AS this work is about to be concluded, it will be of importance to the reader that a comprehensive view be taken of the mission of Christ to the Jewish nation. In doing which, an opportunity will be given to such of my readers as may hitherto have been afraid to doubt the truth of the Divine authority of the Bible, to see, at one glance, its absurdity.

In the four Gospels, which contain the sayings and doings of Jesus during his ministry among the Jews, and also in the Epistles of the Apostles, it is uniformly declared and enforced, that the main purpose of Christ’s (the anointed of God) coming into the world was, to die. And this death was required by the Father as an atonement for the sins of mankind, that whosoever believed in and obeyed him, their pardon should be sure, not for any thing which they had done as it related to justice, chastity, or humanity, but for the ransom paid for their sins by the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. An apostle, in speaking on this subject, says—“He (Christ) being delivered by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have, by wicked hands, crucified and slain.” This decree, then, was absolute, and every movement then made by Jesus, and also his preaching and conversation with the Jews, was so arranged, that die he must, to save a lost and ruined world.

This, according to the Scriptures, was the divine arrangement between the Father and the Son. This doctrine is taught in the New Testament. And in such a lost condition were the human race, that Jesus freely gave himself as a ransom to be completed in due time. If the New Testament does not teach this, it is not possible to know what it does teach. To die, then, as a sacrifice for sin, included the sum and substance of the Gospel, or good news.

Having laid down the ground-work of human redemption, we proceed to carry through the plan said to be the work of mercy and goodness flowing from the mighty God, the author of all things. In the examination of such an arrangement, it appears impossible to conclude that the Author of the Universe can be considered as the God of the Jews and Christians. The Jews had always been taught to believe that they were God’s favorite people, and they retain the same faith to the present day. For ages before the Christian era, they not only expected the coming of the Messiah, but also, that no nation but their own would be interested in that glorious event. It never entered their minds that he would come in any disguise, for many impostors had appeared, who, being discovered, their Messiahship procured them certain destruction. The Jews, therefore, inferred, that when the proper time should arrive for the long-expected and ardently-looked for Messiah to appear among them, their nation would be raised to more than its former greatness, and God’s chosen people would be held up to the nations of the earth as confirming the truth of what their ancient prophets had foretold of their future prosperity.

It could never, therefore, have entered the minds of the Jews, as a nation, that the Messiah would come in any disguise. And it must have been far from their thoughts to expect that he, when he should arrive, would load them with violent abuse, and reproach them as being too low to be considered as any thing else than a nation of hypocrites. If Jesus came into this world to die, then every thing which he taught, and also all the intercourse which he had with his own people, was preparatory to that event. That the Messiah would come to the Jewish nation to dwell among them, to be their leader, to exalt them above all other nations, was what they had been taught to expect. Instead of which, he calls them “a generation of vipers!” and pronounces terrible things against the heads of the nation, commencing his denunciations with “Woe unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites!” Such violence and abuse surprised them, coming from one who said “he came to seek and to save that which was lost.”

Again, Jesus said that “he came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” But Jesus gave them no quarter, but sent them head and heels to the Devil. The Jewish rulers must have been more than human to have quietly taken such vulgar abuse. Sometimes, Jesus seemed to soften down in his conduct, as when he says, “O Jerusalem! Jerusalem! how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, but ye would not.” So erratic is Jesus depicted, in the account we have transmitted down to us, that we are at a loss as to forming an opinion concerning his manner of treating his own people. But as it was “by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God” that he was to be a “sacrifice for the sins of mankind,” his mode of addressing the rulers of Israel was calculated to bring about the “will of his Father.”

Admitting, for the sake of argument, that Jesus was the true Messiah, the Jews were in a worse state than if he had not appeared among them. The statement made by Jesus of the destruction of Jerusalem, and of his second coming, confounded all their ideas of the Messiah’s kingdom. In the twenty-third and twenty-fourth chapters of Matthew, after having pronounced a number of dreadful predictions against them, he winds up in chapter twenty-third as follows, “YE SERPENTS! YE GENERATION OF VIPERS! HOW CAN YE ESCAPE THE DAMNATION OF HELL?” In the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, Jesus gives a long account of his second coming. How was it possible for the Jews to understand what he there describes? Their desire was, to know if he was the Messiah promised by the prophets; and, if so, what steps he would take for the exaltation of their nation, so that they might enjoy all they had been induced to expect when the “sun of righteousness should arise with healing in his hands.”

