attention of the Greek philosophers. When modern inquirers began to
investigate the matter, they were well-nigh confounded by the multitude
of dialects and languages. The labor of three generations of scholars
has been expended upon philology, the most ancient monument of mankind.
And the result is that all the various languages of earth have at length
been classified under three tongues--the Shemitic, the Aryan, and the
Turanian. But this most recent discovery of comparative philology was
narrated by Moses thirty centuries ago, with the historical account of
the origin of the division of the primeval family into three separate
colonies, colonizing the earth after their families and after their
tongues.--Genesis x. 32. The discovery of this coincidence fills Bunsen
with astonishment. "Comparative philology," he says, "would have been
compelled to set forth as a postulate the supposition of some such
division of languages in Asia, especially on the ground of the relation
of the Egyptian language to the Shemitic, even if the Bible had not
assured us of the truth of this great historical event. It is truly
wonderful; it is a matter of astonishment; it is more than a mere
astounding fact that something so purely historical, and yet divinely
fixed--something so conformable to reason, and yet not to be conceived
of as a mere natural development--is here related to us out of the
oldest primeval period, and which now for the first time, through the
new science of philology, has become capable of being historically and
philosophically explained."
The brief, yet definite, assertions of the Hamitic origin of the old
empire of Babylon, and of an Asiatic Cush or Ethiopia, which have been
so repeatedly charged against the Bible as blunders, even by some
profound scholars, have been vindicated by the recent discoveries in the
mounds of Chaldea Proper of multitudes of inscriptions in a language
which Sir H. Rawlinson affirms "is decidedly Cushite or Ethiopian," and
the modern languages to which it makes the nearest approaches are those
of Southern Arabia and Abyssinia. The old traditions have then been
confirmed by comparative philology, and both are side lights to
Scripture. * * * "The primitive race which bore sway in Chaldea Proper
is demonstrated to have belonged to this Ethnic type."[136]
"The conquest of Palestine is recorded on the annals of Sennacherib, and
the cylinder of Tiglath-Pileser describes his invasion of Palestine.
The names of Jehu, of Amaziah, of Hezekiah, of Omri, Ahaz, and Uzziah
have been made out. _The very clay which sealed the treaty between the
kings of Judah and Assyria, with the impresses of their joint seals upon
it, is preserved in the Nineveh gallery._ The library of Assurbanipal,
in twenty thousand fragments, contains among other scientific treatises,
such as astronomical notices, grammatical essays, tables of verbs,
genealogies, etc., an historico-geographical account of Babylonia and
the surrounding countries. As far as these fragments have been
translated, the district and tribal names given in the Bible correspond
very closely with them."[137]
But this is not the only illustration and confirmation which these old
Assyrian monuments offer to the Sacred Writings. From the first invasion
of the Assyrians, under Tiglath-Pileser, to the restoration of Israel
from Babylon, and the rebuilding of the temple, under Darius, the Bible
history is full of references to the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian
monarchies, and their affairs with Israel and Judah. And the inscribed
tablets, cylinders, and temple tablets, and statues, are full of
references which directly or indirectly elucidate and corroborate the
Bible history, attesting to skeptics the truthfulness of its wonderful
narrative; the very stones of Nineveh, and the ruined palaces of Babylon
and Assyria, crying out in vindication of the veracity of the Bible.
Already so much has been discovered as to fill several volumes, to which
we must refer the reader for details.[138]
One of the alleged historical errors greatly insisted on by
Rationalistic commentators was the statement by Daniel, that Belshazzar
was King of Babylon when it was taken by the Medo-Persians, and that he
was slain at the storming of the city. Herodotus and Berosus had stated
that Nabonnidus was king, and that he was not in the city then, but was
afterward taken prisoner and treated generously by Cyrus. These accounts
seemed contradictory; and as Herodotus and Berosus were generally
esteemed respectable historians, the Rationalists ridicule Daniel as an
erroneous writer of history. But one of Sir H. Rawlinson's discoveries
has vindicated the prophet, and also explained how the historians were
truthful too. W. Taylor, one of Rawlinson's assistants, discovered an
inscribed cylinder in Ur of the Chaldees containing an account of the
reign of this very Nabonnidus, which Sir Henry describes in a letter to
the _Athenæum_, (1854, page 341): "The most important facts, however,
which they disclose are that the eldest son of Nabonnidus was named
Bel-shar-ezar, and that he was admitted by his father to a share in the
government." This name is undoubtedly the Belshazzar of Daniel, and thus
furnishes a key to the explanation of that great historical problem
which has hitherto defied solution. We can now understand how
Belshazzar, as _joint-king_ with his father, may have been Governor of
Babylon when the city was attacked by the combined forces of the Medes
and Persians, and may have perished in the assault which followed; while
Nabonnidus, leading a force to the relief of the place, was defeated,
and was obliged to take refuge in Borsippa, capitulating after a short
resistance, and being subsequently assigned, according to Berosus, to an
honorable retirement in Carmania. A minute coincidence also is thus
brought to light, showing the accuracy of the inspired historian in one
of the details of his narrative. Belshazzar elevates him to the position
of Grand Vizier, or Prime Minister, which, under ordinary circumstances,
would be the _second_ place of dignity in the empire. But Daniel
represents the king as raising him to the _third_ place, which we now
see to be strictly correct, since Belshazzar himself was the second in
rank. Thus the weapons discharged against the Bible ever recoil upon the
heads of its assailants.
Not only among the monuments of the great historic nations do we now
discover corroborations of Scripture, the records and monuments of even
obscure nations are most strangely turning up and being discovered,
after lying unnoticed for centuries, as if God had reserved their
testimony for the time when it would be needed and valued. The Bible
does not refer to the history of the surrounding nations, save in
connection with their relations to Israel; but it is surprising to see
how many of these references are corroborated by recent discoveries. The
Bible, for instance, describes[139] Omri as establishing a kingdom with
his capital at Samaria, and he and his son, Ahab, making war on Mesha,
King of Moab, conquering him and making him pay an annual tribute of one
hundred thousand lambs and one hundred thousand rams, with the wool. But
it came to pass that when Ahab was dead that the King of Moab rebelled
against the King of Israel.
