Five Pebbles from the Brook Part 10

[fn99 after "would" insert "not"]

[fn100 "And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch. Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, how long dost thou draw our souls asunder? If thou be the Messiah, tell us plainly." John x, 23, 24. See the original Greek.]

[fn101 When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come, and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain, himself alone." John vi. 15.]

[fn102 It is remarkable that the gospels represent Jesus as refusing to acknowledge himself to the Jews as the Messiah. The gospels say, that Jesus confided his Messiahship to the disciples as a secret, with express injunctions not to betray it. "Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was the Messiah." Mat. xvi. 20. See also Mark viii. 29. and Luke ix. 21.

This makes it possible that he never did claim that character, and that the glory [fn103] in the gospels that he had told it as a secret to his disciples, was invented in order to furnish a reply to the Jews, who might have told the first Christians, that Jesus had never told them so, and of course never pretended to be considered as such, and that the Christians could not justly blame them for rejecting pretensions which Jesus never made to them, to whom especially he ought to have plainly declared them if he wished them to be received. The truth of the matter appears to be, that the notion of the Messiahship of Jesus, had originally no better foundation than the mistaken enthusiasm of his followers.]

[fn103 for "glory" read "story"]

[fn104 The case of the Jews and Christians is parallel to that of "the prophet of Judah," and "the prophet of Bethel." The Christians allow that G.o.d himself gave the law to the Jews, but they say to the Jews that Jesus was ordered by G.o.d to repeal it.

"It was said unto me (says the prophet of Judah) by the word of Jehovah, Thou shalt eat no bread, nor drink water there, (at Bethel the chapel of the golden calf,) nor turn to go by the way that thou camest. He (i. e. the prophet of Bethel) said unto him, I am a. prophet also as thou art; and an angel spake unto me by the word of Jehovah, saying; Bring him back with thee into thine house, that he may eat bread, and drink water. But he lied unto him. So he went back with him, and did eat bread in his house, and drink water."

"And. it came to pa.s.s, as they sat at the table, that the word of Jehovah came unto the prophet that brought him back: and he cried unto the man of G.o.d that came from Judah, saying, Thus saith. Jehovah, forasmuch as thou hast disobeyed the mouth of Jehovah, and hast not kept the commandment which Jehovah thy G.o.d commanded thee, but camest back, and hast eaten bread and drunk water in the place, of the which Jehovah did say unto thee, eat no bread, and drink no water, thy carcase shall not come unto the sepulchre of thy fathers." 1 Kings, ch. xiii.]

[fn105 after "that" insert "as"]

[fn106 1. If the Christians should do this, the fundamental articles of their creed, would be, to love the Lord their G.o.d with all their heart, and with all their mind, and soul, and strength, and to love their neighbours as themselves: for on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

2. If the Christians should do this, they would have precisely the same Scriptures which the apostles and first Christians had, and which they considered as sufficient. Even Paul himself p.r.o.nounces, that the Old Testament was "given by inspiration of G.o.d, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of G.o.d may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." 2 Tim. ch. iii. 16.

3. If the Christians should do this, all the endless and rancourous disputes about the trinity, incarnation, atonement, transubstantiation, worship of the Virgin Mary, the saints, their images and relics, the supremacy of the Pope, et id genus omne, would be quietly laid upon the shelf, and torment mankind no more.

4. The hundred sects into which Christians are divided, would coalesce; for it is the New Testament which keeps them asunder.

So long as that book is believed to contain a Revelation from G.o.d, there can be no peace. For pious and good men who believe that it is of divine authority, and who are zealously disposed to discover from its contents "what is the mind of the spirit," must necessarily be divided in their opinions; BECAUSE the New Testament is not only inconsistent with the Old, but is also inconsistent with itself too; and must therefore necessarily create a diversity of opinions in those who reverence it as the word of G.o.d. This is the grand secret, and everacting cause, which has made scisms in the church.]

[fn107 Mr. Everett, p. 427 of his work, alluding to my antic.i.p.ations in one of my publications, in which I expressed myself as aware of what I should have to encounter, in consequence of my undertaking on behalf of the oppressed, and slandered Jews; says with something like "the charity of a monk, and the meekness of an inquisitor," that "the affecting allusion he (Mr. English,) has made to his prospects in the world, has many a time restrained me, when I ought to have used the language of indignation."

