Several things are here asserted, which deserve to be explained. I take them in an inverted order.
I. It is said, “that the Jews were not, and are not to this day, convinced by the argument from prophecy.” This allegation is in part false: for multitudes[67], from among the Jews, were, in the apostolic age, converted to Christianity; and these are well known to have laid a peculiar stress on this argument. The greater part of that people, indeed, disbelieved, and have continued to this day in their infidelity. But then let it be considered, 1. that we have an adequate cause of this effect, in the prejudices of the Jewish nation; prejudices, of which their whole history evidently convicts them. 2. That, notwithstanding their rejection of Jesus, they admit the existence and authority of those prophecies, which we apply to him; and that they themselves have constantly applied these very prophecies to their expected Messiah: so that the question between us is only this, Whether they, or we, rightly apply them. 3. That their perverse obstinacy in refusing to submit to the evidence of their prophecies, is itself foretold by their own prophets.
II. But it is further said, “that their authority, in this controversy, is greater than ours, for that they must best understand their own prophecies, and judge best of their completion.”
1. I do not perceive on what ground of reason this is said. The old prophecies belong to us, as well as to them; and have been considered with as much diligence by Christian, as by Jewish expositors. Their customs, their history, their traditions, are equally known to both parties. Their very language hath been studied by Christians with a care, not inferior to that which the Jews themselves employ upon it; with a care, that not unfrequently, in both, hath degenerated into superstition.
If it be said, “that the ancient Jews, that is, the Jews in the time of Christ, must have been better qualified, than we now are, to interpret the prophecies, the language, they spoke, being only a dialect of that in which the prophecies are written,” the answer is already given, under the last article: to which we may further add, that Christianity being much better understood now, than it was then, the force of the prophetic language concerning it (if, indeed, the prophecies have any such thing in view) must be more distinctly apprehended, in many instances, by Christians at this day, than it could be by the Jews, even when they spoke a dialect of the Hebrew language. So that still I do not see, upon the whole, what advantage the Jews, whether of ancient or modern times, can be thought to have over us, in explaining the prophetic scriptures. And then
2. As to the completion of the prophecies, the same histories are in the hands of both: and if they do not apply them, as we do the appeal is open to common sense. Every man is left at liberty to judge for himself, which side is best supported in the application of them. The prejudice might, indeed, be thought equal on both sides, if it were not decided by their own scriptures, that no prejudice of any people upon earth was ever so invincible, as that of the Jews.
3. Lastly, on both heads, there is a peculiar presumption, that they, and not we, are misled by prejudice: It is this: They were led by their prophecies, as interpreted by themselves, to expect that they would be completed at the time, in which, we say, they were completed; and it was not till after the coming of Christ that they began to interpret them differently, and to look out for another completion of them. Judge then, if they, or we, are likely to have erred most, through prejudice, in expounding and applying the prophecies. The natural and proper sense will be thought to be that, in which we take them; for that sense occurred first to themselves, and was, in truth, their sense, before we adopted it.
When I say—their sense—I mean, especially, in respect to the time, which they had fixed for the accomplishment of the prophecies concerning the Messiah: for, as to their giving a temporal sense to some prophecies, in which we find a spiritual, that is another matter, concerning which, as I said, the appeal lies to every competent and dispassionate inquirer. In the mean time, it must be thought some presumption in favour of the Christian interpretation, that, whereas the Jews, in rejecting a spiritual or mystical sense of those prophecies (which yet is admitted by them, without scruple, on other occasions, and is well suited to the genius of their whole religion) are driven to the necessity of supposing a two-fold Messias—a new conceit, taken up, without warrant from their scriptures, and against their own former ideas and expectations—We, on the contrary, by the help of that spiritual sense, are able to explain all the prophecies of one and the same Messias, conformably to the event, and even to the time which the Jews themselves had prefixed for the completion of them.
Now, when, of two interpretations, one has apparently all the marks of shift, constraint, and distress in it, and the other comes out easy, uniform, and consistent; we may guess beforehand, as I said, which of them is likely to be well-founded.
III. Still it is pretended, “that the argument from prophecy is properly addressed to those only who admit the divinity of the Jewish scriptures, as the Jews have invariably done; and that it hath no force, but on that previous supposition. Why then is the argument pressed on others, who do not believe the divine authority of those scriptures? And how should it prevail with any, whether believers or not, when the Jews themselves, who of all men most firmly believe that authority, are not convinced by it?”