Now amid the perpetual wars of the petty kingdoms of Asia, and after the
utter extirpation of the Moabitish nation, the chances were millions to
one against our recovering any historical monuments whatever of that
people; and almost infinite against recovering any which should coincide
with the half dozen allusions to them in the Bible. But Mr. Klein
discovered in the ruins of Dibon, one of the ancient cities of Moab, and
Capt. Warren recovered, the fragments of the now famous Moabite Stone,
on which, in the old Samaritan characters, we read: "I, Mesha, son of
Jobin, King of Moab. My father reigned over Moab thirty years, and I
reigned after my father. I erected this altar unto Chemosh, who granted
me victory over mine enemies, the people of Omri, King of Israel, who,
together with his son, Ahab, oppressed Moab a long time--even forty
years,"[140] etc.
But space forbids even the enumeration of the corroborations of Bible
history from the days of Abraham to the time of the first census of the
Roman Empire, when Cyrenius was Governor of Syria the second time. In
every instance where its monuments have spoken of biblical affairs they
have confirmed the accuracy of the Bible history. The history of Great
Britain, or of the United States, is not more authentic than, and not so
accurate as, the long line of history recorded in the Bible. No
important error has been proven in any of its historical statements of
the world's history for forty centuries. This accuracy contrasted with
the acknowledged errors of the best historians, is proof to every candid
mind of divine direction and help to the sacred writers.
Sweeping away, then, these cobwebs, we open the volume and form our
opinion of its genuineness and authenticity from its own internal
evidences--its nature and contents--and from the way in which it was
used by the Hebrew nation.
It is important at the outset to know how long these documents have
undoubtedly existed. No one denies that they were in existence eighteen
hundred years ago. Indeed, the first literary attack on them which has
been recorded was made about that time; and Josephus' defense of the
Scriptures against Apion still exists. The very same writings which the
Protestant churches now acknowledge as canonical, and none other, were
then acknowledged to be of divine authority by the Jews. It is true they
bound their Bibles differently from ours, but the contents were the very
same. They made up their parchments of the thirty-nine books in
twenty-two rolls or volumes, one for every letter of their alphabet;
putting Judges and Ruth, the two books of Samuel, the two books of
Kings, the two books of Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah, Jeremiah's
Prophecy and Lamentations, and the twelve minor prophets, in one volume
respectively. They also distinguished the five books of Moses as, _The
Law_; the Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon as, _The
Psalms_; and all the remainder as, _The Prophets_.[141] Moreover, it is
well known that two hundred and eighty-two years before the Christian
era, these writings were translated into Greek and widely circulated in
all parts of the world. They were, in fact, not only popular, but
received as of divine authority by the Jews at that time, read in their
synagogues in public worship, and regarded with sacred reverence. How
did they come to receive them in this manner?
These writings were not only acknowledged by the Jews; their bitterest
enemies--the Samaritans--owned the divine authority of the five books of
Moses, and preserve an ancient copy of them, differing in no essential
particular from the Hebrew version, to this day. The Samaritans always
bore to the Hebrews such a relation as Mohammedans do to Christians, and
the Hebrews returned the grudge with interest: "For the Jews have no
dealings with the Samaritans." These heathen Babylonians, four centuries
or more before the Christian era, were somehow induced to receive the
Pentateuch as of divine authority, and to frame some sort of religion
upon it. Their enmity to the Jews is conclusive proof that, since that
time, neither Jews nor Samaritans have altered the text; else the
manuscripts would show the discrepancy.
These books are not such as any person would forge to gain popularity,
or to make money by. There is nothing in them to bribe the good opinion
of influential people, or catch the favor of the multitude. On the
contrary, their stern severity, and unsparing denunciation of popular
vice and profitable sin must have secured their rejection by the Jewish
people, had they not been constrained by undeniable evidence to
acknowledge their divine authority. They set out with the assertion of
the divine authority of the law of Moses, and everywhere sharply reprove
princes, priests, and people for breaking it. The prophets, so far from
seeking popularity, are foolhardy enough to denounce the bonnets, hoops,
and flounces of the ladies, and to cry, Woe! against the regular
business of the most respectable note-shavers,[142] to croak against the
march of intellect, and shake public confidence in the prosperity of
their great country,[143] to ally themselves with fanatic abolitionists,
and introduce agitating political questions into the pulpit; crying,
_Woe to him that useth his neighbor's service without wages, and giveth
him not for his work._[144] To crown all, they organized abolition clubs
to procure immediate emancipation, and published incendiary
proclamations in the cities of the slaveholders,[145] and, strange to
say, they were allowed to escape with their lives; and their writings
were held sacred by the children of those very men and women they so
unsparingly denounced; a conclusive proof that the calamities they
predicted had compelled them to acknowledge these prophets as the
heralds of God. The proof must have been conclusive, indeed, which
compelled the Jews to acknowledge the writings of the prophets as
sacred.
Another very striking feature of these writings is, their mutual
connection with each other. They were written at various intervals,
during a period of a thousand years' duration, by shepherds and kings,
by prophets and priests, by governors of States and gatherers of
sycamore fruit; in deserts and in palaces, in camps and in cities, in
Egypt and Syria, in Arabia and Babylon; under the iron heel of despotic
oppression, and amid the liberty of the most democratic republic the
world ever saw; yet, circumstances, and lapse of time, they ever hold to
one great theme, always assert the same great principles, and
perpetually claim connection with the writers who have preceded them.
There is nothing like this in the histories of other nations. Two
centuries will work such changes of opinion, that you can not find
nowadays any historian who approves the sentiments of Pepys or
Clarendon, whatever use he may make of their facts. But the historians
of the Bible not only refer to their predecessors' writings, but refer
to them as of acknowledged divine authority. Thus the very latest of
these books gives the weight of its testimony to the first--"_And they
set the priests in their divisions, and the Levites in their courses for
the service of God, which is at Jerusalem, as it is written in the book
of Moses._"[146] And Daniel spake of the books of Moses as well known
when he says, "_Therefore the curse is poured upon us, and the oath that
is written in the law of Moses the servant of God._"[147] The shortest
book in the Old Testament--the prophecy of Obadiah, consisting only of
twenty sentences--contains twenty-five allusions to the preceding
histories and laws. The last of the prophets shuts up the volume with a
command to "_Remember the law of Moses._" In fact, just as the epistles
prove the existence and acknowledged authority of the gospels; so do the
prophets prove the existence and acknowledged authority of the law of
Moses. They were acknowledged not merely by one generation of the Jewish
people, but by the nation during the whole period of its national
existence; and they are of such a character, that they must then, and
now, be taken as one whole--all accepted, or all rejected together.
