BEING A DEFENCE OF JUDAISM AGAINST ALL ADVERSARIES, AND PARTICULARLY AGAINST THE INSIDIOUS ATTACKS OF ISRAEL'S ADVOCATE. VOL. II. 8th month, MARCHESHVON, OCTOBER, 5585. NO. 7. Thou hast trodden down all those who err from thy statutes: for their dissimu lation is falsehood. Thou hast caused all the wicked of the earth to evaporate like dross; I therefore love thy testimonies. Psalms cxix. 118. EXAMINATION OF ST. MATTHEW. Continued from page 380. CHAP. XXII. Verse, 43.-"How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, say ing: The LORD said unto my Lord, sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool? If David then call him Lord, how is he his son?" Is it possible, Matthew will have he is not his son? for follow up the reasoning: David calls him Lord, if he is David's Lord he is not David's son. And truly, as Matthew has given us the genealogy of Jesus, he was not any man's son, for he will have, chapter i. 16. Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary; but he tells us, before they came together she was found with child: consequently, the child Jesus was not the son of Joseph the son of Jacob, and consequently, not the son of David, but the son of the Holy Ghost. Give me leave to ask, if he was not David's son how then is he the Messiah? if he is not descended from David, or David's father Jesse, Isaiah xi. 1. "And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow up out of his roots." If Jesus of Nazareth was the son of the Holy Ghost, and not David's son, he then is not the rod out of the stem of Jesse, he is not grown out of his root: then how can he be the Messiah? Jeremiah xxiii. 5. "Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous branch, and a king shall reign and prosper." If Jesus of Nazareth was not the son of David how could he be the righteous branch. According to your account of him, and his genealogy. he is a spurious branch, no matter who his father was; how then is he the Messiah? The Messiah, according to Jeremiah, must be a righteous branch from David, again, xxxiii. 15. "In those days, and in that time will I cause the branch of sighteousness to grow up unto David," again, 17. “For thus saith the Lord, David shall never want a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel." If Jesus of Nazareth is not the son of David, how can he be the branch of righteousness? for if he should always sit on the throne of Israel, and is anothers son, David will always want a man to sit on the throne of Israel; for Jesus is not a son of David, but of the Holy Ghost. It is true, Luke does call him a son of David, at least he calls David his father; he however, calls Jesus the son of the Highest, and calls David his father: then, according to Luke, David is the Highest. "He shall be called the son of the Highest, and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end." Still he gives us the genealogy of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was not descended; consequently, he could not be the Messiah. But of Luke by and by, he shall have his turn please God. I know some one, either Bishop Newton, or Bishop Watson, has said Mary was of the family and lineage of David, but whence he got it from I can not divine, for neither Matthew, Mark, Luke, nor John, give us any account of Mary's genealogy. As to the supposition, that Joseph being of the lineage of David, Mary also must have been, because the Jews did not marry out of their tribe; the premises are not true, the Jews had no such law, no such custom; the Priests only, were obliged by law, to take a virgin of their own people, or the widow of a priest : but as to any of the rest of the tribes, married in the nation, who they pleased, except those forbidden: if indeed the males of a family were extinct, and the patrimony fell among the daughters, according to ancient law, as in the case of the daughters of Zelophead, the daughters were obliged in such case, to marry one of their father's tribe. But was Mary in that situation? it appears to the contrary, for Josepb was a carpenter, according to the account of him, he does not appear to have had any land, but if it should have been so, she then might have been a Jewess of the tribe of Judah; but a thousand to one, not of the least of the thousands of Judah an Ephrathitess, she rather appears to have been of the tribe of Levi, for she was cousin to Elizabeth, wife of the priest Zacharias, which Elizabeth was a daughter of Levi; see Luke, ch. i. as such it is to be supposed, if she was at at all, she was a Levitess, a daughter of Levi, and not a Jewess. But however it was with her, it makes no difference in the present case, for the genealogy is never reckoned according to the mother. But to return to our text, as it is called, "How then doth David in spirit call him Lord." Does he Matthew, does David call any man Lord? You must be a wonderful learned man; for I cannot find it so, it does not appear so to the modern Jews, as they are called; and I assure you, they ought at least to know something of the idiom and phraseology of their own language, and it is as certain, that the ancient Jews would not accept of the idea, that the Messiah must be God, or part of the Godhead. For although, it is allowed that the whole profanity is from the prophets of Jerusalem, as foretold by Jeremiah xxiii. 