23. Luke vi. I. Mark ix. 14. book of Ecclesiastes, relates to the observation of the law and good works: Nay, man- From Matth. na, in particular (according to the sense of some Jewish authors) was an eminent type xii. 1. Mark ii. of Christ; and therefore," the good man, (a) says Philo, lifts up his eyes to heaven, John v. 1. to looking to the manna, the Divine and heavenly yes, the incorruptible food of the soul, Matth. xvii. 14. that loves God;" and if this was the Jews sense of things, our Saviour was gulity of no Luke ix. 37. presumption in styling himself the "true bread which came down from heaven," nor of John vii. 1. any absurdity, in insisting upon a metaphor which so frequently occurred in the best of their authors. The only question is, whether our Saviour's words in this place are to be taken in a literal or metaphorical sense, i. e. whether they relate to a corporeal or spiritual eating his flesh? 66 There is something so shocking in the very notion of one man's eating the flesh of another, that when the Jews heard our Saviour (as they imagined) discourse at this rate, they might well say, (b) "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" (c) " Will he cut it in pieces, and distribute to every one of us a share? It is no agreeable thought to eat human flesh, but (supposing we could bring ourselves to that) how could he multiply himself into so many parts as that each of us might have one? Or how could himself subsist, if he should, in this barbarous and inhuman manner, cut and mangle his own body?" This seems to be the reasoning of the Jews upon the case: (d) But on all hands it is agreed that they mistook the sense of our Saviour's words, and fancied such a meaning in them as he never intended; whereas, had the literal sense been the proper and intended meaning, it is certain that they imposed no false construction upon what he said; since, upon this supposition, he intended that his human flesh should properly be eaten, and they, in their questioning the truth of what he said, meant no more. We may observe farther, that when our Saviour knew within himself that the abstruseness of his discourse upon this subject had given some disgust to his disciples, (e)" he said unto them, does this offend you? What, and if ye should see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before? The only sense of which words can be, "(f) Are you offended that I thus speak of giving you my flesh to eat? Do you look on this expression now as a thing so very absurd and unintelligible: What then will you think of it, when this body is removed hence into heaven? i. e. How will you then be scared, and think it still more difficult and more impossible to apprehend, how ye shall then eat my flesh and drink my blood, provided ye go on to understand my words in a gross and carnal manner?" For St Athanasius has well observed, that our Saviour here mentions his ascent into heaven, that he might divert his disciples from entertaining a carnal sense of his words: And therefore his argument is," Since it will be then impossible for you to eat my flesh corporeally, when it is so far removed from you; by this you may perceive that my purpose is, that you should understand my words in a spiritual sense. We may observe again, that when several disciples revolted upon the account of this hard saying, as (g) it is called, and our Saviour was apprehensive that his apostles might do the like, St Peter, in the name of the rest, answers him, (h)" Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life :" Whereas, had he understood our Saviour as speaking here of oral manducation, his answer, very probably, would have been to this effect: "Whatsoever appearance there may be of inhumanity, absurdness, and impossibility in eating thy natural flesh and drinking thy blood, yet we believe it, because thou hast said it, who art Truth itself, and able to make good thy words." But since we hear nothing from him of this tendency, we may reasonably conclude that he had (b) John vi. 52. (h) Ibid. ver. 68. (a) L. de eo, quod deterius. pag. 137. (d) Whitby's Annotations in locum. (g) John vi. 60. (c) Calmet's Comment. in locum. Ann. Dom. 31, &c. Vulg. Ær. 29. 