For Jesus to tell his disciples and the Jewish nation what would be the signs of his second coming, before they under-stood what his object was in coming the first time, must appear very strange. From the particular account which Jesus gave of his second coming, the Jews must have understood him to mean, that although he professed to be the true Messiah, yet his stay was but short with them. As yet, his time for operation was not come. The discourses of Jesus to his countrymen, were all calculated to mislead and confound them. In his sermon on the Mount, he claims an authority of his own superior to the law of Moses. Matthew, chapter v., verse 33—“Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, thou shalt not forswear thyself but shall perform unto the Lord thine oaths. But I say unto you, swear not at all” Verse 38—“Ye have heard that it hath been said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheeky turn to him the other also.” What could the Jewish rulers think of a man, who, without any ceremony, set up laws in direct opposition to the laws of Moses, when, at other times, he declared himself a follower of Moses, and that he came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it? Such inconsistent teaching as this, will not admit of Infinite Wisdom’s being the author.

In Matthew, chapter xiii., 10, it reads—“And the disciples came and said unto him, Why speaketh thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.” Verse 13—“Therefore speak I to them in parables, because they seeing, see not; and hearing, they hear not, neither do they understand.” Verse 14—“And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear and shall not understand, and seeing ye shall see and shall not perceive.” Verse 15—“For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted and I should heal them”

Now this mode of treating the Jewish nation is perfectly in character with the plan, in accordance with which, Jesus came to lay down his life for sinners; for had he convinced the Jews that he was the expected restorer of Israel, no Jewish arm would have been raised against him; nor would it have been possible to have prevailed on the national rulers to have attempted his life; since although the priests and Pharisees might, in a moral point of view, have been wicked in the extreme, still their veneration for, and their earnest expectation of the coming of, the Messiah, would have prevented any hostile feelings against “the anointed of the Lord, the Holy one of Israel.”

But if the preaching of Christ, and his arrangements, were of such a nature that the Jews supposed the whole to be an imposture, then the case took a different turn altogether. Instead of the Jews refusing to receive Jesus as the sent of God, they put him to death from the hatred which they had towards any one who they supposed had fabricated his authority and office. If the main object of Christ’s coming to the Jews was to die for the sins of mankind, both Jew and Gentile, and thus become a willing sacrifice for sin,—if this was the plan of human redemption, it then follows that the Jews did that part which, in the divine arrangement, was allotted for them to do. Then the conduct of Jesus was consistent in keeping them ignorant, so that their part might by them be carried out. If he had convinced them, that he was, in truth, the sent of God, but that they must hang him on a tree, the plan of human redemption would have failed, for they, immoral as they might be, never would have put him to death.

There could be no other way of bringing about the death of Christ, but by keeping the Jewish nation ignorant that he was the Messiah. The course that was pursued by Jesus, would imply that his orders were to so act among them, that their condemnation would be just for rejecting him; but on no account to perform miracles sufficient to convince them, for in that case the Jews would not have condemned and put him to death as a blasphemer and an impostor. Again, if Jesus came on earth to die, and without shedding his blood there could be “no remission of sin” what mockery for him to exclaim “O Jerusalem! Jerusalem I how oft would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” For if the Jews had sheltered themselves under the wings of Jesus, how was he to die as a sacrifice for sin? But he was not put to death, they knowing him to be the Christ, but on the contrary, they condemned him for pretending to be the very anointed of the Lord. And although the story was propagated that Jesus arose, after his descent from the cross, the Jews as a nation did not give credit to it, nor have they till this day. If, therefore, “there is no other name under heaven whereby men can be saved,” but by believing in Christ and in his dying for the sins of mankind, then the Jews, ever since the death of Christ, and also the present race, are lost and forever shut out from that pardon which was procured by the death of Jesus, which was brought about by the instrumentality of the Jews by the condemnation of the Messiah.

