THE JEWS' LEADING OBJECTION TO CHRISTIANITY CON- SIDERED.
Deut. xiii. 1 — 3. If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them ; thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams : for the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
IT has commonly, and with justice, been thought, that the two great pillars on which a revelation from God must stand, are, miracles, and prophecies. Without these, we cannot be assured, that any dis- covery which may have been made to man, is really divine. The points that are traced to a divine origin may be highly reasonable and excellent in themselves ; yet, before they are clothed with a divine authority, we very properly ask, What proof is there that they are from God ? what evidence do you give that they are not the offspring of your own mind ? If they are from God, I take for granted that God does not leave you without witness : tell me then, what works do you perform, which no created power can perform ; or what other credentials have you, whereby your heavenly mission may be known ? If you can foretell things to come, I shall then know that you are from God ; because none but God can certainly foreknow them : or if you can work things above, and contrary to the course of nature, then I shall know that you have that power from on high ; because no created being can impart it.
This, I say, is the established mode of judging con- cerning a revelation from God : and, according as any thing professing to be from God is thus confirmed, or not, we give to it, or withhold from it, our assent. It is from grounds like these that we judge of the revelation given to Moses ; and from similar grounds must we judge of the truth of Christianity also.
We must indeed inspect the matter of the thing revealed, to see whether it be worthy of him from
348 DEUTERONOMY, XIII. 1—3. [20fi.
whom it is said to come ; and from its internal evi- dence our faith will derive great strength : but still in the first instance we look rather to external proofs, such as we have before spoken of.
But the Jews imagine that they are precluded from judging of Christianity on such grounds as these, since Moses, in the passage we have just read, guards them against any such inferences as we are led to draw from the prophecies and miracles on which our religion is founded. He concedes that some prophecies may be uttered, and some miracles be wrought, in favour of a false religion ; and that, even if that should be the case, the Jews are not to regard any evidences arising from those sources, but to hold fast their religion in opposition to them.
This is an objection commonly urged among the Jews, when we invite them to embrace the Christian religion. That we may meet it fairly, we will, first, state the objection in all its force, and then give what we apprehend to be the proper answer to it.
I. We begin then with stating the objection ; and we will do it in such a way as to give the Jew all possible advantage.
The scope of the passage is to guard the Jews against idolatry. They were, and would continue to be, surrounded by idolatrous nations, who would strive to the utmost to draw them from Jehovah to the worship of false gods. And the Jews themselves having from the earliest period of their existence as a people been accustomed to see the idolatrous wor- ship of Egypt, were of themselves strongly attached to idolatry ; so that it was necessary to guard them against it by the most awful menaces, and the most impressive cautions.