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terion of truth and falfhood, which Paul recommends, viz. Search the Scriptures,' the prophecies of the Old Testament, whether these things are fo.' This would be an employment of their precious time, and literary pains, both fatisfactory to themfelves and beneficial to the Chriftian cause. They would then learn to distinguish between the manifeft contrariety of the miraculous conception of Mary, and the sole feminine origin of Jefus, related in unauthentic paffages of the New Teftament, to the tenor of the prophecies, and the perfect agreement with them of genuine Christian Scripture, which reprefents Chrift

as a man of the feed of David, the fon of man, and of Jofeph, the husband of Mary;' neither depriving him of his conjugal honors, nor defcribing him as an old dotard, who had married a young woman; for fuch he is depictured in thofe pieces, ftiled the holy family, and the flight into Egypt, which are the works of the most celebrated artifts, of the Italian, Flemish, Dutch, and English schools of painting, without any warrant from Scripture. But furely it is merely time and labor loft to obtrude on the

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public nominal harmonies of the four Gofpels, which Gofpels, however they may tally in many instances, in this, and perhaps in others, really clafh, and are inconfiftent, not merely with each other, but with themfelves; exempli gratia; What can be more incongruous than Matthew i. 18. with Matthew xiii. 55. or than Luke i. 34, 35with Luke iv. 22?

I give theologists credit for the goodness of their intentions, and verily believe they mean, by fuch compofitions, to effectually refute the Deifts. But they have mistaken the means; for, by afferting a confiftency between texts, as oppofite to each other as light and darkness, they have, in particular, confirmed them in their unbelief, and done great differvice to the caufe of Christianity in general. On the other hand, if, moving in their proper fphere, they had proved all things,' recorded of the perfon and birth of Chrift, in the prefent established canon of the New Teftament, by the prophecies which went before concerning him,' compared them together, boldly pointed out the difference between them in fome inftances, and their agreement in others, and atlaft had

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holden fast that which is good,' or embraced, as true, those particulars only, concerning Chrift, in which Gospels and Epiftles coincide with the written predictions relating to him, believing and faying none other things than those, which Mofes and the prophets did fay fhould come,' they would have merited the thanks of all rational believers, and put infidelity to a non-plus. Infidelity, in that cafe, deprived of fupport from her unfkilful antagonists, must have recurred to her old ftale trick of falfely fuppofing, with her great champion Porphyry, that the prophecies themselves were a forgery, and written after the events, to which they refer, had taken place.

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What concord has Chrift with Belial ?' afks the apostle in a moral fenfe. Even fo, in a doctrinal fignification, what agreement hath Ifaiah with Athanafius, Arius, and Socinus? The fuperftition of the idolator is not more at variance with the religion of the Chriftian, than is the doctrine of Christian Platonifts, of various denominations, with the predictions of the prophet. The Athanafians, or Pfeudo-Athanafians,

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reprefent, O horrible! your Meffiah as the incarnate God; the Arians, or Apollinarians, as a pre-exiftent little God, and a post-exiftent God-man; and the Socinians as a virginborn man, rejecting the nonfenfical hypothefes of the two former fects, but yet agreeing with them in the monstrous figment of the miraculous conception of his virgin mother, Mary, and his confequent birth from her womb alone, to the utter exclufion of an human father. But Ifaiah, your lawgiver, Mofes, and the prophet Jeremiah, defcribe your Meffiah a man,' and fpeak of him as a rod out of the stem. of Jeffe, a branch out of his] roots, and a root of Jeffe.' Your lawgiver, Mofes, thus records the promised bleffing to be fulfilled in the Meffiah, In thy,' Abraham's, feed hall all the nations of the earth be bleft;' and prophetically declares, the Lord, your God, will raife up unto thee,' the people of Ifrael, a prophet, of thy brethren, like unto me.' Jeremiah predicts, I,' the Lord, will raife unto David, a righteous Branch.' See Ifaiah liii. 3. xi. 1, 10. Gen. xxii. 18. Deut. xviii. 15. Jerem.

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xxiii. 5:

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Hence alfo the Meffiah is emphatically ftiled the branch; I,' the Lord of hofts,

' will bring forth my fervant, the branch; behold, the man, whofe name is the branch;' Zech. iii. 8. and vi. 12. Lastly, being the branch from David, the prophets Jeremiah, Hosea, and Ezekiel, call him, according to their Oriental license of expreffion, by the very name of his royal progenitor, ftiling him David, in the following prediction of events yet unfulfilled; "They,' the people Ifrael and Judah, hall ferve David, their king, whom I,' the Lord their God, will raife up unto them,' Jer. XXX. 9. Afterward fhall the children of Ifrael feek David their king,' Hofea iii. 5.

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I will fet up one fhepherd over them,' the flock, Ifrael, and he fhall feed them, even my fervant David, and I the Lord will be their God, and my fervant David a prince among them; and David my fervant shall be king over them: and my fervant David shall be their prince for ever,' Ezek. xxxiv. 23, 24. and xxxvii. 24, 25.

With this prophetic defcription of the Meffiah in the Old Teftament, delivered

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