"The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord,"--that is to say, it is not by that that I will be honoured, as it is said in another place. All the beasts of the field are mine, what good is it to me that they are offered me in sacrifice?--"Greater shall be the glory of this latter house than of the first, saith the Lord of hosts: and in this place I will establish my house, saith the Lord."
"According to all that you desired of the Lord God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let us not hear again the voice of the Lord, neither let us see this fire any more, that we die not. And the Lord said unto me, Their prayer is just. I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and I will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him."
Genesis xlix. "Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise, and thou shall vanquish thine enemies; thy father's children shall bow down before thee. Judah, lion's whelp, thou art gone up to the prey, O my son, and art couched as a lion, and as a lioness awakened.
"The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be."
_OF TYPES IN GENERAL AND OF THEIR LAWFULNESS._ _Proof of the two Testaments at once._--To prove both the Testaments at one stroke we need only see if the prophecies in one are accomplished in the other.
To examine the prophecies we must understand them.
For if we believe they have only one sense it is certain that Messiah has not come; but if they have two senses, it is certain that he has come in Jesus Christ.
The whole question then is to know if they have two senses...That the Scripture has two senses, which Jesus Christ and his Apostles have given, the following are the proofs: 1. Proof by Scripture itself.
2. Proofs by the Rabbis. Moses Maimonides says that it has two faces, and that the prophets have prophesied Jesus Christ only.
3. Proofs by the Cabala.
4. Proofs by the mystical interpretation which the rabbis themselves have given to the Scripture.
5. Proofs by the principles laid down by the rabbis that there are two senses, that there are two advents of the Messiah; one in glory, and one in humiliation, according to their deserts; that the prophets have prophesied of Messiah only. The Law is not eternal, but must change when Messiah comes; that then they shall no more remember the Red Sea; that the Jews and the Gentiles shall be mingled.
It is as those among whom there is a certain secret language.
Those who do not understand it can see in it only a foolish sense.
_Typical._--The figures of a sword, a shield.
_Potentissime._ To change the type, because of our weakness.
_Types._--The prophets prophesied by figures of a girdle, a beard and burnt hair, etc.
Two errors: 1, to take all literally; 2, to take all spiritually.
The veil which is upon these books for the Jews is there also for bad Christians, and for all who do not hate themselves.
But those who truly hate themselves are in a disposition to understand the Scriptures and to know Jesus Christ.
_Types_.--To show that the Old Testament is only figurative, and that by temporal possessions the prophets understood others, this is the proof: 1, that this were unworthy of God; 2, that their discourses express very clearly the promise of temporal possessions, and that they say nevertheless that their discourses are obscure, and that their sense will not be understood. Whence it appears that this secret sense is not that which they openly expressed, and that consequently they meant to speak of other sacrifices, of another deliverer, etc. They say that they will be understood only in the fulness of time. Jer. xxxiii.
The third proof is that their discourses are contradictory and destroy each other, so that if we think they did not mean by the words law and sacrifice aught else than those of Moses, there is a gross and obvious contradiction. Therefore they meant something else, occasionally contradicting themselves in the same chapter.
Now to understand the sense of an author..._A type brings with it absence and presence, pleasure and pain._ A cipher with a double sense, one clear, and in which it is said that the sense is hidden...A portrait brings with it absence and presence, pleasure and pain.
The reality excludes absence and pain.
_Types._--To know if the law and the sacrifices are real or figurative, we must see if the prophets in speaking of these things limited their view and their thoughts to them, so that they saw only the old covenant; or if they saw in them somewhat else of which they were the semblance, for in a portrait we see the thing figured. For this we need only examine what they say.
When they speak of it as eternal, do they mean that same covenant which they elsewhere say will be changed; so of the sacrifices, etc.?