The reader of the Old Testament will speedily find that these writings
are not merely a connected history of the nation, of great general
interest, like Bancroft's or Macaulay's, but of no such special interest
to any individual as to force him, by a sense of self-interest, or the
danger of loss of liberty or property, to correct their errors. On the
contrary, every farmer in Palestine was deeply concerned in the truth
and accuracy of the Bible; for it contained not only the general
boundaries of the country, and of the particular tribes, like the survey
of the Maine boundary, or of Mason and Dixon's line, but it delineated
particular estates, also, and was, in fact, the report of the
Surveyor-General, deposited in the county court for reference, in case
of any litigation about sale or inheritance of property.[148] The
genealogies of the tribes and families were also preserved in these
writings; and on the authenticity and correctness of these records, the
inheritance of every farm in the land depended; for as no lease ran more
than fifty years, every farm returned to the heirs of the original
settler at the year of jubilee.[149] Thus every Jewish farmer had a
direct interest in these sacred records; and it would be just as hard to
forge records for the county courts of Ohio, and pass them off upon the
citizens as genuine, and plead them in the courts as valid, as to impose
at first, or falsify afterward, the records of the commonwealth of
Israel.
This will appear more clearly when we consider that they contained also
the laws of the land--the Constitution of the United States of Israel,
with the statutes at large--according to which every house, and farm,
and garden in the whole country was possessed, every court of justice
was guided,[150] every election was held, from the election of a petty
constable, to that of Governor of the State,[151] and the militia
enrolled, mustered, officered, and called out to the field of
battle.[152] These laws prescribed the way in which every house must be
built, regulated the weaver in weaving his cloth, and the tailor in
making it, and the cooking of every breakfast, dinner and supper eaten
by an Israelite over the world, from that day to this.[153] Now, let any
one who thinks it would be an easy matter to forge such a series of
documents, and get people to receive and obey them, try his hand in
making a volume of Acts of Assembly, and passing it off upon the people
of Ohio for genuine. Let him bring an action into one of the courts, and
persuade the judges to give a decision in his favor, upon the strength
of his forged or falsified statutes, and then he may hope to convince us
that the laws of Moses are simply a collection of religious tracts,
which came to be held sacred through lapse of time, nobody knows how or
why.
Nor were these laws, and the usages thus established, common, and such
as the people would be ready easily to adopt. On the contrary, Moses
repeatedly asserts, and all ancient history shows, that they were quite
peculiar to the Hebrew people then; and they are to this day confined to
the republics which, like our own, have drawn their ideas from the
Bible. It is enough to name the common law and trial by jury; the armed
nation; the right of free public assembly, free speech, free passport,
and free trade; the election of civil, judicial, and military officers
by universal suffrage; the division of the land in fee-simple among the
whole people; the rights of women to hold real estate in their own
right, to speak in public assemblies, and to prophetic functions; and
the support of religion by the voluntary offerings of the people.
Our own republic resembles Israel as a daughter her mother. The land of
liberty was the Bible country. The first republic which the world ever
saw was designed by Almighty God, and revealed to the world in the
Bible, and by the example of the United States of Israel. From that
pattern our forefathers copied all the grand features of our glorious
republic--the equitable distribution of the land, in fee-simple, among
the people; securing them, by the jubilee, against the introduction of
feudal tenure, and landlordism; the abolition of a standing army, and
the defense of the country by the militia; the election of all officers,
civil and military, from the town constable, and the justice of the
peace, up to the president of the republic, the Lord Jehovah himself, by
universal suffrage--and the Federal Union of the twelve tribes into one
nation, with township, county, and state governments, with a common law,
common schools, and the equality of all citizens before the law; the
right of naturalization; sanitary and social institutions, such as
modern philanthropists are only beginning to dream of, for the elevation
of the people; and all this avowedly held in trust for all mankind, as a
fountain of blessings for all the families of the earth. No such ideas
of liberty, equality, and fraternity, ever existed among the wisest
heathen nations--the Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, or Romans. On the face
of the whole earth there never was, and there is not to-day, a free
republic outside of the light and liberty of the Bible. The so-called
republics of Athens and Rome were hideous aristocracies, and tyrannies.
From the Bible the men of the Continental Congress learned the grand
truth, which they emblazoned on the forefront of their immortal
Declaration of Independence, "That all men are endowed by their Creator
with certain inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness;" thus planting the rights of man upon the only immovable
basis--the throne of the eternal God.
But there were other features of the Mosaic legislation so far in
advance of the ideas of our modern Materialism as not to have been even
yet suggested in our social congresses, nor even dreamt of by our most
advanced Christian philanthropists, in their endeavors after the
elevation of the masses. Moses' idea was the prevention of pauperism,
and of the conflict between labor and capital, and of the gambling
speculating fever, and the formation of an independent, intelligent,
joyous, religious, healthy, and thrifty people, well-bred, well-fed,
well-lodged, able to fight their foes on the battle-field, to reap their
ridge on the harvest-field, to enjoy the blessings of healthy families,
and to rejoice before the Lord. A volume would be needed to develop the
social bearings of the laws of the Hebrews. We can only suggest for
consideration the laws regarding inalienability of the homestead, and
the bankrupt law; the laws of marriage and inheritance; the laws of
servitude and wages; the sanitary laws regarding building, clothing,
bathing, eating, and contagion; the protection of the rights of animals;
the dispersion of the educated class; and the three great national
festivals, during which the whole people were released from the labors
of the field, and of the kitchen, and enjoyed during the eight summer
days of each picnic such an excitement of social enjoyment, religious
fervor, and political patriotism, as modern Christendom anticipates in
the millennium, but which neither Church nor State has, as yet,
systematically attempted to nurture.
That the Hebrews did not obey the law, and so did not enjoy the
happiness obedience would have secured, is only what God foresaw, and
foretold repeatedly, with solemn warning of the disastrous degradation
to which disobedience to God's laws must ever reduce man. Nevertheless,
even their very imperfect conformity to these institutions gave them
such superiority of blood and breeding to their ungodly neighbors, that
they have survived the most powerful nations, and, in spite of
dispersion, exile, disfranchisement, and persecution, they exist as a
distinct people, superior intellectually, commercially, and morally to
all the heathen nations at this day. How much higher had been their
position had they fully obeyed the law.
Our argument is, that this law of liberty, equality, fraternity, and
religion, was worthy of our Father in heaven, and a seed of blessing to
all the families of the earth.
To a Jew living before the coming of Christ, the unanimous testimony of
his nation, confirmed by all the commemorative observances of the
sacrifices, the passover, the Sabbath, and the jubilee, by the reading
of the law and the prophets, and the singing of the historical psalms in
the temple and the synagogues, by the execution of the laws of Moses in
the courts, and by the very existence of his nation as a distinct
people, separate from all the other nations--could leave no doubt that
laws so peculiar and beneficent must have been enacted by a wisdom
superior to that of man, and their observance imposed by divine
authority; nor that the miracles by which these laws were authenticated,
and the national existence of the people of Israel was secured, were
genuine, and divine. The chain of historical and internal evidence is
too strong to be broken, while the Jewish nation exists.
