Chapter 6

"These are the words of the covenant, which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb. And Moses called unto all Israel, and said unto them; ye stand this day all of you before the Lord your God, your captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel; your little ones, your wives, and the stranger that is in thy camp, from the hewer of thy wood to the drawer of thy water; that thou shouldest enter into covenant with the Lord thy God, &c. Deut. ch. xxix.

And what was the covenant? why, as the reader may find by perusing the rest of this piece of history in the Pentateuch, it was the reimposition of the Law of Moses upon the new generation of Israelites, who were children when their fathers came out of Egypt. So that Mr. Everett must see, that God's making a new covenant, can be accompanied with a reimposition of the law, since in the instance considered, he has actually done it once before.

I have, however, another passage in reserve, which must compel Mr. Everett to resign his unfounded opinions on this subject.

Moses, the giver of the law, after predicting most exactly what should befall the Jewish nation for disobedience to it, in the 28th chapter of Deuteronomy, proceeds in the 30th ch. to inform them, that the time would come, when "the Lord their God will turn their captivity and have compassion upon them, and will return and gather them from all the nations whither the Lord their God hath scattered them."

"If thy dispersion,[fn84] (says the lawgiver) shall be unto the utmost parts of heaven, from thence will the Lord thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee. And the Lord thy God will bring thee unto the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and he will do thee good and multiply thee above thy fathers, and the Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live. And the Lord thy God will put all these curses upon thine enemies, and on them that hate thee, and which persecuted thee. And thou shall return, and obey the voice of the Lord, AND DO ALL HIS COMMANDMENTS WHICH I COMMANDED ON THAT DAY." Deut. ch. XXX. [fn85]

In accordance with this express prediction of Moses, that when the Israelites should be gathered out of all countries into their own land, God would give them a heart and disposition to love the Lord their God, and to do all his commandments which Moses was then delivering to them are the prophecies of Ezekiel; who in his last chapters, after giving a prophecy of the general return of the descendants of Jacob to their own land, proceeds to predict the division of the country, between the Mediterranean and the Euphrates, among the restored tribes; and minutely describes the plan, parts, offices, and ceremonies, of a new and eternal temple to be raised upon the ancient site of that of Solomon, that is to be consecrated by the re-establishment of the magnificent ritual of Moses, with augmented splendour.

That the prophecy of Moses, and those of Ezekiel, referred to, have never yet been fulfilled, is undeniable; and that they will be fulfilled, will not be doubted by a Christian; and can hardly be disbelieved by a Sceptic, who will take the trouble to compare the history of "the eternal people,"[fn86] with the predictions concerning it which have been fulfilled to the letter.

Mr. Everett, in the 449 page of his work, speaks rather contemptuously of the law of Moses. It is somewhat unusual to see a descendant of savage wanderers of the woods, who painted themselves blue in order to look handsome,[fn87] and whose posterity, and among them Mr. Everett himself, might so far as religion and morals is concerned, but for the instruction originally derived from the law of Moses, be still in the same respectable state, speaking lightly of a Book to which every nation on the Globe, who have any rational ideas of God or futurity, are absolutely indebted for that invaluable knowledge. The Jewish, Christian, and Mohammedan religions, by which so many of our unfortunate race have been brought to a knowledge of God, and made candidates for an eternity of bliss, are all founded on, and derived from the Pentateuch. If that Book had never existed, those religions could not have existed. All that part of mankind who have any claims to reason in their Religion, are therefore indebted to this Jew Book for the benefit.

Nor is this all the wonder. The sublime and fundamental Doctrine of the Pentateuch--One God--Eternal and Supreme---the Almighty Creator and tremendous Avenger--can be traced up to Abraham, that wandering shepherd who at the command of God left his country and his father's house, to go to a foreign land., where he lived and died a stranger and a pilgrim.

What ideas should we entertain of a man whose tent was frequented by angels, and with whom the Supreme "conversed face to face, as a man talketh with his friend!" of a man who lived and died a shepherd, yet to whom it was predicted four thousand years ago, by Him whose word never fails that "his name should be great, that it should be a blessing, and that in his seed should all the nations of the earth be blessed." Sceptic! has not this prophecy been fulfilled? Is not the name of Abraham a theme of blessing to the Jew--the Christian--the Magian--and the Musselman? Is not his name pronounced with reverence throughout the four continents of the Globe. Has not the earth been blessed in his seed? Is there a nation or people upon it, who have any rational ideas of God or futurity, who have not derived them from Moses, Jesus, or Mohammed? Are we not indebted to these descendants of this wonderful man,[fn89] for the consolations which support the soul under the trials of life, and for the faith and hope that smooth the bed of death? assuredly-- assuredly. The events of past ages have verified the divine origin of the prediction, and ages to come will still farther confirm it.