A cipher has two senses. If we intercept an important letter in which we see an obvious meaning, wherein it is nevertheless declared that the sense is veiled and obscure, that it is concealed, so that the letter might be read without discovering it, and understood without understanding, we can but think that here is a cipher with a double sense, and all the more if we find manifest contradictions in the literal sense. How greatly we ought to value those who interpret the cipher, and explain to us the hidden sense, especially if the principles they extract are wholly natural and clear. This is what Jesus Christ did, and the Apostles. They broke the seal, he rent the veil, and revealed the spirit. They have thereby taught us that man's enemies are his passions; that the Redeemer is to be spiritual and his reign spiritual; that there are to be two advents, one in lowliness to abase the proud, the other in glory to exalt the humble; that Jesus Christ is God and man.
The prophets said clearly that Israel would be always the beloved of God, that the law would be eternal, they have said also that their meaning would not be understood, and that it was veiled.
_Types._--When the word of God, which cannot lie, is false literally, it is true spiritually. _Sede a dextris meis_, is false literally, therefore it is true spiritually.
In these expressions God is spoken of after the manner of men, and this means only that the intention which men have in giving a seat at their right hand, God will also have. It is then a mark of the intention of God, not of his mode of carrying it out.
Thus when it is said "God has received the odour of your incense and will in return give you a fat land," this means that the same intention which a man will have, who, pleased with your perfumes, will give you a fat land, God will have towards you, because you have had towards him the same intention as a man has for him to whom he offers a sweet savour. So _iratus est_, a jealous God, etc., for the things of God being inexpressible, they cannot be said otherwise. And the Church uses them still: _Quia confortavit seras_, etc.
Difference between dinner and supper.
In God the word differs not from the intention, for he is true, nor the word from the effect, for he is powerful, nor the means from the effect, for he is wise. Bern. _ult. sermo in Missam_.
Aug., _de Civit._ v. 10. This rule is general. God can do all, except those things which if he could do he would not be almighty, as dying, being deceived, lying, etc.
Many evangelists for the confirmation of the truth. Their differences are useful.
The Eucharist after the Lord's Supper. Truth after the type.
The ruin of Jerusalem, a type of the ruin of the world, forty years after the death of Jesus.
"I know not" as a man or as an ambassador. Matt. xxiv. 36.
Jesus condemned by the Jews and the Gentiles.
The Jews and the Gentiles figured by the two sons.
The figures of the Gospel for the state of the sick soul are sick bodies, but because one body cannot be sufficiently sick to express it well, several are needed. Thus there are the deaf, the dumb, the blind, the paralytic, the dead Lazarus, the possessed; all this together is in the sick soul.
Isaiah, li. The Red Sea an image of the Redemption.
"_Ut sciatis quod filius hominis habet potestatem remittendi peccata, tibi dico: Surge._" God, willing to show that he was able to form a people holy with an invisible holiness, and to fill them with an eternal glory, made visible things. As nature is an image of grace, he has done in the excellences of nature what he would accomplish in those of grace, in order that men might judge that he could make the invisible since he made the visible so well.
Thus he saved this people from the deluge, he has raised them up from Abraham, redeemed them from their enemies, and caused them to enter into rest.
The object of God was not to save them from the deluge, and raise up a whole people to Abraham, only in order to bring them into a fat land.
And so grace itself is but the figure of glory, for it is not the ultimate end. It was symbolised by the law, and itself symbolises grace, but it is the figure of it, and the origin or cause.
The ordinary life of man is like that of the saints. They all seek their satisfaction, and differ only in the object wherein they place it; they call those their enemies who hinder them, etc. God then has shown the power which he has to give invisible possessions, by the power which he has shown over things visible.
And yet this covenant, made to blind some and enlighten others, marked in those very men whom it blinded the truth which should be recognised by others. For the visible possessions which they received from God were so great and so divine that it certainly appeared he was able to give them those which are invisible, as well as a Messiah.
For nature is an image of grace, and visible miracles are the image of the invisible. _Ut sciatis, tibi dico: Surge._ Isaiah, li., says that Redemption will be as the passage of the Red Sea.
