In v. 43 of the same chapter, there is another disagreement between Stephen's quotation from Amos, and the original. [In the Acts the quotation is,—Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the Star of your God. Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them, and I will carry you away beyond Babylon. In Amos, ch. v. 26—But ye have borne the tabernacle of Moloch and Chinn your images, the Star of your God which ye made, &c.]
So also there is in the speech of James, Acts xv. a quotation from Amos, in which to make it fit the subject, (which after all it does not fit,) is the substitution of the words, the remnant of men, for the words, remnant of Edom, as it is in the original.
All these mistakes, besides others to be met with in almost—I was going to say in every page, of these Histories of Jesus and his Apostles, sufficiently show how superficial was the acquaintance of these men with the Old Testament, and how grossly, either through design or ignorance, they have perverted it. Indeed from these mistakes alone, I should be led strongly to suspect, that the Books of the New Testament were written by Gentiles, as I can hardly conceive that any Jew could have quoted his Bible in such a blundering manner.
CHAPTER XI.
WHETHER THE MOSAIC LAW BE REPRESENTED IN THE OLD TESTAMENT AS A TEMPORARY, OR A PERPETUAL INSTITUTION.
A very great part of Dogmatic Theology among Christians is founded upon the notion that the Jewish Law was a temporary dispensation, only to exist till the coming of Jesus, when it was to be superseded by a more perfect dispensation.
On the contrary, the Jews are persuaded that their Law is of perpetual obligation, and the Doctrine of the Trinity itself is hardly more offensive to them, and, as they think, more contradictory to the Scriptures, than the notion of the abrogation of it. Now, that the Jews are on the right side of this question, i. e., arguing from the Old Testament, I shall endeavour to prove by several arguments. They are all comprised in these positions, 1. That the Mosaic Institutions are most solemnly, and repeatedly declared to be perpetual; and we have no account of their being abrogated, or to be abrogated in the Old Testament. 2. They are declared to be perpetual by Jesus himself, and were adhered to by the twelve apostles.
1. Nothing can be more expressly asserted in the Old Testament than the perpetual obligation of those rites which were to distinguish the Jews from other nations. It appears, for instance, (from the 17th ch. of Genesis,) in the tenor of the covenant made with Abraham, that circumcision was to distinguish his posterity, to the end of time. It is called an everlasting covenant to be kept by his posterity through all their generations. See the ch. where the condition of the covenant is, that God would give to Abraham and his posterity, the perpetual inheritance of the promised land with whatever privileges were implied in his being their God, on condition that their male children were circumcised in testimony of putting themselves under that covenant. There is no limitation with respect to time; nay it is expressly said that the covenant should be perpetual.
The ordinance of the Passover is also said to be perpetual, Ex. xii. 14, &c. And this day shall be unto you for a memorial, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations. You shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever. This is repeated afterwards, and the observance of this rite is confined to Israelites, Proselytes, and slaves who should be circumcised, v. 48.
The observance of the Sabbath was never to be discontinued, Ex. xxxi. 16. Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever.