| Acts 3:23
| And it shall be, that every soul which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people.
| Which will not hear that prophet. St. Peter's argument is this. If disobedience to the ordinances of God by the voice of Moses, was punishable with death, how much more severe will be the punishment of those, who refuse obedience to the doctrines of Jesus, to whom all the prophets bore testimony, and whom the apostles then preached. How different is this system of submission to the teaching of the prophets, and apostles, from that libertinism, which undermines the whole fabric of religion, by taking away from the Church the power of commanding, and from the disciple the necessity of obeying. By what wonderful and progressive shades of light was the prediction of this great prophet made to man! From the fall of Adam, it was predicted, that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent's head. Many ages after, God manifested that from Abraham's loins the Redeemer should spring, "in whom all nations should be blessed." The promise is renewed to Isaac, and that he is to spring from his son, but not from Esau, but from Jacob; and of the twelve sons of Jacob, the posterity of Juda is to have the privilege of bestowing a Messias to the world, and the token of its accomplishment is, "the failure of the sceptre in the posterity of Juda." After a long series of events, and of ages, an humble shepherd is chosen in the tribe of Juda: he is led to the throne; and to this man, David, it is repeated, that from him the Messias shall spring, and that his kingdom shall have no end. The oracle is so explicit in the psalms of that king, and in the writings of successive prophets, that it not only expresses the race, the tribe, the family, but also the character of the mother, the place of his birth, the precise period of the event, the ministry, the power, the dignity, the circumstances of his death, the change of the covenant, and conversion of the world. The particular prophecies, in their accomplishment, were a visible earnest to the Jews of the accomplishment of the prophecies relative to the Messias. Hence Pascal very justly remarks: "The prophets mingle particular prophecies with those of the Messias; that the prophecies regarding the Messias may not be without proof, and that the particular prophecies may not be without effect." (Pensées. xv.) --- These oracles, which during a period of four thousand years, have been delivered to the world, and which have been completely and visibly fulfilled, still exist in books, scrupulously preserved by the greatest enemies of Christ, and of his holy religion, and satisfactorily demonstrate Jesus Christ to be the great prophet, and the Christian religion to be the new covenant, which had been announced so many ages before, in so many different manners.
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