God then has shown by the deliverance from Egypt, and from the sea, by the defeat of the kings, by the manna, by the whole genealogy of Abraham, that he was able to save, to send down bread from heaven, etc., so that the people at enmity with him is the type and the representation of the very Messiah whom they know not, etc.
He has then shown us at last that all these things were only types, and what is true freedom, a true Israelite, true circumcision, true bread from heaven, etc.
In these promises each man finds what he chiefly desires, temporal possessions or spiritual, God or the creatures; but with this difference, that those who therein seek the creatures find them, but attended by many contradictions, with a prohibition against loving them, with the injunction to worship God only, and to love him only, which is the same thing, and finally that the Messiah came not for them; whilst on the contrary those who therein seek God find him, without any contradiction, with the injunction to love him only, and that the Messiah came in the time foretold, to give them the possessions which they ask.
Thus the Jews had miracles and prophecies, of which they saw the accomplishment, and the teaching of their law was that they should love and worship God alone; it was also perpetual. Thus it had all the marks of the true religion, as indeed it was, but we must distinguish between the teaching of the Jews, and the teaching of the Jewish law. Now the teaching of the Jews was not true, although it had miracles and prophecy and perpetuity, because it had not this further point, the worship and love of God only.
_The reason of types._ They had to deal with a carnal people, and to render them the depositary of a spiritual covenant.
To give faith in the Messiah it was necessary there should have been antecedent prophecies, in the charge of persons above suspicion, diligent, faithful, singularly zealous, and known to all the world.
That all this might be accomplished, God chose this carnal people, to whom he entrusted the prophecies which foretell the Messiah as a deliverer, and as a dispenser of those carnal possessions which the people loved. And thus they have had an extraordinary zeal for their prophets, and, in sight of the whole world, have had charge of these books which foretell their Messiah, assuring all the nations that he should come, and in the manner foretold in their books, which they held open to all the world. But this people deceived by the poor and ignominious advent of the Messiah have been his most cruel enemies.
So that they, who were of all nations in the world the least open to the suspicion of favouring us, the most scrupulous and most zealous that can be named for their law and their prophets, have kept the records incorrupt.
Therefore the prophecies have a hidden and spiritual sense, which this people hated, under the carnal sense which they loved. Had the spiritual sense been disclosed, it being such as they were unable to love, or even to bear, they would not have been zealous to preserve their books and their ceremonies; and if they had loved these spiritual promises, and had preserved them incorrupt till Messiah came, their witness would have had no force, because they had been his friends. Therefore it was well that the spiritual sense should be concealed; but on the other hand, had the sense been so hidden as not to be at all apparent, it could not have served as a proof of the Messiah. What then was done? In a crowd of passages the spiritual was concealed under the temporal sense, and has been clearly revealed in a few; again, the time and the state of the world were so clearly foretold that the sun is not so evident. And in some passages this spiritual sense is so dearly expressed that no less a blindness than that which the flesh imposes on the spirit when enslaved, can keep us from discerning it.
See then what God has done. This sense is concealed under another in an infinite number of passages, in some, though rarely, it is revealed, yet so that the passages in which it is concealed are equivocal, and can suit both senses, while those in which it is disclosed are unequivocal, and can agree with the spiritual sense alone.
So that this cannot lead us into error, and could only be misunderstood by so carnal a people.
For when possessions are promised in abundance, what could hinder them from understanding the true possessions, save their covetousness, which limited the sense to the good things of this world? But those whose only good was in God referred the sense to him alone. For there are two qualities which divide the will of man, covetousness and charity. Not that covetousness cannot coexist with faith in God, nor charity with worldly possessions, but covetousness uses God, and enjoys the world, while the opposite is the case with charity.
Now the end we pursue gives names to things. All which hinders the attainment of this end, is said to be at enmity with us. Thus the creatures, however good, are the enemies of the just, when they turn them aside from God, and God himself is the enemy of those whose greed he opposes.