Mr. Everett objects to the law of Moses, its multiplied forms and ceremonies; but these were mostly not obligatory upon the whole nation, but upon one tribe set apart to this duty, and who had nothing else to do.[fn90]

The influence of these rights [fn91] and ceremonies--and no religion can perpetually exist without them, for after all the [fn92] man is the slave of his senses, and powerfully affected by the impressions made upon them--cannot be doubted by one who attentively considers their amazing magnificence.

A temple blazing with the most precious productions of the mine,[fn93] and inaccessible to all but the consecrated descendants of one man, standing at the extremity of an immense area covered with variegated marble, and surrounded by magnificent corridors and porticos; a gorgeous host of nearly forty thousand priests,[fn94]: to minister at the ever smoking altar, and to nourish the eternal fire; the golden ewer containing the hallowed blood of atonement, and the censer streaming [fn95] clouds of fragrance, in the hands of the trembling descendant of Aaron approaching the inner sanctuary of the INVISIBLE AND ALMIGHTY; three hundred sons of song, accompanied with psaltery and cymbal, and "the harp with a solemn sound," resounding the attributes of HIM WHO IS, AND EVER SHALL BE;[fn96] and hundreds of thousands of worshippers prostrating their foreheads on the pavement in awe and extacy, as the temple shines forth with the Shechinah, streaming its rainbow glories into the heart of heaven, and covering the earth with its effulgence, plainly showing that GOD IS THERE! This, all this Mr. Everett pronounces, "all calculated to occupy the attention of a simple and unfeeling [fn97] people." p. 344.[fn98] There is, not however, a philosopher on earth that would [fn99] walk barefoot over its whole circumference to witness such a sight.

With this terminates my reply to Mr. Everett. I leave it to his consideration, whether he has fulfilled the magnificent promises held out to the public in the splendid table of contents prefixed to his book, from which it should seem as if I were actually crushed into the dust; and I leave it to the consideration of my abused and deluded countrymen, whether the heavy artillery of the law and the prophets, which I have wheeled but from the Old Testament, has not fairly blown the old board fences behind which a crazy superstition is ensconced, and which Mr. Everett has painted up to look like real fortifications, and mounted with quaker guns, to splinters and fragments.

THE SLING.

WHAT was the real history and character of Jesus Christ?

Mr. Everett had a right to consider my expressions, relative to this subject contained in my first work, as "far from being explicit;" for in fact I hardly knew what to think of the unparalelled son of Mary. That he was a pious and blameless man, I conceived that no man of good heart could doubt, while the supposition that he claimed to be the Messiah, I believed and still believe to be incompatible with such a character as his.

With the reader's permission, I will now state what I conceive may have been the real truth with regard to him.

I believe that Jesus of Nazareth was certainly a righteous man, and probably one who wished to bring back his countrymen, to a rational observance of the law, and to abandon their traditions.

He appeared in an age when the religious part of the Jewish nation had made the law in many respects of none effect by those traditions, and had rendered their religion a stumbling block to the Gentiles, by reason of the puerile superstitions they had added to it: thus counteracting the express design, for which they had been set apart from other nations, viz. to bring them to the knowledge and acknowledgement of the unity and supremacy of God;) and violating the command of Moses, "ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people." Deut. ch. iv.-- and when the irreligious part of the nation, had become dreadfully corrupt.

The Jewish people at that time were oppressed and despised; the prophets of the Old Testament had taught them to believe that at a time when their oppressions should be at their height, their Messiah should appear. Of consequence the appearance of such a man as Jesus Christ, at that time when they considered themselves as crushed under the Roman yoke, possibly led them or some of them to believe that he might be their expected deliverer. But the Jewish nation at that time were unworthy of such a deliverance. They longed for their Messiah, not for righteousness, but for vengeance sake; not to hail him as the benefactor of the human race, but as the avenger of their wrongs upon all the world who had crushed and despised them.

Such a people were not the lawful candidates for the happiness of the eternal kingdom; and they afterwards learned, by the event of their struggle with the Romans, that they must not expect deliverance till they had become less unworthy of it.

