Five Pebbles from the Brook

by George Bethune English

These are not the only instances in which Mr. Everett has calumniated me, and abused the good nature of his readers. For example—

I had maintained in my first work, that the gospel called of Matthew was a forgery, and not a translation from the ancient Hebrew gospel of Matthew, and had supported my opinion by saying, that learned Christians allowed that "it had not the air of a translation." This Mr. Everett contradicts as follows: "But Mr. English is aware that MICHAELIS, the highest authority on these subjects, pronounces that it is a translation, and maintains his proposition not less from the unanimous testimony of the ancients than from internal evidence." p. 472, of Mr. Everett's work.

I beg the reader after reading this to attend carefully to what is said by Mr. Everett in p. 464. "Semler's opinion of the origin and composition of the three first gospels, was the same as that of Le Clerc, MICHAELIS, Lessing, and Eichorn, and which has been illustrated and maintained by professor" Marsh. This opinion is that they were compiled from documents [not one document or gospel, but several] of our Lord's preaching and life, which had been committed to writing during his life, or immediately after, and which became after different additions, revisions and translations, the BASIS of our present gospels." Here the reader sees that when it is necessary to oppose my statements, in one place Mr. Everett avers that Michaelis maintained that the Greek gospel according to Matthew, was a translation of Matthew's Hebrew; in another place, where it is also necessary to oppose me, he avers that Michaelis believed that the gospel according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke were compiled compositions, and of course none of them were translations from any one work. "I would, says Mr. Everett, answer Mr. English fairly, or not at all." If this and the other instances quoted be specimens of Mr. Everett's fairness, what would be his conduct upon the very impossible supposition that he could be guilty of duplicity?

2. Mr. Everett tells his readers, that the Jewish Rabbies "are the most contemptible critics that have appeared;" that "they are so silly that he is almost ashamed to quote them;" that they were in short idiots. If so, of what value can their opinions be on controverted points, which must after all be settled by reason and scripture, and not by any bare human authority.[fn67] Nevertheless Mr. Everett is continually calling upon his reader to believe his arguments and statements upon the authority of these said Rabbies. If I were one of his Christian readers, I should consider myself insulted by such a procedure. It is almost tantamount to saying, "'it is true, my arguments are built upon the authority of fools, but yet they may serve to convince you."

3. I had accused the writers of the New Testament in my first publication, of having blundered in applying passages of the Old Testament as prophecies of Jesus Christ. Mr. Everett justifies them by maintaining in the 5th. chapter of his work, that it is true that these quotations cannot be supported as prophecies, but that they are excusable for the following reasons. The writers of the. New Testament were Jews; the Jews of their times believed that every text of Scripture had seventy-two faces, and that each one regarded the Messiah, and that the resurrection of the dead was also taught in every chapter of Scripture, though we might not be able to perceive it, and that the writers of the New Testament had been brought up in these silly prejudices, and therefore argued on these principles, i. e. that, notwithstanding their being inspired men and full of the spirit of the Almighty, they continued in this respect as silly as ever.

Now if there be a pious and sincere Christian in the world, and should have this hypothesis laid before him for his acceptance as the best means of defending the writers of the New Testament, from the charge of fraud or blundering in their application of the prophecies, I venture to say that that pious and sincere Christian would, without hesitation, believe the proposer of such an hypothesis to be ruining the cause he professed to defend. "What! he might say, are the quotations in the New Testament from the Old, indeed founded on folly, and alledged through stupidity? Have the writers of the New Testament, who are allowed to have been inspired by the Most High God with a perfect knowledge and understanding of the Christian religion, who are representing continually that Jesus Christ was foretold by the prophets, and that their own minds were opened by the Holy Ghost to understand the Scriptures, have they indeed though continually quoting the Old Testament, after all never quoted for us even one of the predictions on which they say their religion is founded? and have they spent all the time they devoted to writing for the salvation of the souls of men, in fooling with the Old Testament in the manner you aver? 'Tis false! 'Tis monstrous! Either your hypothesis is a fable, or Christianity, itself is like the dreams of the Rabbies."[fn68]

When I see such principles, and other like principles avowed in Mr. Everett's work, I feel myself authorized to propose to him the following questions, by which I hope he will not consider himself as put to the torture.

What, Mr. Everett, were your motives for quitting, so abruptly and unexpectedly, the most respectable society who had done you the honour to elect you their pastor, believing you to be the only man worthy to succeed the learned, eloquent and lamented Buckminster? This abandonment of your station took place after you had engaged yourself in the examination of the question between me, Mr. Cary, and Mr. Channing. If you felt doubts of the validity of the Christian religion, and were therefore scrupulous about going into your pulpit every Sunday to preach Christianity in the name of the God of Truth, and therefore resigned your post, your conduct thus far does you honour and not shame. But if, after this, you have allowed yourself to be overcome by the solicitations of interested friends (who might have been anxious that you should publish something, that would allay the suspicions and silence the rumours your conduct had occasioned) to give to the world your very singular book, you have acted a part unjust towards me, and injurious to yourself, for you now see the consequence. You are taken in the snare you had laid for me, and your violent dealing has come down on your own head.

I come now to the examination of the celebrated prophecy of the seventy weeks. This prophecy has always run [fn69] the crux Criticorum. It is unquestionably a very ambiguous one, since Mr. Everett himself informs us in a note, p. 167 of his work, that "Calovius whose day has passed a century ago, in a dissertation upon the mysteries of the seventy weeks, numbers twenty-five different Christian hypotheses," to which may be added at least two more, those of Michaelis and Blayney.

If so, I would ask what stress a reasonable man can lay upon a simple [fn70] prophecy which is allowedly so ambiguous, as to have led Christians, sincerely disposed to make a prophecy of Jesus Christ out of this passage, to interpret it at least twenty- seven different ways?