If a man had told me, that in consequence of my enterprise I should encounter great misfortunes, I should have answered, I expected, and was prepared to meet them. But if he had told me, a native of the New World discovered a few centuries ago, that the time would come when I should write upon this subject, in the very land, and almost on the very spot that gave birth to Moses and the Pharoahs, I should have thought him amusing himself with a jest; nevertheless such is the fact. I write this book; on the banks of old Nile, and in sight of the pyramids.]

[fn108 I have read in a Magazine, of an itinerant Methodist preacher, not perfectly acquainted with the sublime arts of reading and writing, who, in a sermon of his in praise of Industry, alledged as a proof of G.o.d's aversion to idleness, that G.o.d commanded Moses, when he built the Tabernacle in the wilderness, to cover it with "BEGGAR'S SKINS." The English Translation says Ex. ch.

xxvi 14. with BADGER'S SKINS." Now I suppose that if such a quotation from the Old. Testament was found in a work whose t.i.tle page represented it to have been written by Bishop Marsh, that there is not a scholar, in. Christendom, who would not p.r.o.nounce the book to be a forgery.]

[fn109 Mr. Everett says p. 243, of his work that "not one of the books of the New Testament, nor all of them together, were intended to be a forensic defence of Christianity." The-Epistle to the Hebrews, at least, convicts this opinion of mistake.

He says also p. 273., "As to what Mr. English, after Collins, proceeds to say, that the authors of the books of the New Testament always argue absolutely from the quotations they cite as prophecies out of the books of the old Testament, it is so far from being correct, that it is highly notorious, that they do not argue from them at all." Mr. Everett must have felt very desperate to venture upon such an a.s.sertion in the face of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Mr. Everett may succeed with some in facing down argument, but he is mistaken if he thinks, that

"Stubborn facts must still give place "To his unpenetrable face, "Which-makes its way through all affairs, &c. &c."']

[fn110 Bishop Marsh does honour to his English honesty and common sense, in refusing to allow that such strong expressions can signify a mere accommodation of a pa.s.sage in the Old Testament. See his Notes to Michaelis' Introduction to the New Testament.]

[fn111 For "was" read "is"]

[fn112 For 21 read 23]

[fn113 This Psalm is ent.i.tled in the English version "a prayer for Solomon," It should have been translated "a Psalm of Solomon."]

[fn114 Mr. Everett says p. 51. that "the Septuagint discountenances this rendering." What is that to me? I chose to abide by the original Hebrew, and not to follow a blundering, garbled, and interpolated version, which frequently imposes a false sense upon the original, and not unfrequently no sense at all.

more Christiano.]

[fn115 Mr. Everett, p. 52. considers this expression as a decisive proof that the prophecies of the Messiah's kingdom, must be understood figuratively. Is Mr. Everett so ignorant of his Bible as not to know, that it represents that at the beginning animals did not prey upon each other, and if it was so once, which Mr. Everett will not deny, it may be so again. See Gen. ch. i. 30.]

[fn116 for "thus saith" read "this is"]

[fn117 The Greeks, Russians, and Copts will not worship images, for that they say is flagrant idolatry; but they say there is no harm in praying before a picture. Their churches and houses are full of them. I have heard of a Greek bishop who employed a famous Italian painter to make a picture of the bishop's patron, Isaiah [fn118]: when it was finished he refused to take it, and expressed himself much shocked, by its appearance. The painter asked why?

"your picture, said the bishop is scandalous, the figure stands out from the canva.s.s absolutely as if it were a statue; it would be idolatry in me to pray before such a picture."

[fn118 for "patron Isaiah" read "patron saint"]

[fn119 "In the mountain of the height of Israel will I plant it: and it shall bring forth boughs and bear fruit, and be a glorious cedar and under it shall dwell all fowl of every wing; in the shadow (if the branches thereof shall they dwell. And all the trees of the field shall know, that I Jehovah have brought down the high tree, have exalted the low tree, have dried up the green tree, and made the dry tree to flourish, I Jehovah have spoken it and I will do it."

Ezech. xvii. 23.]