Hence the word enemy being interpreted according to the end proposed, the just understood by it their passions, and the carnal understood the Babylonians, so that the term is obscure only for the unrighteous. And this is what Isaiah says: _Signa legem in electis meis_, and that Jesus Christ shall be a stone of stumbling. But, "Blessed are they who shall not be offended in him!" Hosea, xiv. 9, says excellently: "Where is the wise, and he shall understand these things. The just shall know them, for the ways of God are right, but the transgressors shall fall therein."
So that those who rejected and crucified Jesus Christ, being offended at him, are the same people who bear the books which witness of him, and which say that he will be rejected and a stumbling stone, so that their refusal has given an additional mark that it is he, and he has been proved both by the just Jews who received him, and the unjust Jews who rejected him, both of whom were foretold.
One of the main reasons why the prophets put a veil on the spiritual possessions which they promised under the figure of temporal possessions is, that they had to do with a carnal people whom they must make the keepers of the spiritual covenant.
Jesus Christ, prefigured by Joseph, the beloved of his father, sent by his father to visit his brethren, etc., innocent, sold by his brethren for twenty pieces of silver, and thereby becoming their lord, their saviour, the saviour of strangers, and the saviour of the world; all which had not been brought about but for the plot for his destruction, their sale and rejection of him.
In prison Joseph innocent between two criminals; Jesus Christ on the cross between two thieves. Joseph foretold deliverance to the one, and death to the other, from the same omens. Jesus Christ saves the elect, and condemns the reprobate after the same crimes. Joseph foretold only, Jesus Christ acts. Joseph asked of him who is saved to be mindful of him when he has come into his glory, and he whom Jesus Christ saved asked that he would remember him when he came into his Kingdom.
_Types._--Saviour, father, sacrificer, sacrifice, food, king, wise, lawgiver, afflicted, poor, having to create a people, which he must lead and nourish, and bring into the land.
Fascination.--_Somnum suum. Figura hujus mundi._ The Eucharist.--_Comedes panem tuum. Panem nostrum._ _Inimici Dei terram lingent._ The sinners lick the dust, that is to say, love earthly pleasures.
The Old Testament contained the types of future joy, and the New contains the means of attaining it.
The types were of joy, the means of penitence, and nevertheless the Paschal Lamb was eaten with bitter herbs, _cum amaritudinibus_.
_Singularis sum ego donec transeam._ Jesus Christ before his death was almost the only martyr.
To speak against too greatly figurative expressions.
There are some types clear and demonstrative, but others which seem far-fetched, and which bring proof only to those already persuaded.
These may seem like the sayings of the Apocalyptics. But the difference is that these have none which are not doubtful, so that nothing is so unjust as to pretend that theirs are as well founded as some of ours, for they have none so demonstrative as some of ours.
There is no comparison possible. We have no right to compare and confound things because they agree in one point, while they are so different in another. What is clear in things divine forces us to revere what is obscure.
I do not say that the _mem_ is a mystery.
We may not attribute to the Scripture the sense which it has not revealed to us that it contains. Thus, to say that the closed _mem_ of Isaiah means six hundred, has not been revealed. It might be said that the final _tsadé_ and the _he deficientes_ signify mysteries.
But we are not allowed to say so, and still less to say this is the way of the philosopher's stone. But we say that the literal sense is not the true sense, because the prophets said so themselves.
_Extravagances of the Apocalyptics, Preadamites, Millenarians, etc._--Whoever would found extravagant opinions on the Scripture will for instance found them on the fact that: It is said that "This generation shall not pass away till all these things be fulfilled." On that I will say that after that generation will come another generation, and so in constant succession.
The Second Book of Chronicles speaks of Solomon and the King as if they were two different persons. I say that they were two.
_Against those who misuse passages of Scripture, and who are puffed up when they find one which seems to favour their error._ The chapter for Vespers, on Passion Sunday, the prayer for the King.
Explanation of these words: "He that is not with me is against me."
And these others: "He that is not against you is with you." A person who says: I am neither for nor against; we ought to answer him...One of the Antiphons for Vespers at Christmas: _Exortum est in tenebris lumen rectis corde_.