But yet this historical and internal evidence of the authority of the
Old Testament is but the smallest part of that which we possess, who
have the testimony of Christ on this subject. For this testimony removes
the question from the mists of antiquity, and even from the debatable
ground of historic certainty, and resolves the whole process of
searching for, and comparing and examining a host of second-hand
witnesses, into the easy and certain one of hearing the Author himself
say, whether he acknowledges this Book to be his or not. Christians
receive the Old Testament as the Word of God, because Jesus says so.
Now, reader, it is of the utmost importance that you should stop just
here, and give a plain, confident answer to these questions: Dost thou
believe upon the Son of God? Is Jesus the Messiah of whom Moses in the
law, and the prophets, did write? Are you perfectly satisfied of the
truth of the New Testament, and willing to venture your eternal
salvation upon the words of Christ contained in it?
For, if not, of what use is it for you to trouble yourself about the Old
Testament? You might as well waste your time in examining the
genuineness of the bills of a broken bank; they may be genuine or they
may be forgeries; but who cares? They will never be paid. If the first
promises of the bank of heaven, to send the Messiah eighteen hundred
years ago, have been fulfilled, its other paper may be also valuable; if
not, it must be equally worthless. If the New Testament be not of divine
authority, you may place the prophets on the same shelf with the Poems
of Ossian; and then follows the serious consequence, that there is not a
grain of hope left for you or for any man on earth. If Jesus be indeed
an Almighty Savior, and if he has indeed risen from the dead, then,
through the power of his mighty love, your filthy soul may be washed
from its sins, and your mortal body may be raised from the rottenness of
the grave. But if Christ be not risen, you are yet in your sins. You
have no notion that any of the gods of the heathen, or the precepts of
the Koran, can purify your heart. You know well that Infidelity never
sanctified any of your comrades. Conscience tells you that you are not
any better now than you were a year ago, but worse. You are yet in your
sins; and in them you must live and die! Aye, while your immortal soul
lives, while the laws of human nature continue, you must carry those
brands of infamy on your character, and daily progress from bad to
worse; sinking deeper and deeper in the contempt of all intelligent
beings; and, were there no other avenger, in the remorse and despair of
your own mind, you must experience the horrors of perdition. Jesus, able
to save to the uttermost, all that come unto God by him, is your only
hope. There is none other name given under heaven among men whereby we
must be saved. If his gospel be true, you may be saved; if it is false,
you must be damned.
If you have the shadow of a doubt of the truth of the New Testament, go
over the subject again; re-read the former chapters of this book; pray
to God for light and truth; above all, read the Book again and again;
and if, in your case, as in that of one of the most famous teachers of
German Neology--De Wette--the careful study of the New Testament impels
you to rush through all the mists of doubt to the higher standpoint of a
lofty faith, and the sunshine of real religion; and if with him you can
now say, "Only this one thing I know, that in no other name is there
salvation than in the name of Jesus Christ the crucified, and that for
humanity there is nothing higher than the incarnation of Deity set
before us in him, and the kingdom of God established by him,"[154] you
may then go on with your inquiry into the divine authority of the Old
Testament. With the Master himself before you, the Author, the Inspirer,
by whom, and for whom, the prophets spake, and to whom all the
Scriptures point, you will not think of wasting time in examining
second-hand evidence; but go direct to Jesus himself. His testimony will
not be merely so much additional testimony--another candle added to the
chandelier by whose light you have perused the evidences of the
Scriptures; it will shine out on your soul as the light of the Sun of
Righteousness with healing on his wings. Every word from his lips will
awaken in your heart the voice from heaven, "_This is my beloved Son.
Hear him._" What saith Christ, then, respecting the Old Testament?
The moment you open the New Testament to make this inquiry, you are met
by a reference to the Old. "_The book of the generation of Jesus Christ,
the Son of David, the Son of Abraham_," is its formal title; and the
most cursory perusal tells you that you have taken up, not a separate
and independent work, which you can profitably peruse and understand
without much reference to some foregoing volumes--as one might read
Abbott's Life of Napoleon without needing at the same time to study the
History of the Crusades--but that you have taken up a continuation of
some former work--the last volume in fact of the Old Testament--and that
you can not understand even the first chapter without a careful reading
of the foregoing volumes. Before you have finished the first chapter you
meet with the most unequivocal assertion of the harmony of the gospels
and the prophecies, and of the divine authority of both--"_Now all this
was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the
prophet_," etc. The whole tenor of the New Testament corresponds to this
beginning, teaching that the birth, doctrine, miracles, life, death,
resurrection, ascension, and second coming of the Lord, are the
fulfillments of the Old Testament promises and prophecies; of which no
less than a hundred and thirty-nine are expressly quoted, beginning with
Moses and ending with Malachi.
We can not explain this by saying, with the mythical school of
interpreters, that this was merely the opinion of the writers of the
gospels and of the Jews of their age; whose longings for the Messiah led
them to imagine some curious coincidences between the events of Christ's
life and the utterances of these ancient oracles to be ready
fulfillments; and that Christ did not deem it needful in all cases to
undeceive them. For to suppose that Christ--the Truth--would sanction or
connive at any such sacrilegious deception, is at once to deprive him,
not only of his divine character, but of all claim to common honesty. So
far from the Jews longing for any such events as those which fulfilled
the prophecies, they despised the Messiah in whom they were fulfilled,
and refused to believe in him; and his disciples were as far from the
gospel ideal of the Messiah, when Jesus needed to reproach them with,
"_O fools, and slow of heart, to believe all that the prophets have
spoken._"[155] It was not the Jews, nor yet the disciples, but the Lord
himself who perpetually insisted on the divine authority of the Old
Testament as the _Word_ of his Father, and the sufficient attestation of
his own divine character, after this manner: "_Ye have not his word
abiding in you; for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not. Search the
Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they
which testify of me. * * * Had ye believed Moses, ye would have
believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how
shall ye believe my words?_"[156]
His first recorded sermon contains a remarkable and solemn attestation
to the divine authority of the Old Testament, and of his own relation to
it as its substance and supporter, "_Think not that I am come to destroy
the law, and the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For
verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle
shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled._"[157] The
whole of this discourse is an exposition of the true principles of the
Old Testament, stripping off the rubbish by which tradition had made
void the law of God, and enforcing its precepts by the sanction of his
divine authority. And in one of his last discourses after his
resurrection: "_Beginning at Moses, and the prophets, he expounded unto
them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. * * * And he
said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was
yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in
the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.
Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the
Scriptures._"[158]
In this distinct enumeration of the whole of the Scriptures of the Old
Testament; in the assertion that they all treated of him, and that their
principal predictions were fulfilled in him; and in his bestowal of
divine illumination to enable them to understand these divine
oracles--we have such an indorsement of their character by the Truth
himself, as must command the faith and obedience of every believer in
him. Had no objections been raised against particular doctrines or
features of the Old Testament, we should stop here; perfectly satisfied
with the attestations to the truth of its history, given by the
continual references, and to the authority of its precepts, by the
solemn formal declarations of the Son of God. But some popular
objections to its completeness and perfection demand a brief notice.
1. The general character of the Old Testament being then ascertained
beyond doubt, our first inquiry must be as to the integrity and
completeness of the collection. For it is manifest that their divine
authority being admitted, any attempt to add to them any human writings,
or to take away those which were from God, would be a crime so serious
in its consequences, that it could not escape the notice of him who
severely rebuked even the verbal traditions by which the Jews made void
the law of God. Now we are told by some that a great many inspired
books have been lost; and they enumerate the prophecy of Enoch; the book
of the Wars of the Lord; the book of Joshua; the book of Iddo the seer;
the book of Nathan the prophet; the acts of Rehoboam; the book of Jehu,
the son of Hanani; and the five books of Solomon, on trees, beasts,
fowls, serpents, and fishes; which are alluded to in the Bible.
If the case were so, it is difficult to see what objection could be
raised against the divine authority of the books we have, because of the
divine authority of those we have not; for it is not supposed that one
divinely inspired book would contradict another. Nor yet can we see how
the loss of these books should disprove their inspiration, much less the
inspiration of those which remain, any more than the want of a record of
the multitude of words and works of Jesus himself which were never
committed to writing,[159] should be an argument against the divine
authority of the Sermon on the Mount. It will hardly be asserted that
God is bound to reveal to us everything that the human race ever did,
and to preserve such records through all time, or lose his right to
demand our obedience to a plain revelation of his will; or that we do
well to neglect the salvation of our own souls until we obtain an
infallible knowledge of the acts of Rehoboam.
But there is not the shadow of a proof that any of these were inspired
books, or that some of them were books at all. The Bible nowhere says
that Enoch wrote his prophecy, or that Solomon read his discourses on
natural history; nor of what religious interest they would have been to
us any more than the hard questions of the Queen of Sheba, and his
answers to them. Though the loss of these ancient chronicles may be
regretted by the antiquarian, the Christian feels not at all concerned
about it; knowing as he does, on the testimony of Christ, that the Holy
Scriptures, as he and his apostles delivered them to us, contain all
that we need to know in order to repent of our sins, lead holy lives,
and go to heaven; and that we have the very same Bible of which Jesus
said: "_They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. * * * If
they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded
though one rose from the dead._"[160]
2. Another objection is, that the religion of the Old Testament was
essentially different from that of the New. It is at once acknowledged,
that the light which Christ shed on our relations to God, and to our
brethren of mankind, is so much clearer than that of the Old Testament
that we see our duties more plainly, and are more inexcusable for
neglecting them, than those who had not the benefit of Christ's
teaching. And no objection can be raised against God for not sending his
Son sooner, or for not giving more light to the world before his coming,
unless it can be shown that he is debtor to mankind, and that they were
making a good use of the light he gave them. So that the question is
not, Did God give as full and expanded instructions to the Church in her
infancy as he has given in her maturity? but, Did he give instructions
of a different character? It is not, Did Christ reveal more than Moses?
but, Did Christ contradict Moses? And here, at the very outset, we are
met by Christ's own solemn formal disclaimer of any such intention:
"_Think not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets. I am not
come to destroy, but to fulfill._" And as to the actual working of the
Christian religion, when Paul is asked, "_Is the law then against the
promises of God?_"[161] he indignantly replies, "_God forbid!_"
But it is urged, "Judaism is not Christianity. You have changed the
Sabbath, abolished the sacrifices, trampled upon the rules of living,
eating, and visiting only with the peculiar people, you neglect the
passover, and drop circumcision, the seal of the covenant, all on the
authority of Christ. Do you mean to say that these are not essential
elements of the Old Testament religion?"
Undoubtedly. Outward ceremonies of any kind never were essential parts
of religion. "_I will have mercy and not sacrifice_," is an Old
Testament proverb, which clearly tells us that outward ceremonies are
merely means toward the great end of all religion. "_The law_," says the
Holy Ghost, by the pen of Paul, "_was our schoolmaster to bring us to
Christ_." The bread of heavenly truth is served out to God's children
now on ten thousand wooden tables, instead of one brazen altar; but it
is made of the same corn of heaven, it is dispensed by the same hand of
love, to a larger family, it is true, but received and eaten in the
exercise of the very same religious feelings, by any hearer of the
gospel in New York, as by Abraham on Moriah. By faith in Christ the
sinner now is justified, "_Even as Abraham believed God, and it was
imputed to him for righteousness._" So says one who knew both law and
gospel well. "_Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid!
Yea, we establish the law!_" The Epistles to the Romans and to the
Hebrews are just demonstrations of this truth, that the law was the
blossom, the gospel the fruit.
But it is alleged that the religion of the Old Testament could not but
be defective, as it wanted the doctrines of immortality and the
resurrection; of which, it is alleged, the Old Testament saints were
ignorant.
It were easy to prove, from their own words and conduct, that Job,
Abraham, David, and Daniel, were not ignorant of these great
doctrines.[162] But the manner in which our Lord proves the truth of
the resurrection, by a reference to it as undeniably taught in the Old
Testament, must ever silence this objection. "_But as touching the
resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto
you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the
God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living._"[163]
3. But it is objected the Hebrew Jehovah tolerated and approved
polygamy, slavery, and divorce; and, in general, a low code of morals
among the Hebrews.
But we demand to know what standard of morals our objectors adopt? That
of the ancient oriental world in which Israel lived? Then the laws of
Jehovah were very far in advance of that age. The slave had his blessed
Sabbath rest secured to him; which is more than modern civilization can
secure for her railway slaves; his master was forbidden to treat him
cruelly; and the maid-servant's honor was protected by the best means
then known; while the Sacred Writings held up for example the primitive
example of marriage, interposed the formality of a legal document before
divorce, and elevated the family far above the degraded state of the
heathen around them.
