Page images
PDF
EPUB

thousands of Judah, yet out of thee fhall He come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Ifrael, whofe goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. Thefe feveral prophecies are taken notice of in the 2d chapter of St. Matthew, accomplished in the person of our Lord Jefus Chrift. Now, when Jefus was born in Bethlehem of Juda, in the days of king Herod, behold there came wife men from the Eaft to Jerufalem, faying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have feen His Star in the Eaft, and are come to adore Him. And king Herod hearing this, was troubled, and all Jerulalem with him; and affembling together all the chief priests and the fcribes of the people, he enquired of them, where Chrift Thould be born. But they faid to him; in Bethlehem of Judah. For fo it is written by the prophet; And thou, Bethlehem, the land of Judah, art not the least among the princes of Judah; for out of thee fhall come forth the ruler that shall rule my people Ifrael. Then Herod calling the wife men, enquired of them diligently the time of the Star's appearing to them; and fending them into Bethlehem, faid, Go and fearch diligently after the Child, and when, you have found him, bring me word again, that I also may come and adore him. And when they had heard the king, they went their way; and behold, the Star which they had feen in the Eaft, went before them, until it came and stood over where the Child was. And feeing the ftar, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. And going into the house, they found

the

the Child, with Mary his Mother. and falling down they adored Him; and opening their treafures, they offered him gifts; gold, frankincenfe and myrrh. And having received an anfwer in fleep that they fhould not return to Herod, they went back another way into their country. And after they were departed, behold an angel of the Lord appeared in fleep to Jofeph, faying, Arife, and take the Child and his mother, and fly into Egypt, and be there until I fhall tell thee; for it will come to pass that Herod will feek the child to deftroy him, and he arofe and took the child and his mother by night, and retired into Egypt, and he was there until the death of Herod, that the word might be fulfilled which the Lord spoke by the prophet, faying, Out of Epypt have I called my fon. Then Herod, perceiving that he was deluded by the wife men, was exceeding angry, and fending killed all the male children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the borders thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time he had diligently enquired of the wife men. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremias the prophet, faying, A voice in Rama was heard, lamentation, and great mournine; Rachel bewailing her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not. But when Herod was dead, behold an angel of the Lord appeared in fleep to Jofeph in Egypt, faying, Arife, and take the Child and his Mother, and go into the land of Ifrael, for they are dead that fought the life of the Child. And he arofe, and took the Child and his Mother, and came

into the land of Ifrael. But hearing that Archelaus reigned in Judea, in the room of Herod, his Father, he was afraid to go thither, and being warned in fleep, he turned afide into the quarters of Galilee. And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that what was faid by the prophets might be fulfilled, He fhall be called a Nazarene. The Ethiopians, in their liturgy, and the Greeks, in their calendar, count fourteen thousand children mas- ̈* facred by Herod, in order to deprive the Melfiah of life, and infure to himfelf the kingdom.

Mofes. The Almighty has been pleafed to fhew mercy to me by you. I am convinced that Jefus Chrift is Meffiah; we will, therefore, clofe this conference, and beg you will favour me, as foon as poffible, to investigate the two Covenants.

Rabbi Mofes prays the favour of the Ancients and Rulers, his brethren, at his house tomorrow morning, at 10 o'clock, to investigate -impartially the rights and privileges of the chriftian church, in relation to her,pretenfions and claim to the covenant of the Meffiah, or new law. He farther begs, that they will maturely confider, and with deliberation: weigh and digeft a matter of the firft magnitude, that it may be difcuffed without retardment, with benignity and candor, by the unerring rule of fcripture and reafon. The motive that induces Rabbi Mofes to make this requeft, is, the conviction he feels of the harmony and perfect concordance of the two fcriptures, the fulfilling. and completion of the old law and prophecies,

[ocr errors]

in the new or law of Chrift; fo that the tranfiation of the Jewish or firft covenant transferred and made over to the new, is clear and absolute, and which with out controul has been in the poffeffion of the chriftian church from its inftitution or commencement as we observe it this day.

Rulers and Fathers of the Jews to Rabbi Mofes. Dear Brother, your citation we fhall attend and doubt not of convincing and efface from your mind, that gloomy, difmal, obfcure, irrational, inglorious, and diabolical jargon, imperceptibly injected, by two old heretical minifters, Luther and Calvin, one a parfon the other an elder, of time-ferving fects; whofe irrational, contradictory, vague, and ironical, ideas, mixed disorderly, with luft, and impiety, the effluvia communicating, the venomous malignant particles, or quality, to your scattered thoughts, feized, feduced, bound and made captive thofe loose and weightlefs notions inherent in man, particularly when the intellectual faculties or organs have loft their force, fprightlinefs, and powers through age, worn out, mouldered, decayed, and worm-eaten by long ufe, affiduity, and in the laft ftage of decrepitude, nay, fcarce a body difcernible, a fhadow, phantom, fpectre, or fancied vifion. We notice from whence your chimera took its rife, from which maggot you would not only reprobate your nation (from the inftitution of of the chriftian feduction), you also wish to injure and destroy her exiftence, forming in idea, the firft covenant of the Jews to this fimile of

an

an egg, fay you, the egg-fhell is abfolutely needful, and cannot be dispensed with, in order to encompass and fuftain the fruit or virtue within, until it is removed; which once accomplished, the shell being no longer neceffary, is either burned or thrown on the dunghill and rejected. So the Jewish covenant was proper and advifeable, as the Meffiah had allotted, to take his human nature from the pofterity of Abraham. But when the Fabric or grand Edifice was manifefted and finished, the scaffold being no longer needful, but an impediment or eyefore, was removed, and is extinct, abolished, and crumbled into its original infignificance, and the virtue, force, or contract, transformed, removed, fet over, and transferred to the second or christian covenant, the church of Christ, according to your logic or theology, the Jewish covenant is become a dried egg-fhell, skeleton, correfponding to the dry-bones in the valley of Jehofephat, as the prophecy of Ezekiel marks out, and as the fame prophet tell us was revived by the fecond covenant for which you contend to be the church of Chrift. To-morrow at ten we truft, by unanswerable reasoning, and laws of our Fathers, to remove your doubts.

End of the Fourteenth Conference.

A a

FIFTEENTH

« PreviousContinue »