who set up this accommodating principle of
accommodation, do, in some cases, take the term fulfilled in its
proper sense, and do allow it, (when convenient) to relate to a
prophecy really fulfilled. But I would ask them, what rule they
have to know when the apostles mean a prophecy fulfilled, and
when a phrase accommodated, since they are acknowledged to use
the strong expression of fulfilling in the latter case no less than in
the former?

In a word, unless it be granted, that the citations were intended by
the authors of the New Testament, to be adduced, and applied, as
prophecies fulfilled; if you do suppose them not intended to be
adduced, and applied, as prophecies; then, the whole affair of Jesus
being foretold as the Messiah, is reduced to an accommodation of
phrases! and it will, assuredly, follow, that the citations of Jesus
and his apostles out of the Old Testament, are like and no better
than the work of, the Empress Eudoxia, who wrote the History of
Jesus in verses put together, and borrowed out of--HOMER! or
that of Proba Palconia, who did the same, in verses, and words
taken out of--Virgil!

In fine, one of two things must be allowed, either (which is most
probable) the authors of the New Testament conceived their
citations to be indeed prophecies concerning Jesus, and then they
were ignorant and blundered, and, therefore; were not inspired; or,
they knowingly used them as means to deceive the simple and
credulous into a belief of their being testimonies sufficient to prove
what they themselves knew they had no relation to;--and then
they were deceivers: there is no other alternative, and each horn of
the dilemma, must prove as fatal as the other.

Perhaps it may be said, "It is to no purpose for you to object to the
quotations or the arguments of Jesus and his apostles, for God was
with them confirming their doctrine by signs following, they had
from God the power of working miracles, and, consequently, their
interpretations of Scripture, however strange they may appear to
your minds, must be infallible, they being men inspired."

To this argument it can be justly answered, first, that the question
whether Jesus be the Messiah, entirely depends, as proved before,
upon his answering the characteristics given of that personage by
the Jewish prophets; and all the miracles in the world could never,
from the nature of the case, prove him to be so, unless his character
does entirely agree with the archety