Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. AN ANCIENT CHRISTIAN.
For wisdom famous through the East, Abraham rested on his staff; in guise A Chaldee shepherd, simple in his raiment, As when at Mamre in his tent he sat. Snow-white were his locks And silvery beard, that to his girdle rolled. Fondly his meek eye dwelt upon his Lord, Like one that, after long and troubled dreams, A night of sorrows, dreary, wild, and sad, Beholds at last the dawn ofpromised joys.
Your Father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glatl. ? Joio viii. 66. Our Lord preached to the Jews the truths of the gospel. They argued that what he preached was inconsistent with what Abraham taught. They said he was possessed by a devil, for Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, so inferior to either, If a man keep my sayings, he shall never taste of death. Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead; whom makest thou thyself? Jesus answered, If I honor myself, my honor is nothing; it is my Father that honoreth me; of whom ye say, that he is your God. Yet, with all your loud pretensions, ye have not really known him, but I know him; and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you; but I know him, and keep his sayings. And now, so little like to Abraham are you, so little of his spirit do you partake, that your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it, and was glad. But you seem to deplore the advent of my day, you see it, and you are infuriated with me. Can you then, he argues,
be Abraham’s children ?
The Jews held that they were the children of Abraham, therefore they were spotless.
We are Abraham’s children, therefore, they inferred,
we cannot be the children of sin. They argued,
We have the right succession, …
