HKB
STATEMENT of THE QUESTION IN DISPUTE.
How Christianity depends on the Old Testament, or what proofs are to be met with therein in behalf of Christianity, are the subjects of almost all the numerous books written by divines, and other apologists for Christianity, but the chief and principal of these proofs may be justly supposed to be urged in the New Testament itself, by the authors thereof; who relate the history of the first preaching of the Gospel, and profess themselves to be apostles of Jesus, or companions of the Apostles.
Some of these proofs, as a specimen, have been already adduced. And if they are valid proofs, then is Christianity strongly and invincibly established: on its true foundations.
It is established upon its true foundations, because Jesus and his Apostles did, as we have seen, ground Christianity on those proofs; and it is strongly and invincibly established on those foundations, because a proof drawn from an inspired book is perfectly conclusive. And prophecies delivered in an inspired book are, when fulfilled, such as may be justly deemed sure, and demonstrative proof; and which Peter (2 Peter 1: 19) prefers as an argument for the truth of Christianity, to that miraculous attestation (whereof he, and two other Apostles are said to have been witnesses,) given by God himself to the mission of Jesus of Nazareth. His argument appears to be as follows. "Laying this foundation, that Prophecy proceeds from the Holy Spirit, it is a stronger argument than a miracle, which depends upon eternal evidence, and testimony." And this opinion of Peter's is corroborated by the words of Jesus himself, who, in Mat. xxiv: 23, 24, Mark xiii: 21, 22, affirms, that miracles wrought in confirmation of a pretender's being the Messiah, are not to be considered as proof of his being so--"though they show great signs and wonders, believe it not," is his command to his disciples.
Besides, prophecies fulfilled, seem the most proper of all arguments to evince the truth of a new revelation which is designed to be universally promulgated to men. For a man who has the Old Testament put into his hands, which contain prophecies, and the New Testament afterward, which is said to contain their completions, and is once satisfied, as he may be with the greatest ease, that the Old Testament existed before the New, may have a complete, internal, divine, demonstration of the truth of Christianity, without long, and laborious enquiries. Whereas, arguments of another nature, such, for instance, as relate to the authority and genuineness of the books, and the persons, and characters of authors, and witnesses, require more application, and understanding, than falls to the share of the bulk of mankind; or else are very precarious in themselves, since we know that in the first centuries there were numberless forged Gospels, and Apocryphal writings imposed upon the credulous as apostolic and authentic; and there were in the Apostles times, as many, and as great heresies and schisms as perhaps have been since in any age of the Church. So that, setting aside the before mentioned internal proofs from prophecy, (which were the Apostle's proofs and in their nature sufficient of themselves) we should have no certain proof at all for the Religion of the New Testament.
On the other hand, if the proofs for Christianity from the Old Testament, are not valid, if the arguments founded on that Book be not conclusive, and the Prophecies cited from thence be not fulfilled, then has Christianity no just foundation; for the foundation on which Jesus and his Apostles built it is then invalid, and false. Nor can miracles, said to have been wrought by Jesus, and his Apostles in behalf of Christianity, avail anything in the case. For miracles can never render a foundation valid, which is in itself invalid; can never make a false inference true; can never make a prophecy fulfilled, which is not fulfilled; and can never designate a Messiah, or Jesus for the Messiah, if both are not marked out in the Old Testament; no more than they could prove the earth to be the sun, or a mouse a lion.