Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

salem informs us of the enormous,villanies practised by them. "It is," says he, "impossible to give a particular account of all their iniquities. Thus much, in general, it may suffice to say, that there never was a city, which suffered such miseries, or a race of men from the beginning of the world, who so abounded in wickedness."

"I verily believe that if the Romans had delayed to destroy these wicked wretches, the city would either have been swallowed up by an earthquake, or overwhelmed by the waters, or struck with fire from heaven like another Sodom: for it produced a far more impious generation than those who suffered such punishment." Can it then be a matter of astonishment, that the gospel should meet with no better reception among such monsters of iniquity? How could the voluptuous Sadducee digest the doctrines of mortification and selfdenial, of taking up his cross, and following the captain of his salvation through sufferings? How could the proud and haughty Pharisee condescend to be meek and lowly, and instead of worshipping God in show, learn to worship him in spirit and in truth? What methods could be taken to win those who were resolved to quarrel with every one? What reason could prevail on them who were never disposed to hear reason, who were always cloudy and sullen, self-willed, and obstinate, and exceedingly mad' against those who differed from them? What more could be done for them who had withstood the last, the utmost means of conviction, and had rendered themselves incapable of mercy, by blasphemy against the Holy Spirit of God, by ascribing to the power of the devil those miracles which had manifestly been wrought by the power of God? No man, said Jesus Christ, can come unto me except the Father, which hath sent me, draw him, (John vi. 44.) No man can embrace the Christian religion without the help of divine grace, (which neither forces the mind, nor controls the moral liberty of man;) and divine grace is justly withheld from those who have made themselves unworthy of it. In short, a judicial infatuation seized the Jews. God left them to that blindness and hardness of heart, which they by their sins had brought upon themselves; so that they could not see with their eyes, and understand with their hearts, and be converted and healed. (John xii. 40.)

A still more evident cause of the rejection of Jesus Christ by the Jews, is to be found in their strong prejudice and adherence to former opinions and practices; by which their understandings were blinded and unable to see the evidence produced. They were offended at the meanness of his life and the ignominy of his death. The prophets had employed the loftiest images to set forth the glories of the Messiah; and, in describing his spiritual kingdom, had borrowed their metaphors from earthly kingdoms. What was thus figuratively spoken, the Jews had expounded literally; and these traditionary expositions, being transmitted from generation to generation,

1 Josephus, De Bell. Jud. lib. v. c. 11. § 5. and c. 13. § 6. The whole of his fourth, fifth, and sixth books abound with instances of the consummate depravity and desperate wickedness of the Jews.

produced in the Jews a notion of a mighty temporal prince ;-a notion highly gratifying to a people whose affairs were on the decline, and whose polity seemed to be tending towards dissolution. Impressed with this expectation, the Jews would not recognise the Messiah in Jesus Christ: they looked for a prince of they knew not what high extraction; but, with respect to Jesus, they took it for granted that he was the carpenter's son. Having learnt from their prophets that Bethlehem was to be the place of the Messiah's nativity, because Jesus resided at Nazareth, they hastily concluded, that he was born there, and that no good thing could come out of Galilee. They were pleasing themselves with gaudy dreams of greatness, with the prospect of conquest and empire; but he declared that his kingdom was not of this world, and accordingly he taught them, not how to shake off the hated Roman yoke, but how to liberate themselves from the greater yoke and tyranny of sin;-not how to triumph over foreign enemies, but how to subdue their domestic adversaries, their lusts and vices. They hoped to enjoy certain rights and privileges above the rest of mankind; but Christ came to break down the wall of partition, and to unite both Jews and Gentiles as one body, under one head. They expected to become lords of the nations, and to have Jerusalem for their seat of empire: and were shocked to hear that their city and temple would be destroyed, and that all who will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution. We know also that, about the time of Christ, there arose many false Messiahs and false prophets, who drew away much people after them. And even those persons, who were too wise to lend an ear to these impostors, would yet many of them become unreasonably suspicious, and mislead themselves for very fear of being misled by others. Seeing so many impostors abroad, they would be apt to regard all men as impostors, and reject the true Messiah among so many false ones. At length, when they saw him put to an ignominious death, that very thing was sufficient to cancel all his miracles, and to convince them that he could not be their Messiah, little considering that he was the Lamb of God that was thus to take away the sins of the world.

