Pascal's Pensees Part 56

He is to be the precious corner-stone. Is. xxviii, 16.

He is to be a stone of stumbling and offence. Is. viii. Jerusalem is to dash against this stone.

The builders are to reject this stone. Ps. cxvii, 22.

G.o.d is to make this stone the chief corner-stone.

And this stone is to grow into a huge mountain, and fill the whole earth. Dan. ii.

So He is to be rejected, despised, betrayed (Ps. cviii, 8), sold (Zech.

xi, 12), spit upon, buffeted, mocked, afflicted in innumerable ways, given gall to drink (Ps. lxviii), pierced (Zech. xii), His feet and His hands pierced, slain, and lots cast for His raiment.

He will raise again (Ps. xv) the third day (Hosea vi, 3).

He will ascend to heaven to sit on the right hand. Ps. cx.

The kings will arm themselves against Him. Ps. ii.

Being on the right hand of the Father, He will be victorious over His enemies.

The kings of the earth and all nations will worship Him. Is. lx.

The Jews will continue as a nation. Jeremiah.

They will wander, without kings, etc. (Hosea iii), without prophets (Amos), looking for salvation and finding it not (Isaiah).

Calling of the Gentiles by Jesus Christ. Is. lii, 15; lv, 5; lx, etc.

Ps. lx.x.xi.

Hosea i, 9: "Ye are not my people, and I will not be your G.o.d, when ye are multiplied after the dispersion. In the places where it was said, Ye are not my people, I will call them my people."

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It was not lawful to sacrifice outside of Jerusalem, which was the place that the Lord had chosen, nor even to eat the t.i.thes elsewhere. Deut.

xii, 5, etc.; Deut. xiv, 23, etc.; xv, 20; xvi, 2, 7, 11, 15.

Hosea foretold that they should be without a king, without a prince, without a sacrifice, and without an idol; and this prophecy is now fulfilled, as they cannot make a lawful sacrifice out of Jerusalem.

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_Predictions._--It was foretold that, in the time of the Messiah, He should come to establish a new covenant, which should make them forget the escape from Egypt (Jer. xxiii, 5; Is. xliii, 10); that He should place His law not in externals, but in the heart; that He should put His fear, which had only been from without, in the midst of the heart. Who does not see the Christian law in all this?

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... That then idolatry would be overthrown; that this Messiah would cast down all idols, and bring men into the worship of the true G.o.d.

That the temples of the idols would be cast down, and that among all nations, and in all places of the earth, He would be offered a pure sacrifice, not of beasts.

That He would be king of the Jews and Gentiles. And we see this king of the Jews and Gentiles oppressed by both, who conspire His death; and ruler of both, destroying the worship of Moses in Jerusalem, which was its centre, where He made His first Church; and also the worship of idols in Rome, the centre of it, where He made His chief Church.

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_Prophecies._--That Jesus Christ will sit on the right hand, till G.o.d has subdued His enemies.

Therefore He will not subdue them Himself.

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"... Then they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, saying, Here is the Lord, _for G.o.d shall make Himself known to all._"[273]

"... Your sons shall prophesy."[274] "I will put my spirit and my fear _in your heart_."

All that is the same thing. To prophesy is to speak of G.o.d, not from outward proofs, but from an inward and immediate feeling.

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That He would teach men the perfect way.

And there has never come, before Him nor after Him, any man who has taught anything divine approaching to this.

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... That Jesus Christ would be small in His beginning, and would then increase. The little stone of Daniel.

If I had in no wise heard of the Messiah, nevertheless, after such wonderful predictions of the course of the world which I see fulfilled, I see that He is divine. And if I knew that these same books foretold a Messiah, I should be sure that He would come; and seeing that they place His time before the destruction of the second temple, I should say that He had come.

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_Prophecies._--That the Jews would reject Jesus Christ, and would be rejected of G.o.d, for this reason, that the chosen vine brought forth only wild grapes. That the chosen people would be fruitless, ungrateful, and unbelieving, _populum non credentem et contradicentem_.[275] That G.o.d would strike them with blindness, and in full noon they would grope like the blind; and that a forerunner would go before Him.

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_Transfixerunt._ Zech. xii, 10.

That a deliverer should come, who would crush the demon's head, and free His people from their sins, _ex omnibus iniquitatibus_; that there should be a New Covenant, which would be eternal; that there should be another priesthood after the order of Melchisedek, and it should be eternal; that the Christ should be glorious, mighty, strong, and yet so poor that He would not be recognised, nor taken for what He is, but rejected and slain; that His people who denied Him should no longer be His people; that the idolaters should receive Him, and take refuge in Him; that He should leave Zion to reign in the centre of idolatry; that nevertheless the Jews should continue for ever; that He should be of Judah, and when there should be no longer a king.

SECTION XII