P:XPFX!TATI0N of the first coming of CHRIST. 99 



on the Evidence of Prophecy. I confess to have neglected it very 

 much, due, I am afraid, to an unconfessed suspicion of its real cogency. 

 The fact that the Apostles, and above all our Lord Himself, relied 

 on the Testimony of the Prophets ought to have moved me to have a 

 very different opinion. The Colonel's able paper has stated the 

 argument from prophecy in a most admirable manner. The intro- 

 duction of Renan and his unconscious testimony to the evidence for 

 Christ's mission to be drawn from the Prophets, is peculiarly effective. 

 The fact that there was about the time of the Advent, a widely- 

 diffused expectation of a deliverer, was itself a prophecy. As Dr. 

 Cook, the American Apologist, put it, ' Nature never makes a half 

 joint.' If Nature, that is God, then implanted in man an intense 

 desire for a deliverer, and an eager expectation that He would 

 soon appear, that implied that the expectation would be fulfilled. 

 I venture to think that Colonel Molony would have found some 

 additional proofs of this expectation, and of the nature of the 

 Messiah expected, by a study of the Jewish Apocalypses, especially 

 of the Enoch Books. Perhaps also the pre-Christian Samaritan 

 hymn to the Thabeb — the Samaritan name for the Messiah — would 

 have strengthened his case. Personally, I would thank Colonel 

 Molony very heartily for his paper, which I have read and re-read 

 with profit." 



Dr. Alfred T. Schofield writes : " Being unable to come 

 to-day I send a short note referring to Col. Molony's remark on 

 the ' two Messiahs.' In St. Matt, xxi, 10, we read, ' Who is this? ' 

 and the current belief among the Jews was in two Messiahs — Messiah- 

 ben- Joseph, the suffering servant who had to suffer and die as in 

 Isa. liii, and Messiah-ben-David, the King of the Jews, who 

 had to reign in glory according to Isa. xi and xxxii. To the 

 Jews the two were irreconcilable, for they had not the missing 

 link that alone could unite the two, i.e. the Resurrection. This 

 alone makes both possible. No doubt it is to this Col. Molony 

 refers. The paper is most interesting." 



Lieut. -Col. M. A. Alves writes : — " It is needless to say that 

 all of these predictions respecting the First Advent must be looked 

 for in the Old Testament prophecies, and the expectation at the time 

 appointed in the great announcement by the Angel Gabriel in the 



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