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(Concluded from p. 464.)
By
the Rev. Dr. W. Schlessinger
Jesus said in one passage: “You shall know them (the
false prophets) by their fruits; a good tree cannot
bring forth bad fruit.” (Matt. vii. 16-18.) Now it
happens that experience teaches us that the noblest
trees produce, along with good fruit, much that is
not edible; but we will keep him to his word. What
have been the fruits of Christianity? has not Mr.
Miller himself to acknowledge that for fifteen
hundred years the tree which Christ had planted
produced nothing but bad fruit, until
Presbyterianism finally grew out of it, and that
this very tree bears, at this day even, more bad
than good fruits? We must once more revert to the
passage cited above (Exod. xxxiii. 1-4), of which we
have spoken already. As at one period Israel were
deprived, on account of their sin, of the blessing
that God should go before them, and they were
compelled to content themselves with an angel: thus
also caused their sins in not paying atention to the
divine voice and becoming an exemplary people to
<<515>>other nations, that from their own midst
should arise an agent through whose means a large
portion of the human family were lifted up from the
low degree of heathenish absurdities to a higher
state of knowledge of God—a knowledge which after
all bears in itself such a mixture of truth and
error of light and obscurity, that it has called
forth an unending series of controversies,
persecutions, autos-da-fé, and religious
wars, through which causes Israelites especially
have suffered much and grievously.
But in the same measure as the sons of Jacob have to
suffer for their sins, have the descendants of the
heathen to suffer for their idolatry. For
mortifying, deeply mortifying must it be to thinking
Christians to reflect that they have so long been,
and are still, paying divine honours to a human
being who is descended, to the exclusion of all
other nations, from that very people which they have
the most derided, despised, hated, and tortured. A
time, however, will come, when an infinitely greater
blessing will be poured as a stream over mankind
through means of Israel, which shall cause the
establishment of the kingdom of God on earth in its
full reality. Israel will then, it is true, not
receive the homage due to God alone, but still be
acknowledged as a people of God, and a seed blessed
of the Lord.
And as in former times, the brothers of Joseph were
ashamed, after being convinced of the nobleness of
his soul, that they had at first hated and sold him
as a slave: so also will the nations be filled with
shame concerning all the wrong that they have
inflicted on their fellow-men, the people of Israel.
At that time there will be no longer witnessed
religious disputes, nor any others; all mankind will
adore the one and true God, and love each other as
children of one Father; then will love and truth
walk hand in hand over the world, righteousness and
peace will kiss each other; yea, then will the whole
earth be full of the glory of the Lord; all flesh
will be penetrated with the true spirit, which is a
spirit of God; but it is for this very reason that
no son of man will presume to be one and the same
with God, the Holy One, whose name be praised for
evermore.
In
page 47, Mr. M. explains how the original
constitution which God gave to the Israelites had
been a theocracy. The <<516>>Lord alone should be
the King, but the people should never be subjected
to the power of tyrants, to that of a mortal. It was
indeed not prohibited by law to elect a king, but
his power was limited by specific enactments, &c.
And Mr. M. draws thence quite correctly the
conclusion that the kingdom of the Messiah can be
nothing else than a continuation of the old state
constitution of Israel, a farther development
according to the principle of this theocracy. This
accomplished Mr. M. opens his heavy batteries
against us, and a whole regiment of notes of
interrogation march by before our eyes.
“How does it happen that, according to the belief of
orthodox Judaism, a pure theocracy can be changed
into an unlimited monarchy of human power? How does
man come to be the king of the earth for all times,
&c? Wonderful progress, this, in theocracy and
republicanism! A colony of Christian Jews [an idea
having its origin in the Babel of the confusion of
tongues corresponding to reality as much as the idea
of a triune god] in Palestine could establish a
republic, and consecrate it to their god and Messiah
in heaven; but orthodox Jews never expect to be
happy in their own land without a poor mortal king.”
Mr. Miller in his zeal seems to have quite lost
sight of the fact that precisely that which he
adduces in proof of the Messiahship of Christ is
actually the strongest argument against it. For so
long as all the states of the earth are not ruled
according to the principles of pure theocracy, the
Messiah cannot possibly have come, according to the
teaching of the prophets. The same prophets who
predicted that a descendant of David should
establish the kingdom of God on earth, also
predicted that, at the same time, God alone should
be the King of the earth. When, however, on some
future day, all mankind shall live in obedience to
the Lord’s will, and exercise justice and
righteousness, then shall we have to fear neither
tyrannical power nor despotism; and it must be a
matter of perfect indifference to us, so long as all
the nations live together in peace and harmony, and
war is waged no more, whether then a king or a
president stands at the head of affairs.
Just as Moses was in point of fact the king of his
people, without having laid claim to the name,
honours, or income of a king: so also do
<<517>>we
believe will the true Messiah direct and govern, in
the coming future the affairs of the sons of men and
be king in the most beautiful and the noblest sense
of the word. This Messiah will be, as formerly
Moses, the most faithful servant of God, and he will
succeed to bring into reality the aspirations which
the noblest and best of all ages have cherished in
their bosoms; and just because through him the words
of the prophets will be fulfilled, and he will still
desire to be honoured only as man, not worshipped as
God, will the orthodox Jews also not deny him their
confidence and acknowledge him to be the true
Messiah.
