CHAPTER VI.
EXAMINATION OF THE MEANING OF THE PHRASE "THIS WAS DONE THAT IT MIGHT BE FULFILLED." It may be objected from divers learned authors, who have been very sensible of the difficulties stated in the preceding chapters, and have, sensible of the difficulties stated in the preceding chapters, therefore, taken other ground than their predecessors, in order to defend themselves the better; I say, it may be objected to what I have advanced, that Christianity is not in fact grounded on the prophetical, or other, quotations made from the Old, in the New, Testament; but that those quotations being allegorically applied by the authors of the New Testament, are merely arguments ad hominem, to convince the Jews of the truth of Christianity, who allowed such a method of arguing to be valid, and are not arguments to the rest of mankind.
To which I answer--That this distinction is the pure invention of those who make the objection, and not only has no foundation in the New Testament, but is utterly subverted by its express declarations; for the authors of the books of the New Testament always argue absolutely from the quotations they cite as prophecies out of the books of the Old Testament.

Moses and the prophets are every where represented to be a just foundation for Christianity; and the author of the Epistle to the Romans expressly says, ch.xvi.26, 26, "The gospel, which was kept secret since the world began, was now made manifest by the scriptures of the prophets (wherein that gospel was secretly contained) to all nations," by the means of the preachers of the gospel who gave the secret or spiritual sense of those scriptures; for to the ancient Jews, according to them, the gospel was preached by the types of their law, and, therefore, must have been considered as truly contained in it.
Besides, the authors of the books of the New Testament were convinced long before the publication of them, that the gospel was to be preached to the Gentiles as well as the Jews, to both of whom, therefore, they reasoned allegorically in their books, as Peter and others did in their sermons, though with greater success on Gentiles than on Jews; and as Paul did before Felix, when he said he took his heresy, or Christianity, from the law, and the prophets.

Acts xxiv., as also he did before Agrippa.

It would, therefore, seem strange, that books written to all the world by men equally concerned to convert Gentiles as well as Jews, and that discourses made expressly to Gentiles as well as to Jews, should be designed to be pertinent only to Jews, much less to a very few Jews! Indeed, I am ashamed at being thus long engaged in showing what must be self evident; and did I not fear being further tedious to my readers, I would undertake to bring together passages from the New Testament, where the meaning and intention of the writers is obvious, in such abundance, as would immediately and entirely put the hypothesis of our opponents out of countenance.
These quotations from the.

Old Testament are certainly urged, and spoken of as direct proofs, as absolute proofs in themselves, and not as mere proofs ad hominem to the Jews; for if these prophecies are only urged by the apostles as proofs to the Jews, and intended only as proofs founded on the mistaken meanings of the Old Testament of some Jews of their time, what sense is there in appealing upon all occasions to the prophets, and recommending the reading and search of the Old Testament for the trial and proof of what was preached?
for that was to proceed on weakness itself, knowing it to be so.