both of our Lord and of his apostles. "If ye believed Moses, ye would believe me, for he wrote of me," says he to the Jews of his own day. "Search the Scriptures, (meaning, of course, the Old Testament Scriptures,) for they testify of me." The apostle Paul declares that it is only because the veil remaineth on the hearts of Israel, that, when Moses is read, they do not perceive the glory of Christ. Peter, in his discourses at Jerusalem, asserts that, in the events of his day, ancient predictions might be discerned to have their fulfilment: and refers to Moses, to David, and to all the prophets as witnessing to Christ. And in the first general Epistle by the same inspired writer, we meet with an important statement which warrants us to believe that ancient prophets foretold, even beyond what they themselves were conscious of or understood, the facts of both the humiliation and exaltation of Christ. "Of which salvation, the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: Searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us, they did minister the things which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into." More illustrations might be added of the connection between the Old Testament and the New; and few things are more satisfactory to a Christian mind, than to discern the entire harmony of the predictions of the one, with the narratives and doctrines of the other. Nor is it more certain that the New Testament casts light on the Old, than that a minute acquaintance with the Old constitutes an excellent preparation for the study of the New. With an Israelite, no doubt, the argument of this harmony or correspondence being the very thing to be made out, it would be a begging of the question to argue, from the New Testament, on the assumption of its truth. It is necessary to take our arguments mainly from the acknowledged Scriptures of the Jews themselves, if we would convince them that Jesus is the Messiah. We must show that the notices of Christ to be found there, convict them of unreasonable prejudice; inasmuch as they lead fairly to expect such a Saviour as we, Christians, acknowledge to have come, and render it probable that we should find in the discoveries of the later dispensation, just such doctrines concerning salvation as the gospel of Christ and the writings of the apostles do contain. We must, however, qualify this admission, respecting the legitimate mode of reasoning with a Jew, by one observation which we beg may be attended to. Besides that we are reasoning with Christians as well as Jews, to confirm the one as well as to convince the other, we must add that, even in reasoning with an Israelite, we ought not to omit those arguments addressed to that very class of persons, which are contained in the discourses or epistles of our Lord and of his inspired servants; arguments resting on the received and acknowledged principles of the Jewish people, and which, even while the question of the authority of the New Testament is held by the Jew in abeyance, it would be presumptuous in us, Christians who believe the gospel, to overlook, as if they were less pertinent or conclusive now than they ever were. While we are permitted doubtless to take a larger range, it would seem to indicate an unworthy preference of our own wisdom to the wisdom of God, not to take the benefit of those occasional illustrations of ancient Scripture, and exposures of Jewish misinterpretation, which emanated from the Divine source of all wisdom himself, or from men divinely taught and qualified to reason and expound infallibly. A minute examination of the Old Testament Scriptures, were there time for it, would show that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy: even as the angel declared to John, when the apostle, struck with his emphatic address, and contemplating with wonder the joyful state of things which he had announced, fell down at the angel's feet to worship. "See thou do it not, for I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." To this is all prophecy directed. This is the sum of the messages of all whom God has commissioned to declare his will.. Of Christ do they all testify. To this one purpose is the commission of all of them directed to manifest the glories of his kingdom. It is very certain that the Jews, before the coming of Christ, gave this construction to their Scriptures. "They even looked beyond the letter of their sacred books, and conceived the testimony of the Messiah to be the soul and end of the commandment. The spirit of prophecy was so firmly believed to intend that testimony, that the expectation was general, that some such person as Jesus was to appear among them, and at the very time in which he made his appearance. This is an undoubted fact, what account soever may be given of it: and so far evinces that the principle delivered in the words of the angel to John, corresponds entirely to the idea which the fathers entertained of the prophetic spirit."* Even heathen writings of ancient date exhibit the traces of the doctrine of the Messiah, and show that the expectation, founded on the early revelation and promise of a Saviour to come, had been handed down. from the first human family, through a long succession of ages. Though grossly and offensively corrupted, the tradition to this effect may be discovered in the ancient Hindoo books, in their doctrine concerning the incarnations of Vishnu, the second power of the Indian trimurti. Socrates is represented by Plato as expressing an > expectation that one should come from heaven to teach men their duty to the gods and to one another. Alcibiades asks, "When, Socrates, will that be, and who will be that Teacher ?" "He is one," replies * Hurd on Prophecy.. the sage, "who is concerned for thee. He feels for To the same early revelation must unquestionably be attributed the general impression, which, as may be learned from Tacitus and Suetonius, prevailed throughout a large portion of the world, that Judea was to give a ruler to the nations. To the Old Testament, then, let us turn, as the source of satisfactory and authoritative information on this subject. It is impossible to take more than a selection of passages. But by these, and by general reference to others, it may be made to appear that the Christ whom we acknowledge is foretold; that the circumstances of his advent are minutely described; the time, the place, the manner, his lineage, his rank, and worldly condition; the kind of reception he should meet with; the errand on which he should come; the offices he was to exercise, his qualifications for executing their proper functions; his success; his humiliation and sufferings; his exaltation and reward; his conflicts and victories; the nature of his kingdom, the spirit of his religion; the extension of his cause among the nations of the earth; the superseding of the introductory dispensation, or the perfecting of its design in that simpler and more spiritual system which was to be superinduced upon it. Above all, the New Testament is not more precise than the Old, in asserting the divine and glorious majesty of the Redeemer of the world; and the terms which the Old employs finely accord with those of the other, in asserting the mysterious union of the Divinity with a holy humanity in him, "the Wonderful one," on whom man's "help was laid," and who was at once to appear the virgin's Son and "the Mighty God," representing him as one who, being far above suffering in his own nature, did, in the other nature which he assumed, become subject to the precepts and to the curse of the law, in the character of our surety, and wrought out a great redemption, not without such opposition and conflict as a mere creature power alone must have been inadequate to bear up under, and to overcome. He is described as uniting in himself the offices, never in any other case found associated, of prophet, priest, and king; and as one who, being rejected by the Jews, his own nation, should become the blessing of all nations, and should receive the homage and subjection of the world. Taking a general survey of the Old Testament Scriptures, we might trace the references to Christ downwards from the early promise of a Redeemer given to the first human pair, while in trembling despondency they heard the voice of their offended Creator reckoning with them in their now unhappy character of sinners against him. The relieving notice of purposed mercy was given, not directly in the address to the woman or to the man, but mingled with the threatening directed to the tempter, ere the threatening against either of the parents of mankind was yet pronounced; thus anticipating their despair and mercifully preventing it. "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her Seed: it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel." Gen. iii. 15. On this comforting announcement, usually called the first promise, the prophets in all their respective generations seem to have had their eye fixed, while they spake of the coming redemption, and the destruction of the power of the devil. It certainly prepares us well to expect, in the Messiah, a combatant and champion against our great enemy, or, as is expressed in New Testament language, one who should save us from our enemies, and from the hand of them that hated us-one who should "reign till all his enemies shall be put under his feet." Nor is it less explicit on the means of redemption, than its nature or results. It points to one who is emphatically said " to be made of a woman." The New Testament affords a rich commentary on the promise, in the Gospel of Luke, who, in his third chapter, shows how, (as Lightfoot expresses it,) "through seventy-five generations, Christ is this seed of the woman; and, in the fourth chapter, how, through three temptations, this seed began to bruise |