But the objector falls back on the morals of Christendom, the
civilization of the nineteenth century, and judges the laws of Moses by
that standard. Very well. This is simply to say that our ideas have been
raised to the standard of Christianity; and then the objection is that
the laws of Moses are not so spiritual and elevated as the precepts of
Christ. Our Lord himself asserts the same thing. He says Moses tolerated
divorce because of the hardness of the people's hearts; but from the
beginning it was not so. And Paul (Hebrews viii. 6, 7) alleges the
imperfection of Moses' law as a good reason for the introduction of a
better covenant. The Bible itself then recognizes an advance from good
to better, the path of the just shining more and more unto the perfect
day.
But then it is asked, Is God the Author of an imperfect law? Could God
give a defective code of morals? The question entirely misses the design
of God's revelation as a process of educating his children. Suppose we
ask, Could God speak Hebrew--a language so defective in philosophical
terms? God must condescend to the mental, and even, in some degree, to
the moral level of mankind if he is to reach us at all. All education
must begin low, and rise from step to step. The A, B, C of morals must
be first learned. The whole analogy of providence shows this to be God's
method of procedure. The kingdom of God is like the growing seed; first
the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. Gradual, and
even slow, progress is the law of nature.
Our modern civilization, which is so proudly invoked, is very far indeed
from any such perfection as might enable us to look down upon Moses'
legislation with contempt. We have only to name our standing armies and
conscriptions; our national promises to pay debts, which no one ever
expects to pay; our laws regarding drunkenness, and our revenues derived
from the licenses for the sale of liquors; the utter failure of our
attempts to put down betting, gambling, and stock and gold speculations,
prostitution, bribery, frauds, and plundering of the public funds; to
convince ourselves that there are many things law can not do, even in
this nineteenth century of civilization.
Our little progress, such as it is, has not been made all at once, or by
one great advance. God gives mankind blessings by degrees. He gave the
mariner's compass to the fourteenth century, the printing press and
America to the fifteenth, the Bible in the vulgar tongue to the
sixteenth, parliamentary government to the seventeenth, the steam
engine to the eighteenth, railroads and the telegraph to the nineteenth.
One might as well cavil at his providence for not giving the Hebrews
sewing machines, Hoe's printing presses, and daily newspapers, when they
entered into Canaan, as for delaying to give them the elements of
Christian civil law, and social life, before they were able to value and
to use them.
As it was, Moses' law was so far in advance of their own ideas of
propriety, and so far in advance of those of all the people around them,
that they were continually falling back from it, and rebelling against
it, and subjecting themselves to the discipline which God had threatened
for disobedience. Thus they were kept ever looking upward to a higher
model. Their transgressions must be confessed as sins, and atoned for by
bloody sacrifices, declaring the transgressor worthy of death. Their
consciences were educated to the idea of holiness, an idea utterly
wanting among the heathen; and the law became a powerful motive power,
urging them to higher and holier lives, and preparing them to receive
the higher and holier example and precepts of Christ.
The imperfection, then, of the law of Moses, so far from being an
evidence of the human origin of the Bible, is a mark of the infinite
wisdom of the great Lawgiver in adapting his legislation to the
condition of his people; and while tolerating for the time then present
an imperfect state of society, just as at this time he tolerates a
Christendom far below the gospel standard, yet implanting in the minds
of his people principles of righteousness and love which were certain
eventually to raise them to the high level of the kingdom of God. This,
then, is simply an instance of the general law of divine development.
4. Again, however, it is contended, "that the morality of the Old
Testament was narrow and bigoted; requiring, indeed, the observance of
charity to the covenant people, but allowing Israel to hate all others
as enemies, and as well expressed in the text, _Thou shalt love thy
neighbor and hate thine enemy._"[164]
But let it be noticed, that this is no text of Scripture, nor does our
Lord so quote it. He does not say it is so written, but, _ye have heard
it said by them of old time_. The first part is God's truth; the second
is the devil's addition to it, which Christ clears away and denounces.
It were easy to quote multitudes of passages from the Old Testament,
commanding Israel to show kindness to the stranger, and a whole host of
promises, that in them all the families of the earth should be blessed;
any one of which would sufficiently refute the foolish notion, that the
morality of the Old Testament was geographical, and its charity merely
national. But the simple fact, that the most sublime sanction of
world-wide benevolence which ever fell even from the lips of Christ
himself, was uttered by him as the sum and substance of the teachings of
the Old Testament, conclusively confutes this dogma. The Golden Rule was
no new discovery, unless its Author was mistaken, for he says:
"_Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do
ye even so to them_: FOR THIS IS THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS."[165] He
declares the very basis and foundation of the whole Old Testament
religion to be those eternal principles of godliness and charity, which
he quotes in the very words of the law: "_Then one of them, which was a
lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is
the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love
the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all
thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is
like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two
commandments hang all the law and the prophets._"[166] The law and the
prophets, then, taught genuine world-wide benevolence, Christ being
witness; and the moral law of the Old Testament is the moral law of the
New Testament, if we may believe the Lawgiver.
5. Still, it is alleged, "it can not be denied that the writers of the
Old Testament breathed a spirit of vindictiveness, and imprecated curses
on their enemies, utterly at variance with the precepts of the gospel,
which command us to bless and curse not; and even in their solemn
devotions uttered sentiments unfit for the mouth of any Christian; nor
that their views of the character of God were stern and gloomy, and that
they represented the Hebrew Jehovah as an unforgiving and vengeful
being, utterly different from the kind and loving Father whom Christ
delighted to reveal."
This, if the truth were told, is the grand objection to the Old
Testament. The holy and righteous sin-hating God, presented in its
history, is the object of dislike. The God who drowned the old world,
destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah by fire from heaven, commanded the
extermination of the lewd and bloody Canaanites, thundered his curses
against sinners of every land and every age, saying, "_Cursed be he that
confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them_," requiring all the
people to say _Amen_,[167] is not the God whom Universalists can find in
their hearts to adore. A mild, easy, good-natured being, who would allow
men to live and die in sin without any punishment, would suit them
better. They try to think that he is altogether such an one as
themselves, and an approver of their sin.