_THAT THE JEWISH LAW WAS FIGURATIVE._ _Contradiction._--It is not possible to give a good expression to a portrait save by bringing all contraries into harmony, and it is not enough to dwell upon a series of accordant qualities, without reconciling the contraries. To understand the meaning of an author we must harmonise all the contrary passages.
Thus, to understand Scripture, we must find a sense in which all the contrary passages are reconciled; it is not enough to have one which agrees with many consonant passages, but we must find one which reconciles even dissonant passages.
Every author has a sense in which all the contradictory passages agree, or he has no meaning at all. The latter cannot be said of Scripture and the prophets, which assuredly abound in good sense. We must then seek for a meaning which harmonises all contraries.
The true sense then is not that of the Jews, but in Jesus Christ all dissonances are brought into harmony.
The Jews could not make the cessation of the royalty and principality foretold by Hosea accord with the prophecy of Jacob.
If we take the law, the sacrifices, the kingdom as realities, we cannot reconcile all the passages. Of necessity then they are but figures. We cannot even reconcile the passages of the same author, nor of the same book, nor sometimes of the same chapter, which abundantly denotes what was the meaning of the author. As when Ezekiel, chap. xx., says that man will live by the commandments of God and will not live by them.
It was not lawful to sacrifice elsewhere than at Jerusalem, the place which the Lord had chosen, nor even to eat the tithes in any other place. Deut. xii. 5, etc.; Deut. xiv. 23, etc.; xv. 20; xvi.
2-15.
Hosea foretold that the Jews should be without king, without prince, without sacrifice and without idols, which is accomplished at this day, since they are not able to make a lawful sacrifice out of Jerusalem.
_Types._--If the law and the sacrifices are the truth it must be pleasing to God, and not displeasing to him. If they are figures they must be both pleasing and displeasing.
Now through the whole of Scripture they are both pleasing and displeasing. It is said that the law shall be changed, that the sacrifice shall be changed, that they shall be without law, without a prince and without sacrifices, that a new covenant shall be made, that the law shall be renewed, that the precepts which they have received are not good, that their sacrifices are abominations, that God has required none of them.
It is said, on the contrary, that the law shall abide for ever, that the covenant shall be eternal, that sacrifice shall be eternal, that the sceptre shall never depart from among them, because it shall not depart from them till the coming of the eternal King.
Now are all these passages obviously literal? No. Are they obviously typical? No, they are obviously either real or typical. But the first set, which bar a literal interpretation, prove that the whole are typical.
All these passages together cannot apply to the thing signified, all can apply to the type, therefore they are not spoken of the thing signified, but of the type.
_Agnus occisus est ab origine mundi._ A sacrificing judge.
_Types._--God willing to form to himself an holy people, whom he should separate from all other nations, whom he should deliver from their enemies, and should establish in a place of rest, has not only promised this, but has foretold by his prophets the time and the manner of his coming. And yet, to confirm the hope of his elect through all ages, he made them to see it in a figure, but never left them without assurances of his power and of his will to save them.
For at the creation of man, Adam was the witness, and the guardian of the promise made concerning the Saviour who should be born of the woman, when men were still so near the creation that they could not have forgotten their creation and their fall. When those who had seen Adam were no longer in the world, God sent Noah, whom he saved, and drowned the whole earth by a miracle which marked sufficiently both the power which he had to save the world, and the will which he had to do so; and to raise up of the seed of the woman him whom he had promised.
This miracle was enough to confirm the hope of men. The memory of the deluge being fresh among men while Noah was still living, God made promises to Abraham, and while Shem was still living God sent Moses, etc..._Types._--God, willing to deprive his own of perishable possessions, made the Jewish people in order to show that this arose from no lack of power.