6 A. M. 4035, no such notion of our Saviour's words. And indeed our Saviour, one would think, had &c. or 5140. done enough to explain his own meaning, when he tells us that the eating, which he intends, is (a)" believing on him," and that it was such an eating as would make a man (b) “live for ever;" that (c) " flesh (if we could eat it) profiteth nothing," since the soul can only be nourished by spiritual food; and that therefore" the words which he spake unto them were spirit," i. e. were to be understood in a spiritual sense, otherwise they would not be conducive to eternal life: And therefore (d) Eusebius introduces our Saviour as thus addressing his disciples, "Do not think that I speak of that flesh wherewith I am compassed, as if you must eat of that; neither imagine that I command you to drink my bodily blood, but understand well that the words which I have spoken unto you, they are spirit and life." For (as St Austin (e) lays down the rule for the exposition of Scripture phrases) "If the saying be preceptive, either forbidding a wicked' action, or injoining a good one, it is no figurative speech; but if it seems to command any wickedness, or to forbid what is profitable and good, it is figurative. Accordingly this saying, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood,' seems to command a wicked thing, and is therefore a figure, injoining us to communicate in the passion of our Lord, and sweetly and profitably remember that his flesh was wounded and crucified for us." (f) In this sense his flesh and blood are annows, truly meat and drink; because the eating of this flesh by faith in his salutary passion doth nourish the soul to life eternal; and the drinking of his blood by faith, as that which was shed for the remission of sins, does refresh the person thirsting after righteousness, and convey into him a principle of living well, and of living for ever *. Thus we have gone through the several objections that are usually made to the facts contained in the evangelical history of this period; and (if it would be of any farther satisfaction to those that delight to make them) we might shew, that whatever is recorded of our Blessed Saviour, the like, in one instance or other, the heathens themselves have acknowledged in their deified heroes and great men: (g) That the same power of curing all kinds of diseases the Greeks ascribe to their Esculapius, and the Egyptians to their Serapis and Isis: That Hadrian (according (h) to Spartianus) was cured of a fever by the touch of a certain blind man: That Sesostris, king of Egypt, upon offering a sacrifice to the god Mnevis, was restored to his eye-sight: That Vespasian (if we may believe Tacitus) cured a man of his lameness and another of his blindness, by anointing his eyes with spittle, in the manner that our Saviour did; and that Apol (a) John vi. 47. (c) Ibid. ver. 63. (b) Ibid. ver. 51. (d) De Eccles. Theolog. lib. iii. c. 12. ed to God, and part eaten as a religious feast by (g) Hueti Quæst. 18. Alnet. lib. ii. xii. 1. Mark ii. Matth. xvii. 14. lonius Tyanæus (whom (a) Philostratus sets up as a powerful rival of our Lord's mira- From Matth. cles) cured a young man that was possessed with a devil; and when he had restored 23. Luke vi. 1. him to his right senses, received him into the number of his disciples. Simplicius, in John v. 1. to his Dissertations upon Epictetus, seems to promise to all pious and wise men the power Mark ix. 14% of calming the waves of the sea; and how Neptune rebuked and allayed the winds, Luke ix. 37. which, without his permission, had raised a tempestuous storm, is a story well known John vii. 1. and well set off in (b) Virgil. Every poet almost mentions this same Neptune's riding in his chariot on the surface of the sea; and the tradition is, that to his son Euphemus and his nephew Orion he gave the faculty of walking upon it without fear of sinking. Nothing can be more common among the fictions of these writers than the transfiguration of their gods upon one occasion or other; and that our Saviour's method of electing his disciples might not want a precedent in profane history, (c) we are told that the famous Eastern philosopher Confucius, out of the three thousand followers that he had, made choice of seventy-two of principal note, and out of these of twelve only to be his more immediate companions, and to whom he committed the hidden mysteries of his philosophy: But our happiness is, that the credibility of the Scripture history wants no such weak supports as these; [and it is well that they do not, for these tales bear no resemblance to it. They were not recorded by contemporary authors in works committed to a select society, instituted for the express purpose of preserving these records uncorrupt, and disseminating them through the whole world.] DISSERTATION II. OF THE PROPHECIES RELATING TO THE MESSIAH, AND THEIR ONE great evidence of our Saviour's divine mission, and consequently of the truth of his religion, is the completion of the ancient prophecies, relating to the Messiah, in his person, doctrine, and miracles. He indeed makes more frequent appeal to his miracles; (d) "The works which the Father hath given me to finish," says he, "the same works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me :" but since, at the same time, he lays claim to the character of being the person spoken of by Moses and the prophets, when he bids the people (e)" search the Scriptures, because they testified of him;" it is certain, that his title to the Messiahship must be tried by the testimony of the prophets, and that all the miraculous works which he did, will not prove him to be the messenger of the covenant, whom God was to send, unless the several predictions which his servants the prophets gave of that renowned person are found to unite and agree in him. It can hardly be thought, but that God Almighty, who designed such an inestimable benefit for mankind, as the sending of his own Son into the world for the redemption of it, should give some previous notice of his coming, and draw his picture, as it were, so much to the life and likeness, that when the original should be brought to view, it might be known and distinguished by it. It is acknowledged, I think, on all hands, that the prophets," at sundry times, and in divers manners," have (b) Eneid i. (a) Philost. Vit. Apoll. lib. iv. c. 6. (d) John v. 36. (e) Ibid. verse 39. (c) Martin, Hist. Sinica, lib. iv. Ann. Dom. 31, &c. Vulg. Er 29. A. M. 4035, done this; (a) that each of them in his turn has drawn a feature, if I may so say, and &c. or 5440. left some masterly stroke behind him of this great personage that was to come from heaven; that one has described his parentage, another the time, another the place, and another the uncommon manner of his birth; that some have taken notice of the most remarkable actions and events of his life, and several of the most minute and altoge ther singular circumstances of his death; that by some his resurrection is foretold, by others his ascent to the throne of God, and by others the perpetual duration of his kingdom; and, if the prophets are allowed to have done this, our only enquiry is, whether the lineaments which they in their several capacities have drawn of the promised Messiah, when all brought together, be answerable to the account which the evangelists have given us in their history of the Blessed Jesus. We readily own, indeed, that there is a great obscurity in the ancient prophecies. They are generally penned in a very exalted style, and abound with so many bold metaphors, and hyperbolical expressions, so many allegories and parables, and other abstruse forms of speech, as make it very difficult for the interpreters of Scripture to discover their true scope or meaning. The prophecies relating to the Messiah are still more obscure, because, as they consider him in the different capacities of his humiliation and exaltation, unless this distinction is taken along with us, when we apply them to one and the same person, they will seem to load his character with contradictions. But still, since it is acknowledged that the great design of prophecy was to acquaint the world with the Messiah, and that, upon whatever particular occasions God sent his messengers, he always made this one part of their errand, we can hardly believe that he would multiply these messages to no purpose; or, when he pretended to reveal this matter to them, mock them with unintelligible words, and leave them as much in the dark as he found them. He might indeed, for wise purposes, (b) "multiply visions, and use similitudes and (c) dark speeches, by the ministry of the prophets;" but in this grand discovery of all, he certainly left such indications as enabled those who "looked for the redemption of Israel," and accordingly made it their business to search the Scriptures, and enquire into the marks of the Messiah, to attain a competent knowledge of them: Nor can it well be doubted but that the Jews had some fixed and well-known rules, though they have not descended to us, whereby they distinguished the passages in the prophetic writings, which related to this important subject, from any others, because we find, that (d) when Herod summoned the Sanhedrim together, and demanded of them where Christ was to be born, they readily replied at Bethlehem in Judea, having the prophecy of Micah (e) to that purpose ready to produce. We acknowledge again, that the prophecies concerning the Messiah were delivered, not only in an obscure manner, but in different proportions, and at very distant times. Thus to Adam and Eve he was promised in general (ƒ) as a man; to Abraham, (g) as his posterity; to Jacob. (h) as descending from the tribe of Judah in particular; to David, that he should be of his family, and (i) the fruit of his body; to Micah, that he should be born at Bethlehem (k); to Isaiah, that his birth should be miraculous, and his mother a virgin (1); to the same prophet, that his death should be for (m) the