The account of Judas, in what is called betraying his Master, is strange indeed. In speaking of that circumstance, Jesus says, “It would have been better for that man if he had never been born.” Now if Jesus came to die, Judas, by informing the authorities where he was to be found, did no more than bring to pass what was before ordained should take place. Judas, then, was but the instrument to accomplish the plan of human redemption, by informing the Jewish authorities when and where they could secure the object which they sought after. The very idea of betraying Jesus, proves two things:—first, that Jesus was but little known to the Jews, except from report; and, secondly, that although he held often said he came to lay down his life for sinful man, yet he intended to evade death as long as possible. It was owing to this obscure method of teaching, that his disciples, although always with him, could not understand fully what his objects were; and though he had so often told them of “the kingdom of heaven being at hand,” they understood him not.

To bring the position of the Jews nearer, at the time of Christ’s appearance in Judea, let us suppose ourselves to have been Jews, then living, and expecting and desiring his coming. At length, it is said, “he is arrived.” The first inquiry would very naturally be, is he the true Messiah, or is he an impostor? If, then, to our inquiries made to him on that point, we had received in return nothing positive, but the vilest abuse, and threatenings of damnation in a future world, could we be expected to view him as the promised deliverer? When the Jews heard him denouncing them as hypocrites, and, at the same time, assuming an authority over Moses, and the laws of Jehovah given by Moses, and calling the Temple (for which they had so high a veneration) a den of thieves, it must have had a tendency to shut up their minds against his divine mission. If Jesus wished the Jews to be convinced of his being the personage whom they had long expected, he should, in the first place, have attended to their inquiry, “Art thou he which should come, or are we to look for another?”

This question being settled, by indisputable evidence, Jesus would have had a foundation for correcting what was wrong, and exposing their base conduct. But he began at the wrong-end, by upbraiding them for their evil doings before he had ‘convinced them of his being appointed to abrogate, or, in any way, to alter, the law of Moses. We may then safely conclude, if Jesus was divinely commissioned to the Jews, that it was not intended they should believe in him. But who, for a moment, can think, that, if the Almighty Ruler of the Universe had sent him, his mission would have been marked with trickery and deception, and have failed, and the Jews have been left in a state far worse than if he had never been among them? Can we reasonably conclude, that a Being of infinite wisdom and goodness would have sent his Son to the Jewish nation, without giving them any evidence of his being the Messiah, and then have taken advantage of their unbelief to deal out judgments against them?

If Jesus was sent into the world to die, and by dying, became “a sacrifice for the sins of mankind,” then the Jews, by putting him to death, brought to maturity what God had ordained should come to pass. In that case, then, it is clear, that Jesus was so to act, that the Jews must not be convinced that he was the true and real Messiah, for had they believed in him as the restorer of their race, whom they had long expected, they would not have slain the “Lord of life and glory.” Then, how would he have paid the “ransom for lost sinners”? But, on the other hand, if Jesus was sent by God to the Jewish nation, and gifted to perform signs and miracles to convert them, how did it happen that they remained in sin and unbelief;—their whole race, the seed of Abram, remaining in that state until the present time? The Jews have surely been an unfortunate people. To the Jews, then, 1 must say, “I know not which demands the most pity—you, or your God; for, after all the attempts to subject you to his will, you are a race of outcasts, and have been plundered by all the Christian nations on earth. After all the pains taken by the Lord of Hosts to convert you, every one has failed; but the last failure is the most to be deplored. From the time Jehovah is said to have called Abram, your progenitor, and selected him from the rest of the human race, and promised him and his seed forever, blessings from which the rest of the world were excluded, Jehovah and your generations have ever been on bad terms. You are spoken of in Scripture as a stiff-necked, rebellious people. On the part of God, he has always appeared as if he was angry with your conduct. Forty years together, he says, he has been grieved with your disobedience. To such a height has been his displeasure, that thousands and tens of thousands of your nation have been cut off by the terrible judgments of the Lord. You have been led into captivity and sold as slaves, time after time, and Jehovah has even threatened to destroy your whole race.