But it is worth while to inquire whether the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ be in this respect anything different from the Hebrew Jehovah, or
whether the gospel has in the least degree lessened his displeasure
against iniquity. Paul thought not that he was a different person, when
he said:
"_We know him who hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will
recompense, saith the Lord._"[168] Jesus thought not that he was more
lenient to sinners when he cried, "_Woe unto thee, Chorazin! Woe unto
thee, Bethsaida! * * * Thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven,
shalt be brought down to hell * * * It shall be more tolerable for the
land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee._"[169] It is not in
the Old Testament, but in the New, that we are told that Jesus himself
shall come "_In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God,
and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall be
punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and
from the glory of his power._"[170] It is not an old, bigoted Hebrew
prophet giving a vision of the Hebrew Jehovah, but the beloved disciple
who leaned on Jesus' breast, picturing the Savior himself, who says:
"_He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood; and his name is called
the Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon
white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his
mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations; and
he shall rule them with a rod of iron; and he treadeth the wine-press of
the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God._"[171]
Let no man imagine that the New Testament offers impunity to the wicked,
or that the Old Testament denies mercy to the repenting sinner, or that
Christ exhibited any other God than the God of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob--the same Hebrew Jehovah who _commands the wicked to forsake his
way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and to return unto the Lord,
and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly
pardon_.[172] It is exceedingly strange that those who dwell upon the
paternal character of God, as a distinctive feature of Christ's personal
teaching, should have forgotten that the hymns of the Old Testament
church, a thousand years before his coming, were full of this endearing
relation; that it was by the first Hebrew prophet that the Hebrew
Jehovah declared, "_Israel is my son, even my first-born; and I say unto
thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me_;"[173] and that by the last
of them he urges Israel to obedience by this tender appeal: "_If I be a
father, where is mine honor?_"[174] It was not Christ, but David--one of
those gloomy, stern, Hebrew prophets--who penned that noble hymn to our
Father in heaven, which Christ illustrated in his Sermon on the Mount:
"The Lord is merciful and gracious,
Slow to anger and plenteous in mercy.
He will not always chide,
Neither will he keep his anger forever.
He hath not dealt with us after our sins,
Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities;
For as the heaven is high above the earth,
So great is his mercy to them that fear him;
As far as the East is from the West,
So far hath he removed our transgressions from us.
Like as a father pitieth his children,
So the Lord pitieth them that fear him."--Psalm ciii.
It is utter ignorance of the Old Testament which prompts any one to
imagine that it presents any other character of God than "_The Lord, the
Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in
goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and
transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the
guilty._"[175] This is the name which God proclaimed to Moses, and this
is the character which he proclaimed in Christ, when he cried on the
cross: "_My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? But thou art holy, O
thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel._"[176] Justice and mercy are
united in Christ dying for the ungodly.
It is untrue to say that the prophets of the Old Testament were actuated
by a spirit of malice, or of revenge for personal injuries as such, in
praying for, or prophesying destruction on the inveterate enemies of God
and his cause.[177] Of all Scripture characters, David has been most
defamed for vindictiveness; but surely never was man more free from any
such spirit, than the persecuted fugitive, who, with his enemy in his
hand in the cave, and his confidential advisers urging him to take his
life, cut off his skirt instead of his head; and on another occasion
prevented the stroke which would have smitten the sleeping Saul to the
earth, and sent back even the spear and the cruse of water, the trophies
of his generosity. When cursed himself, and defamed as a vengeful
shedder of blood by the Benjamite, he could restrain the fury of his
followers, protect the life of the ruffianly traitor, and thus appeal to
God as the witness of his innocence:
"O Lord, my God! if I have done this,
If there be iniquity in my hands,
If I have rewarded evil to him that was at peace with me,
Yea I have delivered him that without cause was mine enemy."[178]
It is true that he does bitterly curse several living persons; of whom
it is observable that some had done him no sort of personal injury; as
Doeg the Edomite--the Nana Sahib of his day--who anticipated the scenes
of Cawnpore, in the streets of Nob, by mercilessly butchering
unoffending men, helpless women, and innocent babes. But surely no
friend of humanity can imagine that it is improper that the chief
magistrate of Israel, anointed for the very purpose of being a terror to
evil doers, should express his righteous indignation against such
atrocities; nor confound such public execration with the petty gnawings
of private revenge. Still less can the fearer of God doubt the propriety
of his expressing by the mouth of his prophet, that displeasure he
signally displayed by his providence, scathing and blasting the accursed
wretch into a terror to all bloody and deceitful men who shall read
their own warning in his doom.
"God shall likewise destroy thee forever,
He shall take thee away and pluck thee from thy dwelling,
And root thee out of the land of the living."[179]
We have the most solemn assurance, that every one of the historical
incidents of Scripture is recorded for our instruction, and that every
prophecy gives a lesson to all ages. "_Now all these things happened
unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon
whom the ends of the world are come._"[180] The imprecations of the
Bible against individual sinners are the gibbets on which these
malefactors are hung up for warning to all men to flee the crimes that
brought them to that fate.
It is put beyond the possibility of doubt, by the combined testimony of
the Lord and his apostles, that by far the greater number of the curses
which David uttered, he spoke in the person of Christ himself, of whom
he was a type; and with direct reference to the crimes and punishment of
his enemies. Thus the Sixty-ninth Psalm, and the One hundred and ninth,
pre-eminently the cursing Psalms, are most explicitly and repeatedly
asserted by Christ, by Peter, and by John, to belong to Christ, and to
express his very words: "_This scripture must needs have been fulfilled,
which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake before concerning
Judas, which was guide to them that took Jesus. * * * For it is
written in the book of Psalms, Let his habitation be desolate, and let
no man dwell therein. And, His bishopric let another take._"[181] If any
one feels reluctant to imagine that such cursings should fall from the
lips of the merciful Savior, let him remember that the most awful curse
which shall ever fall on the ears of terrified men shall be pronounced
by Jesus himself, "_Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared
for the devil and his angels._"[182] The solemn facts of the Bible will
not accommodate themselves to our likes and dislikes. Christ loves
righteousness and hates iniquity; in the Bible he takes leave to say so,
and he expects his people to share his feelings, and to be willing to
express them on fit occasions.