15. "From the prophets of Jerusalem, is profaneness gone forth, into all the land." Still none but the very pagans, or very light Jews, (men without any information in the sacred writings,) would accept of the profanation! of the perversion! You allude to the cx. Psalm, and which is by you, called a psalm of David, meaning, a psalm composed by David, is it so ? is it a psalm composed by David? or rather, is it not a psalm treating of, and concerning David? A psalm for David: are you a Jew? then you must know that the LAMUD, prefixed, means to, of, for, or coneerning. Think a psalm for Solomon, here the↳ LAMUD is prefixed to Solomon, and is rightly translated, a psalm for Solo a song of degrees for Solomon, here the שיר המעלות לשלמה mon, or LAMUD is prefixed to, Solomon, and is rightly translated for, so here a psalm for David. The psalm for Solomon is a psalm concerning Solomon. The song of degrees for Solomon, is a song made about, or concerning Solomon; so here the psalm for David is a psalm composed, and which treats of and concerning David. So far is David from being the composer, that the psalm treats of him in the third person; it does not treat of the Messiah, emphatically so called, but of king David the son of Jesse, and father of king Solomon, and was sung in his praise, by his servants, and subjects. The idea among ..ians is, that the whole book of Psalms, are composed by David, they call them the psalms of David, as if he wrote and collected them; the very reverse of which is the truth. The book of Psalms, is a collection of psalms of several hands, some are certainly of David's composing, others again are composed by Assaph, Nathan, Moses, and a great many others; this is self apparent and needs no proof; but as it helps the imposition along, to have them the psalms of David, they must all be made David's psalms: as such we have Watts' version of the psalms of David, when David would not own one of them; for they are violent and wicked perversions of all the psalms, whether David's or any others they are Watts', and only Watts'-he says they are fitted, &c. truly, they are fitted, for the worship of the Troop. : "The Lord said unto my Lord." Wherever the holy, the incommunicable name of the Deity, occurs in the scripture, in the law, Prophets, Psalms, &c. the Bible translators, have rendered it Lord; now the word has no such meaning in itself, it can not be so translated; and I suppose, ians in all their languages, have given it the same signification. In consequence, Lord means God, my Lord is synonimous with my God; and the Lord said to my Lord, must consequently mean, God said to my God. Thus, we have in our text one God speaking to another God; and what does the Lord God tell to my Lord God, why the Lord God tells my Lord God to sit down on his right hand, till that the Lord God, shall make the enemies of my Lord God, the footstool of my Lord God; further, the Lord God, tells my Lord God, that he, the Lord God, will send the rod of the strength of my Lord God out of Zion, and the Lord God further tells my Lord God, to rule in the midst of the enemies of my Lord God; the Lord God then tells my Lord God that the people of my Lord God, shall be willing in the day of the power of my Lord God, (hence it appears there was a day when my Lord God had no power,) Then follows a little flattery from God to God, in these words: in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning thou, (that is my Lord God,) hast the dew of thy youth; according to this, my Lord God once was a youthful God, a young God, and has got to be an old God, a changeable God! The Lord God has sworn and will not repent, thou, (yet meaning my Lord God,) art a priest for ever after the order of Mechizedek; that my Lord God is a priest after the order of a man. The Lord God at the right hand of my Lord God will strike through kings in the day of his wrath, that is in the day of the wrath of the Lord God; he, the Lord God, shall judge among the heathen; he, the Lord God, shall fill the places with his dead bodies; he, the Lord God, shall wound the heads over many countries; he shall drink, (that is, I must suppose, the Lord God shall drink) of the brook in the way, therefore, he, the Lord God shall lift up his head. So they wind it up, this is the perversion, the whole of it, it cer tainly sounds a little uncouth, for the Lord God to take a drink at the brook, and that this drinking of the brook, in the way, will enabled him to lift up his head, without which, I suppose he could not have done it; he was, or would be so tired, and faged out, or jaded with this killing, this slaughter-but I will not stand about trifles, but proceed directly to the subject. By this method of explaining the psalm, or as I would say, by this perversion, they make out three things: first, that the Messiah is not the son of David; because David himself calls him Lord; secondly, that the Messiah is God, or part of the Godhead; thirdly, that the Messiah is also a priest, a priest after the order of Melchizedek. Of the first, I think I have shown that the Messiah must be the son of David, and if Jesus was not the son of David he was not the Messiah and of the other two in their turns. First, that the Messiah is God, thus if the Messiah is God, and the Lord is God, then there are two Gods, for if one Lord as you explain, or pervert the text, The Lord, speaks to my Lord, and tells my Lord, that he, the Lord will do some certain affairs for my Lord, there are two Lords, one speaking to another; and which is the same, two Gods; when in Exod. xx. 3. it thus written: "Thou shalt have no other Gods before me." : thus 4 There shall not be unto לא יהיה לך אלהים אחרים על פני thee, other Gods, before my face. Before my face is the meaning of the original, or upon my face, meaning upon : but as we must suppose that the meaning is before, or behind, upon, or under, it is of no consequence here, have you translate - there is to be no other Gods; any how, whatsoever, we must not obscure the face of the Deity, by having other Gods. God must be worshiped alone, we must not have other Gods at all. In Deuteronomy, (as you call it,) Moses, after warning the children of Israel, against all manner of false worshiping, he explains this command to them, showing them what this, "- "Before my face," means; chapter iv. 35. "Unto thee it was shown, that thou mightest know, that the Lord, he is God; therr is none else beside him." That is the reason, purpose, and intention of your being brought before God at the mount Sinai, and God there talking to you, of your being yourselves inspired by God was to show, (to convince) you, that you might know that he is God, and that there is none else besides him.-Again, verse 39. "Know therefore, this day, and consider in thine heart, that the Lord he is God, in Heaven above, and upon the |