redemption of mankind; to Daniel, (n) when the precise time of his suffering should be; to Haggai, lastly, and Zechariah and Malachi, that (0) all these events should be accomplished before the destruction of the second temple. [But the obscurity of the language in which the earliest of these prophecies were delivered, and the very gradual manner in which the veil was removed from their ultimate import, so far from furnish Mark ix. 14, xii. 1. Mark ii. ing an objection to their having been dictated by the Spirit of God, are an illustrious John vii. 1. proof of their Divine original. The object of prophecy never was to enable mankind Luke ix. 37. to penetrate into futurity, which is, with infinite goodness as well as wisdom, concealed Matth. xvii. 14. from the human race; but to keep alive in the minds of those to whom revelations John v. 1. to were vouchsafed, the hope of that redemption which was so enigmatically promised to 23. Luke vi. 1our first parents. Had the world at large been capable, in the days of Abraham, of re- From Matth. ceiving the sublime but simple religion which the Redeemer was to institute, we can conceive no reason for delaying his advent to so late a period, or for separating that patriarch and his family from the rest of mankind to be the repository of God's holy name, and of the various promises of future deliverance. But the world was not capable of this at that period, nor for many ages afterwards. The law was therefore interposed as a schoolmaster to bring the posterity of Abraham by his grandson Israel-and through them, all mankind, gradually to Christ. The law was therefore to be preserved in full force among the Israelites till it should accomplish this object, and no longer. But so prone were that people to idolatry, and to all the enormities combined with it, that, as St Chrysostom (a) well observes," Had the Jews been taught from the beginning that their law was temporary and to have an end, they would certainly have despised it. On this account, it seemed good to the Divine wisdom to throw a vail of obscurity over. the prophecies which related to the Christian dispensation”—a vail which was gradually lifted up by the prophets, though never wholly removed till HE came, in whom all the prophecies were accomplished, when the law had run its appointed course. This agrees not more exactly with the nature of the most remarkable of these prophecies, than with the distant seasons at which they were delivered;] for the general prediction of a Saviour in human nature will be found to bear date, before that of his being Abraham's seed, about two thousand and fourscore years; from this to the declaration of his particular tribe, were two hundred and fourscore years; thence to the prophecy of his particular family, above six hundred years; after that, to the signification of his miraculous nativity, more than three hundred years; and from thence to the time of his public appearance in the world, three hundred and fifty years, or thereabouts. Now, since these prophecies were thus delivered by degrees, and at such distant and different times, it may easily so happen, that, considering them singly and apart, we may find some other person and event, to which they may be adapted, without any great violence to the text; but then the right way in this case to make a judgment is, not by separate and particular passages, but by the connection of the whole, by the exact coincidence and entire agreement of all the prophecies, which at several times denoted the Messiah, brought into one point of light, and laid together. This is the only method we have to determine the matter; And, accordingly, let us now look into some of the principal passages of our Saviour's life, as it is recorded by the evangelists, and so see, whether they do not exactly agree with the several characters which the prophets have given us of the Messiah. Our Lord Jesus, we are told, (b) was conceived and born of a pure virgin, without the concurrence of any man; for so the prophecy had foretold, that (c) "the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head," and that (d) "a virgin should conceive and bear a son, and call his name Immanuel." He was descended (e) of the family of David, and born (ƒ) in the town of Bethlehem; because, in favour to that king, God had promised that (g) "he would establish his seed for ever," and that (h) "out of Beth (a) Homilia prima de prophetarum obscuritate. [All these dates are different from what they are in Hales's Analysis; but that circumstance is of no importance in this reasoning, and the reader will find them all rectified in the preceding Volumes of this Work.] VOL. III. Y (b) Matth. i. 18. and Luke i. 26, &c. (g) Psal. lxxxix. 4. |