Jesus, by preaching against the traditions of the elders, by not observing the Sabbath day so rigidly as the Pharisees, by denouncing them as hypocrites, tithers of mint anise and cummin, washers of plates and platters, and neglecters of the weightier matters of the law, justice, judgment, and mercy, as serpents, a generation of vipers, whited sepulchres, and what not, had enraged these superstitious fanatics to the last degree. But they could not wreak their vengeance, because he was protected, by the people whom the gospels represent as expecting with the most anxious impatience, that he would announce himself as their deliverer.[fn100] But when repeated importunity, accompanied by an attempt to seize upon him and by compulsion oblige him to head them, terminated only in causing Jesus to escape and withdraw himself from their wishes [fn101] the people were disgusted, and abandoned him.

The Chief Priests and Pharisees took advantage of this abandonment, to seize him and deliver him to the Roman governor as a dangerous man, who either was willing to head the people against the Romans, or who might be made the pretext of an insurrection, as the people had shown a disposition to recognize him as the Messiah. [fn102] Such I believe to be as near an approximation to the true history of Jesus Christ, as can be made at this day.

Let us now review the points I have endeavoured to establish in this work.

1. I have endeavoured to show that the miracles, supposed by Mr. Everett to have been wrought by Jesus in proof of his Messiahship, cannot be proved; because that the New Testament is not to be depended on as competent testimony for the real history and real doctrines of Jesus of Nazareth; and therefore, that the question of his Messiahship must in all events be decided by an appeal to the Old Testament.

2. It has been shown, that the prophecies of the Messiah contained in the Old Testament, have not been fulfilled in Jesus; and that those prophecies which Mr. Everett regards as proofs of the Christian religion, were also not fulfilled in Jesus.

3. It has been shown that the law of Moses was intended for a perpetual law for the Jewish nation, "through all their generations forever;" and of course that it is, and must be perpetually obligatory upon them; and consequently whether JESUS BE THE MESSIAH, OR NOT, the Jews are bound to adhere to the law of Moses.[fn104]

4. It has been shown, that [fn105] it is absolutely impossible to know the real history of Jesus with certainty; the Jews and Christians ought for the future to consider his character, not as a subject of dispute, nor an occasion of quarrel, much less as a cause of mutual aversion, but merely as a matter of speculation.

Should these positions ever be recognised by the Jews and Christians as reasonable and true, let us consider what, may be the consequence.

1. The Christians become sensible, that the New Testament is not to be depended on, would cease to hate, to persecute, and to annoy the unfortunate Jews, on account of their rejecting its doctrines.

2. The Christians would themselves adhere to the Old Testament, as the rock and rule of faith and morals; and would worship with the Jews the One Jehovah, without equal or companion, and obey the moral law of the Old Testament, leaving the observance of its ceremonial institutions to the nation for whom they were intended:[fn106] like the "devout Gentiles" in the time of Josephus and Christ.

3. The Jews, seeing the Christians Unitarians as well as themselves, would cease to regard the Christians as impious idolaters, and cruel enemies.

4. Both parties would worship and serve God as brethren, and children of the same father; and await in faith and hope the appearance of the GREAT PERSONAGE, who is to make them and all the good part of mankind, perfectly happy.

Should what I have written have any tendency to promote union and friendly feelings, between the parties to a dispute which has for nearly eighteen hundred years occasioned such cruel oppressions and bloody persecutions to the side which is in the right, I shall not have lived in vain; and though the cause in which I have exerted myself has occasioned me much detriment and distress,[fn107] and may possibly ultimately oblige me to die in a foreign land, without a friend to close my eyes; I comfort my heart with the hope, that I may have done somewhat for the great cause of truth, justice, and humanity, and for the promotion of mutual regard and friendly feelings, among a very large portion of the human race.

APPENDIX.

A

For instance, it is said in the 2d. ch. of the Gospel called of Mathew, that Jesus, when brought out of Egypt by his parents, "came and dwelt in the city called Nazereth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet. "He shall be called a Nazerene."