Besides the preceding prejudices, which were common to the Jewish nation collectively, the chief priests, scribes, and Pharisees had particular motives for rejecting the gospel. They hated Christ, because he had reproved and openly exposed their pride, their hypocrisy, their uncharitableness, their covetousness, their zeal for traditions: and their hatred against him disposed them to think ill of him, and to do him all ill offices. We need not wonder when we find them upon all occasions opposing and calumniating him, if we consider that they were a wicked set of men, and that he had publicly and frequently reproved them. They were highly incensed against him, and in the judgment which they made of him, they were directed by their passions, not by their reason. Nor did anger and resentment only furnish them with prejudices against Christ, but self-interest also and worldly policy. The people, who had seen the miracles of Christ, particularly that miracle by which he had fed a great multi

tude, had at one time, as St. John relates, a design to make him their king, concluding, reasonably enough, that under such a leader they should be victorious. Therefore Christ, if he had been a deceiver, and had entertained ambitious designs, might easily have made himself a prince, and might have incited the people to shake off the Roman yoke, which was grievous to them.

The chief priests and principal persons among the Jews thought, that if Christ should make such an attempt they should be ruined, whatsoever the consequences of it were. If the Jews under his conduct should endeavour to recover their liberties, and fail in it, they knew that the nation would be severely punished by the Romans. Nor was their prospect less bad, if Christ should deliver the people from their subjection to a foreign power, and rule over them himself: for though they hated the Romans, yet doubtless they thought that Christ would be a worse ruler for them than any Roman governor. They knew that he had a bad opinion of them, and that he had exposed their vices, and therefore they concluded that the establishment of his authority would be the ruin of theirs. Thus they were incited not only by resentment, but, as they fancied, by interest, to deny that Christ was the Messiah, to oppose him, and to destroy him; for since they were persuaded that the Messiah should be a temporal king, they could not acknowledge Christ to be the Messiah, unless at the same time they owned him to be their king.

They succeeded in their endeavours, they stirred up the people, they intimidated the governor, they prevailed to have Christ crucified, and by his death they thought themselves at last secure from all these evils. But he arose again, and his disciples appeared openly in Jerusalem, working miracles, and teaching that Jesus was the Messiah. One would at first think that no man could withstand such evidence ; but we shall not so much wonder at their obstinacy, if we observe that their fears, and, as they thought, their interests led them again to oppose the truth. They considered that they were the persons who had represented Christ as a man who had lost his senses, a demoniac, an impostor, a magician, a violator of the law, a seditious teacher, a rebel, an enemy to Cæsar, and a false Messiah; who had instigated the people and who had persuaded Pilate to crucify him; they heard that the apostles wrought miracles in the name of Christ, and they concluded that, if the apostles were permitted to proceed in this manner, they would convert a great part of the Jews; and they feared that, if the doctrines taught by Christ's disciples were received, they who had been his implacable enemies, should be accounted not only ignorant and blind guides, but dishonest men; that they should not only lose their credit and authority, but be exposed to the resentment of the incensed multitude; and therefore they thought that the best way to secure themselves was to deter and hinder the apostles from appearing any more in public, and from preaching the Gospel. And when the disciples continued to perform the functions of their ministry, the high priest asked them, saying, Did we not straightly command you that you should not teach in this name? And behold, ye

have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man's blood upon us. (Acts v. 28.)

Miracles were wrought to convince them; but when a man is violently bent to believe or disbelieve, he is more than half persuaded that things are as he desires. They hastily concluded that those miracles were either delusions and impostures, or wonderful works performed by the aid of evil spirits.

From these ill dispositions proceeded suitable effects; for they persecuted the first Christians, they accused them to the Roman magistrates of sedition, they beat them in their synagogues, they imprisoned them, they banished them, they put many of them to death, and strove to the utmost of their power to destroy this rising sect. Some1 antient writers assure us, that the Jews took the pains to send persons from Jerusalem into all countries, to accuse the Christians of atheism and other crimes, and to make them as odious as they possibly could.2

Such were the principal causes of the infidelity of the Jews, and of their rejection of Christ as the Messiah, at first: nor is it difficult to conceive what may be the reasons of their persisting in the same infidelity now. In the first place, on the part of the Jews, most, (if not all) of the same reasons which gave birth to their infidelity, continue to nourish it, particularly their obstinacy, their vain hopes and expectations of worldly greatness, and the false Christs and false prophets, who at different times have risen up among them. To which may be added their want of charitableness towards the Christians, and continuing to live insulated from all the rest of mankind. All these circumstances, together, present_great difficulties to their conversion. Secondly, on the part of the world, the grand obstacles to the conversion of the Jews are, the prevalence of Mohammedism and other false religions, the schisms of Christians, the unholy lives of nominal Christians, and particularly the cruelties which, on various pretexts and at different times, have been most unjustly inflicted on this unhappy people.