We
might with propriety close here our remarks; we
believe to have said more than enough to convince
the Presbyterian gentlemen how impossible an
amalgamation of Judaism with their species of
Christianity must ever be. Still Mr. Miller is not
wearied in his noble enthusiasm for his cause. In
his desperation to overcome rabbinical obstinacy
(religious faithfulness would here be the correct
expression), he even goes to enlist auxiliary troops
among the Mahomedans. What is impossible in this
world! Mr. M. of a sudden becomes an advocate of the
Islam (pp. 31-.54). He opines that the Rabbins must
at times be in no small dilemma to assign rational
grounds why they do not surrender to the Ishmaelites.
But he may rest perfectly quiet on that score, since
the Ishmaelites and their conquests are to us but an
additional proof of the authenticity and divine
origin of the Bible. But this selfsame Bible has
placed the descendants of Abraham by his wife Sarah
much higher than those by his servant Hagar. And of
Isaac’s children it is again Jacob only, and not
Esau, in whom the divine blessing is to see its
fulfillment; as we read in Malachi i. 2, 3:
“Is not Esau a brother of Jacob? saith the Lord yet
I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau.” Nothing so
demonstrates the value and the strength of the
Jewish faith, as that neither the conquests of the
Califs, of the Saracens, and of the Turks, nor those
of Christianity, could in anywise annihilate it. We
will admit that Christianity preaches a great deal,
and this often against worldliness. Mr. Miller takes
a great delight in it, to attach to Jews the
opprobrious epithet of “worldly-minded,” and
notwithstanding <<518>>this, the Jews cannot be
altogether so very greatly attached to the interests
of this world, or else they would have long ere this
exchanged their belief for another, on account of
the preponderance of earthly advantages. He that in
opposition to millions protests against the divinity
of Christ, must of necessity have within himself a
spark of the love of truth; he must believe in a
future the outward appearance of things must be
valueless to him, although in many other respects he
may be worldly-minded.
The Jews, ever since the time that the Lord chose
them as his priestly nation, have always been in a
minority; what, from this point of view, signify the
sufferings of Christ, compared with the sufferings
which Israel has had to endure? To die in defence of
an idea, to become a martyr for his faith, is not
the worst which can befall a man. But a people which
has for eighteen hundred years been chained to the
pillory of contempt, has been bound upon the
torture-bench of exclusion for opinion’s sake, has
been pained through the needle-thrusts of derision,
and been torn by the instruments of martyrdom which
cutting irony so fearfully wields,—such a people
has endured more than a thousand-times-repeated
crucifixion, and must be filled with a divine idea.
The prosperity and the blessing which we hope for
from the kingdom of the Messiah shall not redeem
Israel alone from all its afflictions; but, by
Israel’s becoming again a united people, all mankind
will at the same time be relieved from all their
evil positions. Israel will then have the
consciousness of having suffered for the welfare of
the human family, and this consciousness every one
will gladly leave it in possession of, without envy
or cavil.
The naked reality, the world as it is, forces indeed
the confession from us that there is very little
prospect for the speedy arrival of God’s kingdom;
for both in monarchies and republics prevail much
meanness, much godlessness, and much crime. And do
you expect that the Jews who, but a few years back,
immigrated into this country from Europe, shall
already have become an example of religiousness and
the fear of God? No, Mr. M., that would be demanding
too demanding of poor human nature. We must, in
good truth, deplore as you do that many Jews will
sooner discuss theatrical representations than the
<<519>>word of God; still, Judaism is not to be
blamed for this state of things, but the departure
from Judaism. Let the Israelites, whose mouths have
been stopped up so long, once be able to recover
their breath; permit them to enjoy the free
development of their principles; let them first
obtain a clear and distinct insight into the will of
God in themselves,—and as soon as they have become
once more the worthy priests of the Lord, and
attained the conviction that the happiness of each
individual depends on the welfare of all, they will
joyfully proclaim the word, the teaching of the
Lord, to the nations of the earth. So long as
streams of blood are seen to flow in order to
introduce constitutional governments, so long has
the divine kingdom not commenced, and here it
matters not whether this blood be shed by the
followers of Christ or Mahomed, or by a Robespierre.
Whoever wishes to be saved, let him read what the
Psalmist has prescribed for us in his fifteenth
chapter; but he will find no trace of the necessity
of a belief in a second person in the Godhead. To
sum up all in one word, whatsoever of beauty,
sublimity, and truth, Christianity may exhibit, is
derived from Judaism; is of Jewish origin; but
un-Jewish and allied to Paganism is the belief in
the divinity of Christ. And as sure as the words of
the prophets are true, so surely at some future day,
the Presbyterians, together with all other
Christians, yield up this belief, known to many by
the name of “the great false-hood.” But all this
will happen, “not through strength, not through
might, but through my spirit, saith the Lord Zebaoth.” |
