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(Continued from page 89.)
The first case which is adduced is the circumcision
of a child, which is performed when only six days have passed between
the <<129>>birth and the circumcision, alluding to the circumstance of the day
on which the child is born, and the day on which the commandment is
performed, both being reckoned in the eighth day prescribed; then the
courses of the priests in the service of the temple, and the space
between Passover and Sebuoth, next the Greek names of intermittent
fevers,—to prove that it was customary to include the day on which it
commenced and the day on which it ended in the number of days in any
given period spoken of. But the good Bishop’s ingenuity cannot avail
him, for in all these instances days are only spoken of. In the
prediction of Jesus it says three days and three nights, therefore the
prediction was not fulfilled.
Of the proofs of the resurrection, which the Bishop
assures us was “attested by human, angelic, and Divine testimony,” the
fact is related differently by the several Evangelists, and until they
can reconcile them, or point out which is correct, we need not trouble
ourselves to discuss it, but simply deny it. Matthew says that when
Jesus appeared to the “pious women,” they held him by the feet and
worshipped. When he met the eleven in Gallilee, they worshipped, but
“some doubted.” (Matt. 27:17.) Christians may well excuse the Jews for
not believing an account written so long ago, and of which the author is
uncertain, if some of those who were present saw and were spoken to
doubted.”
Matthew, alluding to the charge made by the Jews of
the disciples having stolen away the body says, “and this saying is
commonly reported among the Jews to this day;” and this charge is very
credible, if indeed the body was missing; but it would seem more
probable that the body was interred along with the two other
malefactors, and no more thought of by the Jews until the report was
raised of his resurrection. The circumstance as related by the
evangelist is open to very great suspicion. The body is said to have
been begged by Joseph of Arimathea, and granted to him by Pilate; it was
wrapped in a clean linen cloth, laid in his tomb, and a great stone
rolled to the door of the sepulchre, then Joseph departed. Meanwhile
Mary Magdalen and the other Mary were sitting over against the
sepulchre. The next day the chief priests and the Pharisees went to
Pilate, and represented that Jesus having declared that
<<130>>he would rise
again on the third day, requested a guard might be set on the sepulchre
until the third day, lest the disciples should steal away the body and
say he had risen. They then set a watch, and sealed the stone at the
door. Supposing all this to be true, there is a lapse of many hours,
including the dark hours of night, during which the sepulchre was
unwatched, and there was not anything to prevent the disciples from
stealing away the body. It was of the utmost importance to them that the
body should not be found. The credit of their master was involved in the
accomplishment of his promised resurrection. The influence they
exercised over the converts would be destroyed by the failure of the
condition on which Jesus had staked his character of Messiah. No
reasonable person can be satisfied with the proofs offered of the body
having been supernaturally removed when there were such opportunities,
and such a strong motive for its being removed by natural means.
In note e the Bishop says: “The obligation
of the day, which was then the Sabbath, as it were, died, and was buried
with our Lord, and revived again on the day of resurrection, to which
its sanctity was transferred.” The idea of Saturday being buried on
Friday and rising again on Sunday, is certainly very amusing, and it
would be interesting to learn the condition of the world in the interval
between the two days during the time that the Saturday was dead and
buried, and we may ask whether the death of the Saturday does not affect
the calculation of the three days which is said to have elapsed between
late on Friday and early on Sunday. It is true the assertion is
qualified by “as it were;” but then how or to what does the figure
apply. By the proviso, the Bishop allows that the case from which he
argues did not exist. Then it is averred that the defunct Saturday
revived on the following day, Sunday, on which the resurrection took
place, and the sanctity of the Sabbath was transferred, from which it
would appear that the same day was both Saturday and Sunday. We must
conclude that one of the other days of the week stepped in and acted pro
tempore during the demise of the Saturday, for we cannot suppose that
space of time to have been annihilated, and on the revival of the
Saturday there must have been a complete dislocation of the other days
of the week, to <<131>>allow it to resume its place where we now find it,
between Friday and Sunday. We might suppose the transaction to be only a
figure of speech; but we must believe the Bishop to be in earnest when
he accounts by it for the transfer of sanctity to Sunday. Perhaps it did
not occur to him that the primitive Christians kept both days, the
Saturday as being the day of rest commanded by God, and the Sunday in
commemoration of the resurrection which took place, as they were taught,
on that day. This continued until about the year 321, when the
observance of the Saturday as a day of rest was abolished, thus
abrogating one of the Ten Commandments; for although Christians, in some
measure, keep the Sunday as a day of rest, it is not lawful for a man to
change the day appointed by God at his will and pleasure. If one
commandment may be changed and altered, why not the others?
The next article teaches the ascension. On this
subject, there is but one note in which reference is made to the words
attributed to Jesus on different occasions. He told Nicodemus, “No man
hath ascended up to heaven but he that came down from heaven, the Son of
man which is in heaven.” This sentence is very obscure, and does not
appear to allude to or predict the resurrection, merely saying, No man
hath ascended to heaven but he who came down therefrom, which can only
refer to an ascension which had taken place, and by the “Son of man
which is in heaven,” intimating that the being who was speaking was also
in heaven. This is in conformity with the omnipresence which is
attributed to him, but if he is omnipresent how can he be said to remove
from one locality to another, to ascend or to descend; this is related
by John 3:13, almost at the beginning of his history; in the sequel,
20:17, he tells Mary not to touch him, as lie had not yet ascended to
his Father. This is contradictory to his former declaration, the Son of
Man which is in heaven, and disclaims ubiquity.
The Bishop tries to reconcile these two speeches,
saying, “A metaphorical ascent has been ascribed to Christ in respect to
his more heavenly state and condition obtained after his resurrection,
the alteration made in his body and the glorious qualities he was
invested with.” Here, in speaking of a divinity, he states that after
the resurrection he was more <<132>>heavenly; that a change was then made in
his body, and he was invested with glorious qualities. Was this the
effect of his descent into hell? What class of minds did the Bishop
think he was writing for? The next passage, “And sitteth on the right
hand of God the Father Almighty.” In the exposition of his faith, the
Bishop, contrary to his usual practice, did not speak of the Eternal Son
of God, but of Jesus Christ; this frequent change in the name or title
of the object spoken of, answers a twofold purpose: if what is asserted
is incompatible with the divinity, we are told it refers to the
humanity; if what is related cannot be predicated of the humanity, it is
referred to the divinity, thereby entailing a double trouble on the
opponent to prove that the dogma cannot be true, either in relation to
the divinity or to the humanity. By the Bishop’s explanation of what he
believes by the words “And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father
Almighty,” we find, that Jesus Christ, ascending into the highest heaven
after all the troubles and sufferings endured here, did rest in
everlasting happiness. Now, we have been informed before, that the
compound Jesus Christ consisted of two natures, the Eternal Son of God,
and the mortal Jesus, the Son of Mary. We have also seen it asserted
that the divine nature did not and could not suffer here; therefore, it
must be the human nature (which alone suffered), that the Bishop
believed ascended into heaven and rested in everlasting happiness. In
the next paragraph he says, he “did take up a perpetual habitation
there, and sit down upon the throne of God;” this cannot be applied to
the humanity, but to the divinity. The two quotations are applied to one
subject—Jesus Christ in his twofold state of God and man; but the first
does not apply to the God, nor the second to the man. The God did not
suffer on earth, nor does the man sit on the throne of God.
(To be continued.) |
