to place himself the barrier betwixt the offended Deity and bis criminal creature. Who were his executioners? Thefe criminals, for whom he died, his chofen. What were the manner of his death? The princes and ancients of his favorite nation, through envy and malice, plotted and bribed one of his felect friends to betray him, for thirty pieces of filver; and when their prifoner fpent the night in calumniating, buffeting, blafpheming, fpitting in his face, and infulting him with every affront their bloody minds could invent. How ended this tragical scene? In the morning he was taken to the heathen, Pilate, and infifted to have him crucified. Was he proved guilty of any offence? So far from being even derided by the judge, though heathen, that he used every perfualive argument to wreft him from your malice; fo far, that when he found you were not to be gained upon, he declared himself innocent from the blood of that Juft Man. You even carried your perfidy to the choice of a common thief rather than not be of that inveterate and invidious temper, or fpirit, which actuated without controul your fathers againft your God, and his fervants, the prophets. But in this laft tragedy you have outftript them; you are guilty of Deicide, for which crime that unparalelled malediction remains unabated on the whole nation of the Jews, as is obvious to the world at this day. What was done to the Meffiah when Pilate paffed fentence of death, though at the fame time teftified his innocence? He was taken into the governor's hall,

cloathed

cloathed with a garment, crowned with thorns, and many other infults, and derided as a mock king, as he was a few hours before by Herod and his court. He was alfo tied to a pillar, and most inhumanly mangled, as was alfo done a little before by Pilate, with a view to appease the obduracy of the Jews, to fave his life. When he had paffed through various fufferings in the hall of Pilate, you loaded him with the gibbet on which he was to make his exit. Your infults accompanied to the place of execution, when your obduracy, having no bounds, nailed him through his hands and feet to the gibbet, then raifing him in the air to the world, proclaimed yourselves the moft abandoned and wicked men, leagued in the most atrocious and infamous perfidy with the fiends of darkness; and during this bloody fpectacle you continued your infults, your chief priests and ancients mixing in the common mob, deriding and reviling him, offering vinegar, with gall, to quench his thirft; nay, after his death, his fide was opened by a fpear, piercing into his heart, to prevent his return to life. Every tranfaction throughout this bloody fcene do we obferve the fulfilling and accomplishing fome prophecy. We have compared, as we have proceeded, the prophecies relating, to the death of the Meffiah, with the particular circumftances relating, at the death of Chrift, and find the whole, as you acknowledge, perfectly correl pond with each other. You will take this caution, that many prophecies, expreffing the restoration of Ifrael, were before the captivities

either Affyrian or Babylonian; others in the time of their captivity which prophecies were accomplished and fulfilled on their re-peopling Palestine, and during the time of their fecond temple. Your fcriptures particularly mention that your fecond temple would be more glorious than your firft, and fhould be honoured with the manifeftation of the Meffiah. Under Herod the great, your temple was magnificently beautified, he being a politick prince, knowing how tenacious the Jews were for their own princes, their expectation of the Meffiah, himself an alien; refolved to gratify their predominant paffion, the thirft for earthly pomp and greatness, the temple he neither fpared art, nor expence, to complete it a wonder. He built many cities, and towns, and laid out immenfe treafures, not only to make Palestine the garden of delights, but his munificence paffed into other countries, he being a favorite and faft friend of Auguftus, then emperor of the Roman empire, which at that period was in its meridian, and in profound peace, gave Herod every advantage to execute the great and noble projects, that were done at that epoch. By this refined policy of king Herod every with fucceeded, fo that Jerufalem feemed the centre to which all nations reforted and number of profelytes made. Cities, towns and inhabitants in the kingdom of Judah were innumerable, which awed the Romans, and at the death of Herod the Great, it was thought too powerful to be placed under one crown, and was therefore divided. It is worthy your attention to

confider

confider the fpace, or time, that intervened betwixt the Babylonian captivity to that of the Romans, which you will find to be from the date of Darius's decree, five hundred and ninety, or near fix hundred years; and from the finishing the fecond temple, to its being deftroyed, five hundred, eighty-five or thereabouts, in which long space many prophecies that you are perplexed and flattered by, imagining, they relate, as the chapter in Zachariah you laft quoted, to the joyful return of your nation from your prefent captivity, related to the return from the Babylonian. Zachariah prophecied, at the very time of the Jews returning, this and many other pleafing promises, on which you build your hopes, went no further than to the putting your Meffiah to death, and others are gracious promifes to the Meffiah and those of the new covenant. Some prophecies give us hopes that near the end, Ifrael will be converted when Chrift will manifeft himself. Zachariah 12th chapter, "And I will pour upon the houfe of David, and upon the inabitants of Jerufalem the fpirit of grace and of fupplications, and they fhall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they fhall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only fon, and fhall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born. In that day fhall there be a great mourning in Jerufalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Migiddon. And the land fhall mourn, every family apart, and their wives apart; all the families apart, and their wives apart.' In the

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following chapter. "And one fhall say unto him, What are thefe wounds in thy hands? then he fhall anfwer, Thofe with which I was wounded in the house of my friends. Awake, O fword, against my fhepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, faith the Lord of Hofts: Smite the fhepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered; and I will turn my hand upon the little ones. And it hall come to pass that in all the land, faith the Lord, two parts therein fhall be cut off, and die; but the third fhall be left therein. And I will bring the third part thro' the fire, and I will refine them as filver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried; they fhall call on my name, and I will hear them : I will fay, It is my people; and they shall say, The Lord is my God.

Mofes. Who has Ifrael pierced but Jefus Chrift, who can the Lord of Hofts call his Fellow or Equal, but Meffiah? whofe hands did Ifrael wound, Jefus Chrift, and also his feet, nailing him to the Crofs? O mifery, mifery, my heart fickens, and as a cold hand preffing into a clod of death, my mind feels loft in the dark region of woe. My forrows redouble your force, overpower and place me where no comfort can be admitted, but be expofed imprecated and feel malicious infults, ceafelefs, from thofe fiends, whofe infernal gall against my God, I have fo deeply drank. O dark horror of black defpair, wreak vengeance on my guilty head. O my foul, can you look even by diftant thought on your God, that you have pierced, and, if it were poffible, not only robbed