poffibility of the paffion, or painful fuffering of the Supreme Being. But they, in like manner, too much addicted to that common predominant foible, on attachment to an ænigmatic fyftem of Theology, have inH 4 'troduced

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