THE BELIEVING JEW: PUBLISHED IN AID OF LAYING THE CORNER STONE OF JESUS' CHURCH, A PROTESTANT CHURCH IN THE VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. This Church, all glorious within I And bids the guilty sin no more. From hence diverge the purest rays, Unveil'd Jehovah's face! "Come unto me," each soul that prays 86 MY HEART IS INDITING OF A GOOD MATTER." NEW YORK: PRINTED BY THE NEW YORK PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL PRESS, 28 ANN-STREET. 1837. PS 2875 ENTERED according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1837, by SILAS PRESTON SUNDERLAND, for the author, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. TO THE READER. WITH profound veneration the author quotes the sacred words of our Divine Lord and Saviour JESUS CHRIST, in order to render a certain portion of the following work more deeply impressive, and induce the careless, the young, and those who read not the Gospel, to examine it altogether for themselves. Extracts from Scripture are carefully marked in italics between commas, so that not the smallest interpolation therewith or subtracting therefrom, is even shadowed in the narrative of the Believing Jew. Very many hundreds of disciples are mentioned as converted in the Gospel, and the private biography of some of them might have been related-apart from following the LORD, or as having followed him. The person selected to carry on these pages is no farther noticed in the sacred volume than as a man bearing a pitcher of water, whom the two, sent to prepare for the last supper, were commanded to follow into the house he should enter. It does not appear to the author that any reader of the Believing Jew could, by any possible manner of construction, blend improperly this beholder, or misconceive the plan in any part so as to produce confusion of ideas, or impressions. Zerah cannot be classed as forming a feature of sacred things. The last scenes and words of our LORD's earthly life may be compared with the Gospel, and will be found strictly the same. Who was the young man who for a moment clung to JESUS in the garden of Gethsemane ? He is not particularized. With regard to the daughter of Peter, it is recorded in his biography that her name was Petronilla. It is also recorded that St. Peter's wife fell a martyr to the faith in CHRIST, and that he endeavored to sustain her fortitude in that awful hour. The suitableness of the extracts from Josephus-and from Blackwall-and the history of the Britons-will be apparent. May this effort to aid the Christian cause, successfully unite with the more distinguished, though not more ardent endeavors of its devoted friends, is the heartfelt prayer of the author. PREFACE. My ground of belief in the divinity of JESUS CHRIST is, the express declarations of CHRIST himself, and I should feel that I were unworthy of being taught by Him even one principle of his sublime moral doctrine—much less the Christian's faith and religious observances, if I could for one moment doubt the immaculate truths delivered by Him who is very GoD of very GOD." If all that he uttered is not truth, salvation could not come through him to the souls of men. Christians must wholly say, "Thy word is truth." What are men to gather from the following words of reply, when Philip said, "LORD, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us?". JESUS saith unto him, "Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father, and how sayest thou, show us the Father ?" In another place, observe the expressed union of divine and human: "For as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself, and hath given him to execute judgment because he is the Son of man : |