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The author has been betrayed into these absurdities by confounding together two things totally distinct, a sincere belief in the truth of inspiration, with an explicit knowledge of its contents. The Prophets were invested with credentials which entitled them to the profound submission of mankind; but to receive their predictions as the word of God, is one thing, and so to penetrate their scope and intention as to be in possession of precisely the same facts, and acquainted with the same truths with those who lived to witness their accomplishment, is another. All good men equally possessing the former, had the same spirit of faith; while with respect to the latter, the situation of the hearers of the Prophets under the law, and of the apostolic converts under the gospel, was most dissimilar. It is certain from the eulogiums bestowed upon John, that his attainments in religious knowledge surpassed the highest of those his predecessors; yet we are informed from the same authority, that the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. But in what is this superiority so universally ascribed to Christians to be placed, except in an acquaintance with the facts attested after the day of Pentecost, and a knowledge of the mysteries with which they are inseparably allied? These however form the very core and substance of the apostolical testimony, the unshaken profession of which was the indispensable condition of baptisin; and among the foremost and most fundamental of these are the vicarious death and resurrection of our Lord, which we are compelled by their own testimony to believe were most remote from the previous expectation and belief of the Apostles. Christian baptism is the "answer of a good conscience towards God, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ." (1 Peter 3: 21.)

In order to demonstrate the equality of the requisitions of John with those of the Apostles, this writer has attempted to exhibit them in opposite columns. These columns, however, are not very majestic, nor very uniform, including only three passages on one side, and four on the other. Two remarks may be amply sufficient to counteract the effect of a device which is addressed to the eyes rather than to the understanding. The first is, that the explicit testimony which the harbinger bore to the character of our Lord after his baptism, is adduced without the slightest advertence to the distinction of times, as a proof of the manner in which he first announced his commission; but as his knowledge of the person of the Messiah, we learn from his own declaration, was subsequent to that event, his language must necessarily have been modified by that circumstance. The second is, that we have no more reason to suppose that his disciples comprehended the true import of his instructions, or that they interpreted them

aright, than that the immediate disciples of our Lord understood similar declarations of their Master; from whom, we are infallibly certain, the sublimest part of his teaching was hid, until it was elucidated by events. And what but a blind attachment to hypothesis, can obviate the suspicion that the followers of John were in the same predicament, unless we are prepared to affirm, either that they were the apter scholars, or had the more skilful master? As this writer lately applied the ample volume of prophecy as a criterion to ascertain the minimum, or lowest measure of knowledge requisite to constitute a disciple of John, so he now with equal propriety puts together all the scattered sayings of that great Prophet, for the same purpose. If this be admitted in the case of the forerunner, it can with no consistency be withheld, in the instance of our Lord; and by measuring the actual attainments of the Apostles, by the extent of his instructions, we shall find them little less enlightened and intelligent after his resurrection, than they were before that event.

The fact, however, is far otherwise.

It requires little penetration to perceive, that the true method of ascertaining (as far as it is practicable) the essential qualifications of John's candidates, is not so much to consult detached sentences recorded of his ministry, as the actual state of religious knowledge at that period, the known attainments of the Apostles, and above all, the language he is affirmed to have uttered, at the moment he was celebrating his peculiar rite.

Whatever ideas he himself might affix to the terms "Lamb of God," and "Son of God," which it may not be easy exactly to determine, we may be certain that his followers did not comprehend their true import, because the Apostles themselves were long after ignorant of the principal fact, or doctrine denoted by the first of these appellations; and, therefore, to introduce these passages, as this writer has done, with a design to insinuate that they conveyed to the mind precisely the same impression as at present, is to presume too much on the simplicity of the reader. He should have been aware, that few are so bereft of the power of recollection, as to be incapable of detecting such flimsy sophistry.

Aware that confidence is contagious, he uniformly abounds in that quality in exact proportion to the weakness of his proofs. Of this, the following passage exhibits an egregious example; after surveying his columns, with a complacency not unlike the Restorer of Babylon, he triumphantly exclaims, "Even prejudice itself might be expected to acknowledge, that so far from any material variation between John and the Apostles in introducing their respective candidates to baptism, they made a near approach to a syllabic agreement." (Plea for Prim. Com. p. 24.)

To say nothing at present of the name of Jesus, a point we shall have occasion to discuss hereafter, did John require of his candidates a profession of their belief in Christ's death, resurrection, and ascension? If he did, he was a superior teacher to his Master, and his disciples greater proficients than the Apostles; a proposition which, however "boldly it may appeal to our faith," it is hard to digest. If, on the contrary, he acknowledges that a belief of these facts was not required by John as the condition of baptism, while it unquestionably was of the apostolic converts, what becomes of his syllabic agreement?" and what temerity, not to say impiety, to represent these stupendous events, the death and resurrection of the Saviour, which involve the destinies of the human race, the incesssant theme of the apostolic ministry, the basis of hope, the pillar, not the miserable columns of a page, but the column which props and supports a sinking universe, an affair of syllables, so that whether they are omitted or included, there exists a syllabic agreement !

