as ours; are not destitute of arguments, and learning misapplied, in defence of their unbelief. The chief plea they have to alledge is, that for the great wickedness of their nation at the time when the Messiah should have come, God has with-held that great blessing and honor from them; and punished them with his deserved indignation. But that the promises of God cannot entirely fail, and that the coming of the Messiah is still to be expected, in all the majesty of the prophetic descriptions. Weak as this argument is, from the reproach which it casts upon God, (" with whom is no variableness, nor shadow of turning,") that the certainty of his most express promises is not to be depended upon; it is contradicted by many circumstances in the prophecies themselves, which are not of the nature of general promises, loose and undeterminate, but precisely fixed,* by a great many particulars, in which, as the apostle argues, "it is impossible for God to lie,"† or to fail, in what he has in such a manner bound himself to perform.

Sensible of this dilemma to which their denial of Christ has reduced them, the modern jews entrench themselves in a new con

And that God would cause the glory of that much inferior house to surpass the glory of the former, and would give PEACE in that place. Haggai ii. 3, 7, 9.-Which has not been fulfilled except Christ was that PEACE, and the true Shekinah, and King of glory; since he claimed it as his house. Matt. xxi. 13. Isa. lvi. 7. Leslie, vol. i. p. 45.

† Hab. ii. 2. God declares the nature of his unconditional promises." Write the vision, and make it plain npon tables, that be may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for AN APPOINTED TIME, but at the end it shall speak, and NOT LIE, it will not tarry." With this St. Paul agrees,-Titus i. 2. " In hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie, promised before the world began; but hath IN DUE TIMES manifested his word." See Numbers xxiii. 19. The redemption of the world was as much an act of God's mere grace, and independent of any thing that men or devils can do to interrupt it, as the creation itself was, The malice of the devil and wickedness of the jews, only executed what the forcknowledge and counsel of God had determined, both as to the time, and certainty of the event. In that sense only the blessed Jesus said, "this is your hour-and the Power of darkness."

struction or interpretation of the prophecies of the coming of Messiah; but by such laboured and futile criticisms, as frequently to deprive them of any rational sense at all. And even in this vain subterfuge they are confuted, by the contradictory testimony of their ancient commentators, who have given the same easy and natural exposition of those prophecies, that the christians themselves do; as appears both from their own Talmud, and the writings of the christian fathers. The universal expectation the whole world was in, of the birth of some great PERSONAGE, about the time that Christ appeared; is an evidence what the sense of the jewish nation was, (at that time,) of the prophecies in question. This strong and prevailing idea, is taken notice of by two of the most eminent roman historians,* and Virgil † in his fourth Ec

logue affords proof of the general coincidence of the notions then entertained of Messiah's

earth," or the spiritual new creation and new creature. (2 Cor. v. 17.-2 Pet. iii. 13.) The poet Virgil, a little before the coming of Christ, describes this new state of things, and the birth of the wondrous Child by whom it was to be introduced, from the Sibylline Oracles; but in language so closely copied from the scripture prophecies, as evidently betrays from whence had been gleaned all that there was of truth in those famous heathen prophecies.

Ultima cumæi venit jam carminis ætas:
Magnus ab integro sæclorum nascitur ordo.
Jam redit virgo, redeunt saturnia regna :
Jam nova progenies coclo demittitur alto.
TU MODO NASCENTI PUERO, quo ferrea primum
desinet, ac toto surget gens aurea mundo.

VIRG. Ecl. iv.

The last great age foretold by sacred rhymes, &c.

DRYDEN.

-But a close verbal translation is necessary, to shew the analogy with the scripture prophets in these verses.

" The last times of the Cumzan Sibyl are now at hand. A great order of ages is to date its commencement from hence, and a new race is to be sent down from heaven above. The iron age, at thy birth, O Child, shall be no more, but a golden age prevail through the whole world."

The ultima atas, or last times, and the happiness of the world, in the reign of Messias, are described by the prophets in a variety of figurative images, which Virgil closely imitates. He calls this child Chara Deum soboles, magnum Jovis incrementum; after Isaiah ix. 6, and says he shall banish sin from the earth,

kingdom, (even amongst the gentiles,) with the prophetic writings. The greek translation of the septuagint had, long before Christ, rendered the prophecies accessible to the learned;†

-Te duce, si qua manent sceleris vestigia nostri, &c. after Isaiah Ini. and Daniel ix. 24. Magnus ab integro saclorum nascitur ordo, is found in many of the prophecies, as to the main sense of it, Isaiah xlii. 9, 10; xliii. 18, 19, &c.

nec magnos metuent armenta leones: