The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old

tions against the blindness of the Jews, in not recognizing their Messiah in Jesus of Na

ere set down the principal reasons given by Rabbi Isaac, in his Mu

unto me:-Wherefore are you Jews unwilling to believe Jesus of Nazareth to be the Messiah, w

sus the Messiah, are nothing to the purpose? And we have many and evident reasons to prove that he was not the Messiah. And of these, I will bring forward a few, arising, 1, From his genealogy. 2. From his works. 3. From th

s. The descent and origin of Mary, is still less known, but it seems from Lukes calling Elizabeth, who was of Levi, her cousin, that Mary was of the tribe of Levi, and not of Judah, and, consequently, not of David; and, if she were, still Jesus is not the more the son of David; descents being reckoned from the males only. Neither is the genealogy of Joseph rightly deduced from David, but labou

, but division, fire and sword, Zechariah says, concerning the expected Messiah, ch. ix.:-He shall speak peace to the nations. Jesus says he came to send fire and sword upon the earth, but Micah says, ch. ii., that in the times of the true Messiah they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks, nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. Jesus says that he came to put division between the father and the son, &c. But in the time of the true Messiah, Elias, the prophet, sh

ions shall flow unto it; and it immediately follows, concerning the king Messiah, that he shall judge among the nations, and rebuke many peoples, and they shall beat their words into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. See also Hosea, ch. iii, and also Dan., ch. ii., where it is written:-God hath made known unto king Nebuchadnezzar what shall come to pass in the latter days, (or, in the end of days.) And this

examples, take the following:-1. In the time of the king Messiah, there was to be one kingdom only, and one only king upon earth, viz., the king Messiah-see Daniel, ch. ii.; but behold, we see

t is written in Isaiah, ch. lii. and lxvi., that all nations shall come at stated times to worship the Eternal

h, ch. ii., it is written, And the glory of idols shall utterly pass away; and so in Zephaniah, ch. ii., The Lord shall be terrible among them, when he sh

rth, especially among the children of Israel, as is affirmed in Deut. xxx., Zephania

e child shall stroke, with impunity, the variegated skin of the serpent, and,-as one of our own poets has beautifully said,-and wit

lamentations throughout the world. But the inhabitants thereof are to lead joyful li

will no more hide his face from them; but will bless them, and give them a ready heart and a willing mind to obey his laws, and enjoy the felicities consequent thereupon. And the Shechinah shall inhabit the temple for ever, and the glory of God shall never depart from Israel; but they shall wal

efore, from all this, it seems to be demonstrable (allowing the prophets to be true,) that Jesus of Nazareth was not this true Messiah. And I would ask the candid Christian, in which link of this chain of proofs he can find a flaw? And I would ask him, too, as a moral and honest man, whether any Jew, in his right mind, could, without setting at nought what he conceived to be the word of God, receive him as the Messiah? The honest and upright answer, I believe, will be, that he could net. And, accordingly, it is very well known, that the Jewish nation have never done so. And this their obstinacy, as it is called, will not by this time, I think, appear unreasonable to any sensible man; and he will now be able to appreciate the justice of that idle cant ab

d man, after all this, wonder at, or condemn, the blindness, as it is called, of the Jews? or can he refrain from smiling at the frothy declamations in which divines load that nation with so much unmerited reproach? These Jews had just reason, we think, to doubt his Messiahship; and they had a right to satisfactory and unambiguous proof of his being so: even the proofs laid down, by their prophets. And this, it must be now acknowledged, they wanted; and, certainly, the wise and learned of the Jewish nation, might be allowed to have understood their sacred books upon the subject, as well, at least, if not better, than the illiterate apostles, who manifestly put new interpretations upon them, and those, confessedly, not agreeable to the obvious and literal meaning of those books; but contrary to the sense of the Jewish nation. And for this scepticism they