Justly apprehensive of fatiguing the attention of the reader, the author cannot prevail on himself to dismiss this branch of the subject without bestowing a word more on the fallacious medium of proof employed in this instance by the writer of the Plea. Prophecy, he informs us, as "boldly appealed to faith" as history; from which the only legitimate inference is, that the disciple of revelation is as much under obligation to give implicit credit to the Prophets as to the Evangelists. His inference, however, is, that the precise measure of information yielded by the historian, must of necessity be possessed by the student of prophecy, than which nothing is more absurd and untenable. To reason in this manner is, in the first place, to forget the prodigious disparity in point of perspicuity betwixt the respective sources of information; and secondly, in opposition to the decisive and repeated testimonies of inspiration, to presume that good men have uniformly exerted the ardor, impartiality, and diligence, in the pursuit of truth, to which it is justly entitled. Besides, when it is asserted that the prophetic page "as boldly appeals to faith as the details of evangelical history," an ambiguity lurks in the word appeal, as well suited to the purposes of sophistry, as it is unfavorable to the enunciation of truth. It may either mean that it demands the same credit with historical details, or that it imposes an obligation to believe the same facts, and to penetrate the same mysteries. In the former sense the assertion is true, but foreign to the purpose; in the latter it is palpably false; at once repugnant to the nature of things, as well as to the plainest fact. Many of the most important predictions were involved in a total obscurity; others were designed to excite a vague but elevated expectation, without ascertaining

the features of a future event; none were designed to make that clear and determinate impression upon the spirit, which is effected by their accomplishment. From the necessary obscurity of prophecy, combined with the ignorance and prejudice which obstruct its operation, it is impossible in any case by appealing to a prediction to ascertain the sentiments entertained even by good men antecedently to its fulfilment. The only clue to conduct us in this inquiry, is derived from the assertions of the Evangelists, which as clearly confute the vain surmises and conjectures of this writer as if they had been recorded for that purpose.

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The word faith, to the illiterate reader, is almost sure to suggest all the sentiments and ideas with which the gospel has made him familiar; and when we attempt to limit its objects, by an impartial appeal to the actual state of religious knowledge before the coming of Christ, he feels himself confounded and amazed. exclusive acquaintance with the present disqualifies him for transporting himself into past ages, and conceiving the ideas and sentiments prevalent in a situation so dissimilar. To do justice to the author of the Plea, it must be acknowledged he has shewn no inconsiderable skill in availing himself of this prejudice.

What were the precise views entertained by the true Israel of the offices of the Messiah, and of the work of redemption, previously to the Christian era, is one of the most curious and intricate questions of theology. Without attempting its solution, the writer of these lines may be permitted to remark, that the Jewish belief was probably much more defective, and differed much farther from the Christian, than has usually been suspected. The ignorance of the Apostles till after the resurrection, is a fundamental fact, a datum, which should never be lost sight of in this inquiry. It is not necessary, however, to assume it as a standard by which to regulate our estimate of every preceding degree of information. For when we recollect the long suspension of prophetic gifts in the Jewish church, the withdrawment of the Urim and Thummim, the extinction, in its sensible effects at least, of the theocracy, the intermixture of Jews and Gentiles, inseparable from the introduction of a pagan government, the influence of oriental philosophy, the division of the people into sects, and the extreme profligacy and corruption of manners prevalent at the time of our Lord's nativity, it will probably appear to have been the darkest period the church had experienced, resembling that portion of the natural day which immediately precedes the dawn, when the nocturnal light is extinguished, and the reflection of a brighter luminary not commenced.

But with all the consideration due to these circumstances, (and probably much is due) there is still reason to suspect that the ave

rage degree of knowledge which divines have been accustomed to ascribe to Jewish believers, has been overrated. From the typical institution of piacular sacrifices, pointing to the great propitiation, it has been confidently concluded that in them believers distinctly recognized the mystery of atonement, by the blood of Christ. But supposing such to have been the fact, how shall we account for that doctrine occupying so small a portion of the succeeding prophecies? or for its so completely vanishing from the national creed, that the crucifixion of Christ afterwards became a stumbling block to the Jews, not less than foolishness to the Gentiles? A doctrine so congenial to the feelings of penitent devotion, involving the primary basis of hope, had it once been embraced, would undoubtedly have been inculcated with the utmost care, and transmitted to the posterity of the faithful in uninterrupted succession, instead of being suffered to fall into such oblivion, that at the time of the Saviour's advent every trace of it had disappeared. While Christianity subsists, we entertain no apprehension of this great doctrine falling into neglect; its intrinsic evidence and importance will perpetuate it, unquestionably, amidst all the fluctuations of systems and opinions; and by parity of reason, its clear enunciation to the Jewish church must have been productive of similar effects.

If we read the ancient prophecy with attention, we shall perceive, that the atonement made by the Saviour is scarcely exhibited in a single passage, except in the fifty-third of Isaiah, with respect to which the Ethiopian eunuch was at a loss to determine whether the "Prophet spoke of himself, or of some other man." We shall perceive that in the practical and devotional books, such as the Psalms, the promise of pardon to the penitent, and of favor to the righteous, are expressly and repeatedly propounded; though with respect to the medium of acceptance, a profound silence is maintained. But how this is consistent with the supposed knowledge of that medium, it is not easy to discover. The habitual reserve on this subject maintained by the writers of the Old Testament, compared to its constant inculcation in the New, forms the grand distinction betwixt these respective portions of revelation; clearly evincing the truth of the Apostle's assertion, that the way into the Holiest was not made manifest while the ancient sanctuary subsisted.

It will perhaps be replied-Are we then to renounce the notion of the typical nature of sacrificial rites? and, in contradiction to the author of the epistle to the Hebrews, assert that they bore no reference to the great propitiation? Nothing is more foreign from the purpose of these remarks.

That the ceremonial law was a prefiguration of good things to

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