The Jews had grown old in these earthly thoughts, that God loved their father Abraham, his flesh, and all that would spring from it; that for this reason he had multiplied them, and set them apart from all other peoples, without allowing them to intermingle; that when they were languishing in Egypt he brought them out with many wonderful signs in their favour; that he fed them with manna in the wilderness, and brought them out into a very fat land; that he gave them kings and a well-built temple, there to offer beasts before him, by the shedding of whose blood they were purified; that at last he would send Messiah to make them masters of the whole world, and foretold the time of his coming.
The world having grown old in these carnal errors, Jesus Christ came at the time foretold, but not with the expected glory, and therefore men did not think it was he. After his death Saint Paul came to teach that all these things had happened in figures, that the Kingdom of God was not in the flesh, but in the spirit; that the enemies of men were not the Babylonians, but the passions; that God delighted not in temples made with hands, but in a pure and contrite heart; that bodily circumcision was unprofitable, but that of the heart was needed; that Moses gave them not that bread from heaven, etc.
But God, not willing to disclose these things to a people unworthy of them, yet nevertheless willing to foretell them, in order that they might be believed, foretold the time dearly, and expressed the things sometimes clearly, but generally in figures, so that those who loved the emblems might rest in them, and those who loved the things figured might see them therein.
All that tends not to charity is figurative.
The sole aim of the Scripture is charity.
All which tends not to that only end is figurative, for since there is but one end, all which does not refer to it in express terms is figurative.
God has so varied that sole precept of charity to satisfy our curiosity, which seeks for diversity, by that diversity which still leads us to the one thing needful. For one only thing is needful, yet we love diversity, and God satisfies both by these diversities, which lead to the one thing needful.
The Jews so loved the mere shadows, and waited for them so entirely, that they misunderstood the substance, when it came in the time and manner foretold.
The rabbis take the breasts of the Spouse for figures, as they do every thing which does not express the only aim they had, that of temporal good.
And Christians take even the Eucharist as a type of the glory for which they strive.
Charity is no figurative precept. It is horrible to say that Jesus Christ, who came to take away the figure and establish the truth, came only to establish the type of charity and take away the existing reality.
If the light be darkness, what must the darkness be?
When David foretold that Messiah would deliver his people from their enemies, we may believe that these according to the flesh were the Egyptians, and then I know not how to show that the prophecy was fulfilled. But we may well believe also that the enemies were their sins, for in truth the Egyptians were not their enemies, and their sins were. This word enemies is therefore equivocal.
But if he say, as in fact he does elsewhere, that he will save his people from their sins, as do also Isaiah and others, the ambiguity is removed, and the double sense of enemies is reduced to the single sense of iniquities. For if he had sins in his mind he might well denote them by the word enemies, but if he thought of enemies, he could not designate them by the word iniquities.
Now Moses, David, and Isaiah employ the same terms. Who will say then that they have not all the same meaning, and that the sense of David which is plainly that of iniquities when he spoke of enemies, is not the same as that of Moses when speaking of enemies.
Daniel prays that the people may be delivered from the captivity of their enemies, but he was thinking of sins, and to show this, he says that Gabriel came to tell him that his prayer was heard, and that there were only seventy weeks to wait, after which the nation would be delivered from iniquity, that sin would have an end, and the Redeemer, the Most Holy, should bring in eternal righteousness, not legal, but eternal.
The Jews had a doctrine of God as we have one of Jesus Christ, and confirmed by miracles; they were forbidden to believe every worker of miracles, and more, they were ordered to have recourse to the chief priests, on whom only they should rely.
Thus, in regard to their prophets, they had all those reasons which we have for refusing to believe the workers of miracles.
And yet they were very blameworthy in refusing the prophets because of their miracles, and had not been blameworthy had they not seen the miracles. _Nisi fecissem, peccatum non haberent._ Therefore all belief rests on miracles.
Whoever estimates the Jewish religion by its coarser minds will know it but ill. It is to be seen in the sacred books, and in the tradition of the prophets, who have made it plain enough that they did not understand the law according to the letter. So our Religion is divine in the Gospel, in the Apostles, and in tradition, but ridiculous in those who corrupt it.