From the account which we have given of the obstinacy of the Jews, and of the causes whence it arose, it appears that their unbelief is no objection to the truth of the Gospel. The modern Jews therefore reason weakly when they say, that their ancestors would not, and could not have rejected Christ, if the miracles related in the Gospel had been really wrought. Against this argument we may also observe, that it can do no service to a Jew, because it would prove too much. It would prove that Moses wrought no miracles, since the whole people of Israel often rebelled against him: it would prove that many of the prophets recorded in the Old Testament were false pro

1 Justin Martyr, and Eusebius. See Justin, p. 171. and Thirlby's Notes, and Fa. bricius de Ver. Rel. Christ. p. 665.

2 Jortin's Discourses concerning the Truth of the Christian Religion, disc. i. Bp. Newton's Works, vol. v. dissertation xxix. See also Bp. Conybeare's Sermons, vol. i. serm. 2. and Bp. Kidder's Demonstration of the Messias (Boyle Lectures, vol. i. pp. 105-112.)

phets, because they were persecuted by the Jews. The Jews are not able to give any reason why they acknowledge the law of Moses to be a divine revelation, which will not directly and more strongly establish the truth and authority of the Gospel.

So far indeed is the infidelity of the Jews from being an objection to the argument from prophecy concerning the spread of Christianity, that, on the contrary, it corroborates that evidence for the truth of the Gospel. For, by their infidelity, we gain a great number of unsuspected witnesses to the truth of the Old Testament: and, by their dispersion, these witnesses abound in the richest and most commercial parts of the world. Had the body of the Jews been converted to Christianity, they might have been supposed to conspire with the Christians in forging and corrupting the prophecies relating to the Messiah; but now their infidelity cuts off all cavils and suspicions of that kind, and makes their testimony, like that of sworn enemies, the more favourable the more unquestionable.

Again, by the infidelity of the Jews, and their dispersion in consequence of it, many predictions of Moses and the prophets, of Christ and his apostles, are remarkably fulfilled; so that instead of doing disservice to the Christian cause, it does it real honour, and tends wonderfully to promote and advance it in the world. And after all the changes and revolutions, after all the persecutions and massacres which they have seen and undergone for more than seventeen hundred years, they still subsist a distinct people in order to the completion of other prophecies, that (Rom. xi. 25, 26.) "when the fulness of the Gentiles is come in, all Israel may be saved." There is nothing parallel to this to be found in history from the creation of the world down to this time, and it is no less than a standing miracle in all ages and countries for the truth of the Christian religion.

Besides, it is a great advantage to the Christian religion to have been first preached and propagated in a nation of unbelievers, as it frees the account of the facts from all suspicion of fraud and imposture. Designing men may easily be supposed to carry on a trick among their creatures and dependants, among those of the same side and party, of the same profession and interest; but how was it possible for a small number of poor illiterate fishermen and tent-makers to succeed in an attempt of this nature among thousands of secret spies and open enemies? Nothing but truth, nothing but divine truth, and upheld by a divine power, could have stood the trial and borne down so much malice and opposition before it.1

1 Bp. Newton's Works, vol. v. p. 142. "The case of the Jews may be useful in correcting a vain opinion which every one almost is sometimes apt to entertain, that had he lived in the time of our Saviour and conversed with him personally, had he been an ear-witness to his words, an eye-witness to his works, he should have been a better Christian, he should have resigned all his scruples, and have believed and obeyed without doubt and without reserve. Alas! they, who are infidels now, would in all probability have been infidels then. The Jews saw the miracles of our blessed Lord, and yet believed not: "Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed." (John xx. 29.) Ibid. p. 144. The unbelief of the Jews is discussed in a clear and conclusive manner, in the three last discourses 46

VOL. I.

« ElőzőTovább »