Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

of all parties upon this wonderful and impressive event? Had the chief priests then seen him, (and it is not impossible that from the tops of their houses at Jerusalem they might see him) they would have gnashed their teeth with envy and indignation, and disappointment, and have said 'Is this the despised carpenter's Is this the man whom son, whom we crucified? we endeavored to confine in the grave? Is this the cause which we hoped to subvert? Is this the teacher whom we labored to destroy? O fruitless efforts! He rises superior to all our designs He triumphs over all our malice!' But what did the disciples think? Were they not saying in their hearts, 'Is this the friend upon whose kind and disinterested counsels we have so long relied? Is this the expiring "Author. and Finisher of our faith," whom our unbelieving fears thought to be "dead, but who is alive again, and will live for evermore?" John would ask, 'Is this the Savior who permitted me to share his confidence, and to repose my head upon his bosom?" Thomas would inquire, 'Can this be the man, of whom my faithless heart said, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my fingers into the print of the nails, and thrust my hands into his side, I will not believe?" Prostrate and weeping on the mount, Peter would say, 'Is this the master whom I denied, and for whom I dared not endure a little affliction? Is this he who raised me from my vile employment, and admitted me into his glorious service; but whom I feared to own, what day my false tongue said, "I know not the man?" And am I, who was afraid to 'watch with him one hour,' and ashamed to be called his disciple, permitted to behold his glory, to participate his parting blessing, and to share the dignity of his exaltation? "To me, who am less than the least of all saints is this grace

[ocr errors]

given?"-Would they not all say From this mo. ment we give our fears to the four winds of heaven? "Lord we believe, help thou our unbelief!" We wait the accomplishment of thy promise, and hail the dawn of thy empire!' And while these were gazing below, lost in wonder, in love, and in admiration, were not the angels answering each other in responsive lays? "He hath ascended up on high! he hath led captivity captive! he hath received gifts for men! yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God may dwell among them!" He ascended higher, and they renewed their song "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men!" As he still continued to rise, and gradually to lose sight of the earth, "the chariots of God, which are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels," waited to receive him: the celestial harps were struck yet louder; and the full chorus shouted, "Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in! Who is this King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle! Lift up your heads, O ye gates, even lift them up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in! Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory!" And now all the resplendent scene faded through distance from mortal vision. HIM, the heavens received; and he sat down on his Father's throne. Even then, did not a voice break from the most excellent glory, the voice of God heard and adored by all the armies of heaven? "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; and let all the angels of God worship him. Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heath

en for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession!" Still were the disciples rivetted to the spot whence he ascended: still were their eyes fixed on the point in the heavens where he disappeared: still his voice sounded in their ears, and they seemed to listen to his parting blessing. "And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold two men stood by them in white apparel; which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus which is taken from you up into heaven, shall so come in like n:anner as ye have seen him go into heaven." And they returned unto Jerusalem: but as they left the hallowed mount, surely their hearts burned within them, and they said "Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things! And blessed be his glorious name for ever; and let the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen, and amen!"

But we must now turn away from this great sight, and follow these same men through the scenes of their subsequent lives. We must also examine the conduct of those who led the way under the former dispensation, and from whose writings the mission and the claims of Jesus were proved; and it is our business this evening to present you with an outline of THE CHARACTER OF THE WRITERS OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS. Listen to the discussion of a few simple propositions upon this subject. We assert

I. THAT THE BOOKS OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS WERE REALLY WRITTEN BY THOSE WHOSE NAMES THEY BEAR.

We can attempt to prove this position only upon one common principle of reasoning, which will, how

ever be decined conclusive. It is the testimony of the people to whom these oracles were committed, and the concurrent consent of all nations. A large proportion of this volume consists of the public chronicles of a whole empire; and there is an end of the good faith of nations if they admit forgeries into their public records: the very sources from which the historian draws are contaminated. With respect to the laws of Moses, the books of the respective prophets, thehistory of the gospels, and the epistles of the New Testament, they are allowed by the very persons among whom, and for whom, they were written, to be the productions of those very men whose names are prefixed to them. The testimony of any man respecting the historians or the poets of his own country, and especially the testimony of a whole body of people respecting their own writers, ought to be deemed decisive; because they, and they only, are competent witnesses in the affair. Now these men were Jews; and we have the testimony of the whole Jewish nation, handed down from father to son through all successive generations, from the periods when the different writers flourished to the present hour, that such and such books, were, according to their pretensions, really written by such and such persons, to whom they are ascribed; and all nations have concurred, at every point of time, in this testimony. These writers ever have been acknowledged by them; and the chronology

. their works, for the most part, has been accurately determined. No man who pretends to reason can deny his assent to such evidence. He who can bring himself to reject such authority, may with equal propriety conclude that the productions of Homer or of Virgil, of Demosthenes, or of Cicero, are not really the

writings of the distinguished poets and orators whose names they bear. For these rest precisely upon thé same evidence, which we now produce in favor of the sacred records—the testimony of their contemporaries, and of their countrymen, and the concurrent consent of all nations. Deny this authority in the one case, and you must necessarily destroy it in the other: neither can you (to be consistent) believe with any degree of certainty, any thing but that which falls within the immediate sphere of your own knowledge. To follow this principle what a fund of genius and of information must be destroyed! We must blot out the works of all our historians, on the pretence that they need decisive evidence; and human intelligence must be drawn from the scanty springs of three-score years and ten, furnished by a man's own life. But if the testimony of a people respecting their own writers, and the general consent of nations, be any thing: if this be the authority upon which we receive all works, and all writers: if this be the basis of all our historical certainty: then, is it ceded to the writers of the Bible, and on this general principle must it be admitted, that the books of the Old and New Testaments were really written by those whose names they bear. We affirm

II. THAT THE WRITERS WERE, FOR THE MOST PART, EYE-WITNESSES OF THE FACTS WHICH THEY RECORD

ED.

There is a sufficient degree of internal evidence, deducible from the different compositions themselves, to establish this assertion. Examine the first five books of the scriptures, and it will appear that Moses was necessarily an eye-witness of most of the events recorded in his law. He was present during all the plagues of

« AnteriorContinuar »