prophecies concerning the national glory is so far from forming an objection against the claims of our Lord, that it is one of the proofs of his Messiahship. When Moses promised the Messiah as the prophet like unto himself, he adds' And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.' National unbelief required, therefore, national punishment. The infliction of it so soon after the crucifixion of our Lord, and the continuance of it ever since, though the Jews were then and still are free from idolatry, is one of the most signal proofs that he is the prophet promised by Moses. Besides, Daniel declared that after the coming of the Messiah the city and the temple should be destroyed. David teaches that Messiah is not to have his kingdom upon earth until he first ascend to the right hand of God, there to wait until his enemies be made his footstool; and Daniel fixes the time of his kingdom to his return in the clouds of heaven for the destruction of the fourth monarchy, all three predictions utterly incompatible with the Jewish assumption, that all the prophecies must be fulfilled at his first advent. The two states of glory and humiliation, as well as express prophetic declarations, necessarily imply that there were to be two advents—one to suffer, the other to reign, and that a long season was to intervene between the two. The non-fulfilment, therefore, of certain prophecies is so far from being a difficulty, that it is a proof that Jesus was the Messiah, and another argument for the divine origin of the prophecies. What has been said is sufficient to remove the force of the Jewish objection; what remains must be reserved for another occasion. LECTURE IV. LUKE XXIV. 25, 26. Then said he unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? HE stone at which the Jewish nation in general, THE and our Lord's disciples in particular, stumbled in the time of the first advent, was the absence of all that glory, peace, and piety which, from Moses to Malachi, formed the theme of Jewish prophets. It was not that they entirely rejected the divine word, but only that they overlooked one portion of it. It was not that they erred in that which they received. Their sin was that they did not receive enough; and hence it is that our Lord does not blame them for their expectations of glory, but gently reproves them for not believing also the predictions of humiliation, 'O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to have entered into his glory?' The same stumbling-block still remains. Is it not our highest wisdom to follow our Lord's method for its removal. In the lectures already delivered, two arguments have been offered in proof that the predictions of the Old Testament are of divine origin, and that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah. The first taken from those prophecies, the fulfilment of which we see with our own eyes-the second, from those the accomplishment of which is recorded in the gospels. There remains one class more of prophecies to be considered, those, namely, which still continue unfulfilled, and upon this class the unbelieving Jew of every age and nation has based his most powerful objection to the truth of Christianity. The prophets, say they, announce the kingdom of Messiah as a kingdom of glory contemporaneous with the prosperity of Israel and the peace of the world. The kingdom of Jesus has, however, been a kingdom of humiliation and patience. The Jews are still a dispersed and suffering people-and to this hour the world groans under the sway of ignorance and violence. To this effect was the objection of the Jew of Ephesus, when, speaking of the seventh chapter of Daniel, he said, 'These and similar passages of Scripture give us reason to expect some great and glorious person, who, like the Son of man, is to receive from the ancient of days an everlasting kingdom. But this Messiah of yours, who is called Christ, was so inglorious, mean, and despicable, as to fall under the greatest curse in the law of God: for he was crucified:* and again, 'Because Elias is not yet come, we do not believe that he is the Christ.' To the same effect, after a lapse of thirteen centuries, the * Brown, Dialog. with Tryph., I. 135. rabbinic polemic* of Poland collects a multitude of prophetic declarations, and specifies particularly ten promises of God relating to the Messiah's kingdom, but not yet accomplished in the history of Christianity. The first, announcing the restoration and union of the twelve tribes, as predicted by Ezekiel; the second, the invasion and fall of Gog and Magog on the mountains of Israel; the third, the cleaving asunder of the Mount of Olives, as announced by Zechariah; the fourth, the drying up of the Nile and the Euphrates, agreeably to the words of Isaiah; the fifth, the flowing of living waters from the sanctuary in Jerusalem, as foretold by Ezekiel and Zechariah; the sixth, the adhesion of ten Gentiles to one Jew; the seventh, the ascent of all nations to Jerusalem to keep the feast of tabernacles, both promises found in Zechariah; the eighth, the similar declaration of Isaiah that the Gentiles shall go up from new moon to new moon, and from sabbath to sabbath, to worship the Lord of Hosts; the ninth, the total cessation of idolatry; and the tenth, the universal dominion of the one true religion. These promises, he says, have never yet been fulfilled, and hence infers that Jesus is not the Messiah. In the same spirit, the more modern controversialist of Amsterdamt says, 'No Christian divine has yet proved that any of these startling promises were fulfilled by the advent of Jesus, that any one of these signs and prophecies has been accomplished, * R. Isaac, pn in Wagenseil's Tela Ignea Satanæ. |