the circumstances of his death, without delay; or that he should be condemned by the whole assembly of the people.

We have it in our choice, either to believe that all this concurrence of circumstances was purely accidental; or to suppose that the Jewish history and the Mosaic law were connected from the beginning with the death of Jesus, which had been determined in the counsels of God. Had this been God's purpose, it cannot be considered unnatural that he should have given such gradual intimations of it, as are conveyed in the Jewish law and history. The existence of such intimations affords strong evidence to us at the present day, confirming other testimony, and proving the truth of what is implied throughout the Gospel, that the crucifixion of Jesus was the divine purpose from the earliest ages. It might have afforded in a higher degree this evidence to a Jew. When the teachers of the Gospel first claimed his attention," the Jew should have reasoned thi with himself. Do they say that Jesus

4

our redemption? So did the paschal lamb die to redeem our whole nation in Egypt. Did he ascend afterwards into heaven? So did our high priest go yearly into the most holy place, carrying thither the blood of a sacrifice slain in the worldly sanctuary. Is there no remission of sins without shedding of blood? There certainly was none under the law. Has Jesus appointed a baptism with water? So had our law its purifications for the washing away of uncleanness. Numberless other questions might be asked, which would bring their own answers with them out of the law of Moses; and such was the use which the Jew ought to have made of it 5."

I think, then, it must be allowed, that the existence of these points in the Jewish law and history, affords additional authority to the Christian religion, instead of diminishing anything from it. That it did not grow naturally out of the Jewish religion, is clear as was before shown, because it opposed the existing opi

5 Jones on Figurative Language of Scripture.

nions of those who professed that religion at the time of its promulgation. If I divert into a new channel a stream which has been long flowing in its native bed, and so make it contribute to serve and aid some important purpose, that effect cannot be ascribed to the natural current of the stream, which, but for my interference, would have continued to flow on as before. My purpose may indeed receive great advantage from the stream originally existing. But the new direction has a cause independent of the original stream. So in the case we are considering a party of adventurers, educated, as far as they were educated at all, in a bigoted attachment to the practice of their ancestors, rise up and oppose the current of the national belief: announce the termination of their law, and point out indications in their ancient history and institutions, which prove that such was the original purpose of its author. But whence came the impulse which urged them to this attempt? And how came they to meet with confirmation and collateral support from institu

tions and occurrences over which they could have no control?

These difficulties vanish, if we believe that the Christian religion really came from God. Allowing this, we should expect it to agree with his former revelation, and to belong to a connected plan. And it does so, in a remarkable degree. It gives to the leading features of the Jewish law a consistency which they are otherwise in want of, and it affixes a reasonable signification to facts which cannot otherwise be easily explained. It does not only fulfil prophetic words, but accomplishes prophetic facts. And this, it must be acknowledged, greatly increases the difficulty of supposing that it was the invention of a body of Jews who had been deluded to follow a pretended Messiah.

II. It may be thought, further, that a design like that attributed to the followers of Jesus would be greatly assisted by the prophecies recorded in their national Scriptures, and point

ing to some remarkable personage who was expected to appear.

1. For example: the time of this appearance was fixed by the prophet Daniel at about four hundred and ninety years from his own days; which so closely corresponded with the birth of Jesus, that such an event was looked for, by "devout persons," at the very period when it occurred. This would be, as was before observed, a circumstance greatly in their favour.

2. The next thing to be considered by the framers of this deceit, would be the place of their leader's birth. Jesus was born at Bethlehem. Upon consulting their Scriptures, they would find this passage respecting Bethlehem: "Thou Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be a ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been

6 Dan. ix. 24. Luke, ii. 25.