CHAPTER V.
EXAMINATION OF THE ARGUMENTS FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT ADDUCED IN THE NEW, TO PROVE THAT JESUS OF NAZARETH WAS THE MESSIAH.
But since one would esteem it almost incredible, that the apostles could persuade men to believe Jesus to be this Messiah, unless they had at least some proof to offer to their conviction, let us next consider, and examine, the proofs adduced by the apostles and their followers, from the Old Testament for that purpose.
Of the strength or weakness of the proofs for Christianity out of the Old Testament, we are well qualified to judge, as we have the Old and New Testament in our hands; the first containing what are offered as proofs of Christianity, and the latter the application of those proofs, and we should seem to have nothing more to do, but to compare the Old and New Testament together.
But these proofs taken out of the Old Testament, and urged in the New, being sometimes not to be found in the Old, nor urged in the New, according to the literal and obvious sense, which they appear to bear in their supposed places in the Old, and, therefore, not proofs according to the rules of interpretation established by reason, and acted upon in interpreting every other ancient book-- almost all Christian commentators on the Bible, and advocates for the religion of the New Testament, both ancient and modern, have judged them to be applied in a secondary, or typical, or mystical, or allegorical, or enigmatical sense; that is, in a sense different from the obvious and literal sense which they bear in the Old Testament.
Thus, for example, Matthew, after having given an account of the conception of Mary, and the birth of Jesus, says (ch.

i.,) "All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, Behold a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel." But the words as they stand in Isaiah ch.vii.14, from whence they are taken, do, in their obvious and literal sense, relate to a young woman in the days of Ahaz, King of Judah, as will appear, considering the context.
When Rezin, King of Syria, and Pekah, King of Israel, were confederates in arms together, against Ahaz, King of Judah, Isaiah the prophet was sent by God, first to comfort Ahaz and the nation, and then to assure them by a sign, that his enemies should in a little time be confounded .-- But Ahaz refusing a sign at the prophet's hand, the prophet said (see the chapter,) "The Lord shall give you a sign.

Behold a virgin, or 'young woman' (for the Hebrew word means both as was truly and justly asserted by the Jews in the primitive ages against the Christians, and is now acknowledged, and established beyond dispute by the best Hebrew scholars of this age,) shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good.

For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land which thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings." And this sign is accordingly given Ahaz by the prophet, who, ch.viii.v.2, 18, took two witnesses and went to the said young woman, who in due time conceived, and bare a son, after whose birth the projects of Rezin and Pekah were, it appears, soon confounded, according to the prophecy and sign given by the prophet.
And the prophet himself, puts it beyond dispute, that this is the proper interpretation of the prophecy, by express words, as well as by his whole narration; for he says, "Behold I, and the children whom the Lord hath given me, are for signs, and for wonders in Israel from the Lord of Hosts, that dwelleth in mount Zion." Isaiah viii.