The Messiah, according to the carnal Jews, was to be a mighty temporal prince. Jesus Christ, according to carnal Christians, has come to dispense us from the love of God, and to give us sacraments which shall operate without our concurrence. This is no more the Christian religion than was the other the Jewish.
True Jews and true Christians have always expected a Messiah who should inspire them with the love of God, and by that love should make them triumph over all their enemies.
The carnal Jews hold a midway place between Christians and Pagans.
The Pagans know not God, and love this world only. The Jews know the true God, and love this world only. Christians know the true God, and love not the world. Jews and Pagans love the same good. Jews and Christians know the same God.
The Jews were of two kinds, one having merely Pagan, the other having Christian affections.
The carnal Jews understood neither the greatness nor the humiliation of Messiah as foretold by their prophecies. They misunderstood him in his foretold greatness, as when he said that Messiah should be lord of David, through his son, and that he was before Abraham who yet had seen him. They did not believe him so great as to be eternal, and so too they misunderstood him in his humiliation and in his death.
Messiah, said they, abideth for ever, and this man has said that he shall die. They believed him then neither mortal nor eternal, and they only looked in him for a carnal greatness.
_Typical._--God availed himself of the lust of the Jews to make them avail for Jesus Christ.
_Typical._--Nothing is so like charity as covetousness, and nothing is so contrary to it. Thus the Jews, full of possessions which flattered their covetousness, were very like Christians and very contrary. And by this means they had the two qualities which were necessary to them, to be very like the Messiah in order to be figures of him, and very contrary that they might not be suspected witnesses.
_Antiquity of the Jews._--What difference there is between book and book. I am not surprised that the Greeks made the Iliad, nor the Egyptians and the Chinese their histories.
We have only to see how this comes about. These fabulous historians are not contemporaneous with the facts they narrate. Homer writes a romance, which he puts forth as such, and which is received as such, for no one supposed that Troy or Agamemnon existed more than did the golden apple. So he thought not of making a history, but solely a book to amuse; he is the only man who wrote in his time, the beauty of his work has made it last, every one learns it and talks of it, we are bound to know it, and we each get it by heart. Four hundred years afterwards the witnesses of these things are no more, no one knows of his own knowledge if it be fable or history; he has only learnt it from his ancestors, and this may pass for true.
_The sincerity of the Jews._--They preserve with faithfulness and zeal the book in which Moses declares that they have been all their life ungrateful to God, and that he knows they will be still more so after his death; that he therefore calls heaven and earth to witness against them, and that he has taught them enough.
He declares that finally God, being angry with them, would scatter them among all the nations of the earth, that as they have angered him, in worshipping gods who were not their God, so he will provoke them by calling a people which is not his people, and wills that all his words shall be eternally preserved, and that his book shall be placed in the Ark of the Covenant to serve for ever as a witness against them.
Isaiah says the same thing, xxx. 8.
However, they have kept at the cost of their life this very book which dishonours them in so many ways. This is a sincerity which has no example in the world, and no root in nature.
Every history which is not contemporaneous is open to suspicion, thus the books of the Sibyls and Trismegistus and so many others which have been credited by the world are false, and found to be false in course of time. It is not so with contemporaneous authors.
There is a great difference between a book written by a private man, and dispersed among a whole people, and a book which itself creates a people. We cannot doubt that the book is as old as the people.
The sincerity of the Jews.
Defective and final letters.
Sincere against their honour, and dying in its defence; this has no example in the world's history, and no root in nature.
They are visibly a people expressly formed to serve as witnesses to the Messiah, Isaiah xliii. 9; xliv. 8, they bear the books, and love them while they understand them not. And all this was foretold, that God's judgments might be entrusted to them, but as a sealed book.
_Types._--When once the secret is disclosed it is impossible not to see it If the Old Testament be read in this light, we shall see if the sacrifices were real; if the fatherhood of Abraham was the true cause of the friendship of God; that the promised land was not the true place of rest. These were then but types. If in the same way we examine all those ordained ceremonies, and all those commandments