Now there is no such passage as this throughout the Old Testament: the author of the Gospel called of Mathew must therefore, it seems to me, have forged this supposed prophecy out of his own head, or must have mistaken the sense of some passage in the Old Testament: if he was capable of either, he was not the honest and inspired Mathew, the Apostle of Jesus Christ. There is a passage in the Old Testament, which might have led a Gentile, ignorant of the Jewish Scriptures into this mistake, but could not have misled a Jew. In the history of Sampson Judges xiii. 5. it is said, "that he should be a Nazarite unto God from the womb." But a Nazerite was one thing and a Nazarene another: the first was a man who had a peculiar vow upon him, described Numbers. 7. ch., but a Nazarene was a man belonging the city of Nazereth in Palestine. The quotation is a proof with me, that the author of the Gospel ascribed to Matthew was a Gentile, of course not Matthew who was a Jew, and incapable of making such a blunder.[fn108]

Again, in the Gospel called of Matthew ch. xxvii. a passage is quoted as a prophetic proof text from Jeremiah, says the author. "Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet saying, and they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value; and gave them for the Potters field, as the Lord appointed me." There is no such passage as this in "Jeremy the prophet," nor in any of the Books of the Old Testament. But Jerom asserts, that it was taken from an Apocryphal Book ascribed to Jeremiah; he says that he saw the apocryphal book from whence this is taken. See Jerom's Commentary upon Matthew tom. iv. p. 1. p. 134, See also Marsh's Michaelis Vol. I. p. 490. as quoted by Mr. Everett.

It appears to me, that an honest man would not quote, as prophetical authority, a forged book ascribed to Jeremiah: and an inspired man as the Christians suppose Matthew to have been, still less.

In short the quotations in the New testament from the Old, adduced as prophecies of Jesus and the Religion of the New Testament, are so very inapplicable to that purpose, that the most celebrated of the Christian. Theologians of the present day, have found themselves obliged to abandon all attempts to support them as prophecies fulfilled in the events to which they are applied. They maintain, as will appear hereafter in the course of this work, that not one of the passages, quoted in the New Testament from the Old, was quoted as a prophecy, but merely by way of accommodation or allusion. If so, it may be replied, that it is very extraordinary, that the authors of the books of the New Testament who are almost continually representing that Jesus was predicted by the prophets, should after all never have adduced one of those predictions, although they are perpetually quoting the Old Testament. But the truth of the matter probably is, that the writers of the New Testament, did firmly believe that the passages they have quoted, were really predictions of the events and doctrines to which they refer them. This is clear from the Epistle to the Hebrews for instance, it is a deliberate and formal defence of the Doctrines of Christianity, addressed to the Jews, or Jewish Christians, in which the author attempts to show from the Old Testament, allowed by the Jews as oracular, that the Pre- existence, Divinity, Priesthood, and Atonement of Jesus Christ, as supposed by the Christians, were predicted in the Old Testament, and proved by his citations.[fn109]

Who is so blind as not to see, that this system of Defence is merely one of the last resort, adopted in circumstances of distress for want of a better?

Sure I am, that the believing part of the Christian Laity will never adopt this System, (though the unbelieving part probably gladly will) but would be extremely shocked on being told by their Clergy, that the passages quoted from the Old Testament by the writers of the New, which they and their predecessors from the 2nd century downwards have been accustomed to regard as veritable predictions of Jesus, and introduced too by such solemn prefaces as the following, "all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying" &c, or, "in this was fulfilled that which was spoken by the prophet saying" &c--were not after all adduced as prophecies, but merely by way of allusion.[fn110]

PASSAGES FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT REFERRING TO THE MESSIAH AND THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF HIS KINGDOM.

"Shiloh shall come, and to him shall the obedience of the peoples be." Ac. to the Hebr. Gen. xlix. 10.

"The adversaries of Jehovah shall be broken in pieces; out of Heaven shall He thunder upon them; Jehovah shall judge the ends of the earth; and he shall give strength unto his king, and exalt the horn of his Messiah." I Sam. ch. il. 10.

"These be the last words of David. David the son of Jesse said, and the man who was exalted on high, the Messiah of the God of Jacob, [See the Hebr.] and the sweet Psalmist of Israel. The Spirit of Jehovah spake by me, and his word was [fn111] in my tongue. The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me. He that ruleth over mankind [or the human race. See the Hebr.] shall be just, ruling in the fear of God, And he shall be as the light of the morning when the sun ariseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain.--But the sons of Belial shall be all of them as thorns thrust away, because they cannot be taken with hands; but the man that shall touch them must be fenced with iron, and the staff of a spear; and they shall be utterly burned with fire in the same place." 2. Sam. ch. xxiii, 1.--7.

" I have set my king upon my holy hill of Zion, I will declare the decree, Jehovah hath said unto me. Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee; ask of me, and I shall give thee the nations for thy inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron: thou shall dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." Ps. 2. See also Ps. 21.