Personal revenge, and curses for mere personal injuries, are forbidden
in the New Testament as well as in the Old. But it was an apostle of
Jesus Christ who cried, "_If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let
him be accursed. Though we or an angel from heaven bring any other
gospel unto you, let him be accursed._"[183] Nor until we can in some
measure feel this holy indignation against sin, and this burning desire
to see all tyranny, superstition, bribery, licentiousness, and
profanity, crushed and banished from the earth, can we pray in truth
"_Thy kingdom come._" Still less can we be prepared for the rejoicings
of heaven over the conquest of the enemies of God and man: "_Rejoice
over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets, for God hath
avenged you on her._"
Reader, you hope to go to heaven; but it may be a different place from
what you dream of. Did you ever study the employment of the saints
there? Are you washed from your sins? Is your mind purified from your
carnal notions? Unless a man be born again he can not see the kingdom of
God. Are your likes and dislikes, your sentiments and sympathies, your
understanding and your will, all brought into subjection to Christ? Can
you heartily love and adore a sin-hating, sin-avenging God? Or do you
shrink back in terror or dislike from God's denunciations of wrath
against the wicked? Would your benevolence lead you to deal alike with
the righteous and the wicked; and to abhor the thought of destroying
them that destroy the earth? Then how will you join in the hallelujahs
of heaven; for God's judgments are the themes of thanksgiving and praise
from saints and angels there, and this is their song:
"_Hallelujah, salvation, and glory, and honor, and power, unto the Lord,
our God, for true and righteous are his judgments; for he hath judged
the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and
hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hands. And again they
said, Hallelujah! And her smoke rose up for ever and ever. And the four
and twenty elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped
God that sat on the throne, saying, Amen! Hallelujah! And a voice came
out of the throne, saying, Praise our God, all ye his servants; and ye
that fear him, both small and great. And I heard as it were the voice of
a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of
mighty thunderings, saying, Hallelujah!_ FOR THE LORD GOD OMNIPOTENT
REIGNETH."[184]
And now, if this be the character of God, if he be indeed one who hates
iniquity, and punishes impenitent sinners, we need not wonder that those
who spake his word should utter imprecations, either in the Old
Testament or in the New; but rather bless the mercy which warns before
justice strikes, which hangs the red lantern over the abyss, and which
seeks by the terrors of the Lord to persuade men from perdition. The
curses of the Bible are denounced against the enemies of God, with the
design of showing sinners their danger, and leading them to repentance.
The conclusion, then, of our investigation is, that the Old Testament is
the Word of God no less than the New; that it is in no respect contrary
to it; that all its parts--the law and the prophets, and the Psalms--are
of divine authority; that all its contents were written by divine
direction, whether prophecy or history, ceremony or morality, promise or
threatening, curses or blessings. It is of the Old Testament principally
that the Holy Ghost declares: "_All Scripture is given by inspiration of
God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for
instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect,
thoroughly furnished unto all good works._"[185]
FOOTNOTES:
[120] Parker's Absolute Religion, p. 205.
[121] Parker's Discourses on Religion, p. 161.
[122] Macknight's Doctrine of Inspiration, p. 161, and seq.
[123] Macknight's Doctrine of Inspiration, p. 192, etc.
[124] Essays and Reviews, page 121.
[125] John, chap. x. 25, 38.
[126] Annual of Scientific Discovery, 1864, p. 254. Annual Cyclopædia,
1863, p. 377.
[127] Mastodon Giganteus, Boston, 1855, p. 199.
[128] For a fuller discussion of the subject, and references to the
authorities, which our space here forbids, I must refer the curious
reader to the _Princeton Review_, Vol. XL. No. 4, where I have noticed
every fact bearing on the subject up to that date; merely adding that no
new fact, establishing man's remote antiquity, has been established up
to this date, September 21, 1874.
[129] Familiar Lectures, page 456.
[130] Authenticity of the Pentateuch, II. 150.
[131] Creation's Testimony to its God. London, 1867, page 338.
[132] See this subject more fully discussed in chapter XII., Telescopic
Views of Scripture.
[133] Osburn's Monumental History.
[134] Hebrew Monarchy, 160.
[135] Prof. Rawlinson's Modern Skepticism, 285.
[136] Ancient Monarchies I. 65.
[137] W. R. Cooper, Secretary Biblical Archæological Society, in _Faith
and Free Thought_, page 257.
[138] Rawlinson's Illustrations of Scripture.
[139] 2 Kings, chap. iv. 2 Chronicles, chap. xx.
[140] Recovery of Jerusalem, page 496, Gunsberg's Essay.
[141] Josephus against Apion, Book I. Sect. 8. Horne's Introduction
Chap. ii. Sect. 1.
[142] Isaiah, chap. iii. 16. Ezekiel, chap. xviii. 12.
[143] Jeremiah, chaps. xxi., and xxii. 16.
[144] Jeremiah, chap. xxii. 13.
[145] Jeremiah, chap. xxxiv.
[146] Ezra, chap. vi. 18.
[147] Daniel, chap. ix. 11.
[148] Joshua, chaps. xiii.-xix.
[149] 1 Chronicles, chaps. i.-ix. Leviticus, chap. xxv.
[150] Exodus, chap. xxi. 6. Deuteronomy, chap. i. 16; chap. xix.
[151] Exodus, chap. xviii. 21.
[152] Deuteronomy, chap. xx. Numbers, chap. x. 9.
[153] Deuteronomy, chap. xxii. 8, 11, 12. Leviticus, chap. xi.
[154] Preface to Exposition of the Apocalypse.
[155] Luke, chap. xxiv. 25.
[156] John, chap. v. 38, 39, 46, 47.
[157] Matthew, chap. v. 17, 18.
[158] Luke, chap. xxiv. throughout.
[159] John, chap. xx. 30.
[160] Luke, chap. xvi. 29.
[161] Galatians, chap. iii. 21.
[162] Job, chap. xix. 25. Psalm xvi. 10. Hebrews, chap. xi. 13-16.
Daniel, chap. xii. 2, 3.
[163] Matthew, chap. xxii. 31, 32.
[164] Matthew, chap. v. 43.
[165] Matthew, chap. vii. 12.
[166] Matthew, chap. xxii. 35-40.
[167] Deuteronomy, chap. xxvii. 26.
[168] Hebrews, chap. x. 30.
[169] Matthew, chap. xi.
[170] 2 Thessalonians, chap. i.
[171] Revelation, chap. xix.
[172] Isaiah, chap. lv.
[173] Exodus, chap. iv. 22.
[174] Malachi, chap. i.
[175] Exodus, chap. xxxiv.
[176] Psalm xxii.
[177] 2 Timothy, chap. iv. 14.
[178] Psalm vii.
[179] Psalms vii. and lii. and 2 Samuel, chaps. xvi., xxi. and xxii.
[180] 1 Corinthians, chap. x.
[181] John, chap. ii. 17; chap. xv. 25; chap. xix. 28. Acts, chap. i.
20.
[182] Matthew, chap. xxv. 41.
[183] Galatians, chap. i. 9. 1 Corinthians, chap. xvi. 22. Revelation,
chaps. xix., xx. and xxi.
[184] Revelation, chaps. xix., xx. and xxi.
[185] 2 Timothy, chap. iii. 16, 17.