“Jehovah, in his anger, has raised heathen kings against you, and the slaughter has been dreadful. But when you have turned to the Lord, and humbled yourselves, he has attended to your cry, and delivered you out of their hands. Jehovah has, at times, inspired prophets who have foretold that you should one day have a personage appear among you, restore you to your former greatness, be to you a God, and you should be to him a people. This personage is said to have been among you, but you knew him not. You, then, from obedience to Jehovah, rejected Jesus as an impostor, and considered him as arrogating to himself Divine honor, and finally put him to death. And, for eighteen hundred years, you have suffered the most cruel treatment from every nation among whom you have dwelt. You have been the most unfortunate people on earth; but you still cling to your prophets, and are looking for the coming of the Messiah.

“And what appears more unfortunate than all your past evils, is, you have put to death, through mistake, your last refuge, the true Messiah. There are, at the present time, upwards of one hundred millions of Christians who maintain and believe that the same Jesus whom ye slew and hanged on a tree, is in truth both Lord and Christ, the same whom your nation so long and so earnestly looked for. If, then, faith in that Christ whom you rejected, has opened the kingdom of heaven to the Christian world, while your whole race is shut ont, the Christians owe you a debt of everlasting gratitude, for by this sacrifice they are to enter into the Supper of the Lamb, and your unfortunate race have the door closed against them. But do not despair, for the Infidels of the present day are your friends. They will make all right They will, if you attend to them, convince you that your forefathers were imposed on, when in a state of ignorance, by some artful impostor, who persuaded them that the seed of Abram was chosen by God to the exclusion of all other people and nations.

“In the infancy of your nation, Moses, or some other artful leader, took advantage of your inexperience, and by antedating miracles said to have been performed in behalf of your ancestors by Jehovah, but which never were performed, and which at the time was incapable of refutation, your nation imbibed the reality that the seed of Abram was the chosen of the Lord. This conviction for thousands of years has been received, and has been handed down from father to Son till the present time. Yes, ye seed of Abram, (by this name I address you,) by considering yourselves the chosen people of God, this conviction has been your perpetual curse. Your faith in the ancient accounts of those miracles and wonders, wrought in your behalf by Moses, has been your fatal delusion. You consider it not possible for your fore-, fathers to have been deceived; for, say you, the miracles and wonders were performed before your whole nation.

“In this consists your error. There is no certainty as to who wrote the history of the wonders, said to have been wrought in your behalf, nor at what time they were first recorded. But the internal evidence of the books ascribed to Moses, fully prove him not to have been the author. The same evidence also proves that the first five books were not written till after the reign of the first kings of Israel. So that, by antedating the wonders recorded to have taken place in the infancy of your nation, and then by a cunning impostor to have been subsequently presented for the first time to the Jews, giving them an account of those wonders of old, an ignorant nation would be likely to believe them; and in that case a whole people would be converted at once, giving credit to an absurdity producing an influence in the world which has far exceeded any imposture that ever has been Saddled on the human race. The dreadful error into which your forefathers fell, and by handing down to their posterity the foolish story of your being a chosen people, the greatest curse which could befal you, you have, without doubt, been the most unfortunate people on earth; for by considering yourselves God’s chosen people, you have despised the rest of the human race, and you have in return been persecuted and plundered. You have been treated by all nations as outcasts.

“On the ground-work of your having been chosen by the supposed God of the universe, the world has assumed an appearance very unlike to what it would have had, if no such imposition had been practised on your progenitors. Wars innumerable have taken place, and rivers of blood have flowed through the earth, occasioned by theological strife. Religious quarrels, ending in the application of the rack and torture, and persecutions in quick succession, have been the result, and thousand of horrid cruelties have taken place in every age, all in consequence of that curse of all curses, the belief that God has a chosen people. Although it had doubtless been thought by your nation the highest possible honor to be chosen by the Lord, this has proved your greatest misfortune; for from this source, Christianity has been produced. You may exult in the idea, that you have in your sacred books, the doctrine of but one God, notwithstanding your religion and its Christian offspring has been more cruel and intolerant than any on earth. According to your own books, your nation and the God who chose them, were forever at war; your people continually rebelling and receiving chastisement, till, at last, you are to appearance forsaken. But as has been before mentioned, the Infidels are your friends; for, by means of free discussion, and the diffusion of useful knowledge, they will ultimately destroy that intolerant spirit which has been the earth’s greatest curse, and you will eventually, with the rest of the human family, open your eyes, and discover the folly and absurdity of believing in a God “partial, vengeful, and unjust.” And then you will be no longer Jews, but will become men.”