'ground, let us proceed, Christian friend, to examine with candor and attention the

'pretenfions of your Meffiah. I own to you, that your description of the nature, perfon, effence, and birth of the true Mef• fiah is perfectly juft, and fatisfactory to me, being in every refpect correspondent

to the prophetic accounts concerning him. In a ftrict adherence to them you have truly reprefented the Meffiah as a man, both in mind and body, as a man, not in a vifionary fenfe, but in its fole, 'real fignification, the fon as well of a man, as of a woman, begotten and born in the honorable eftate of matrimony. Your account of him, if it had ended here, would have been imperfect; but, as you • defcribe the husband and wife, his parents, to be of the house and lineage of David,

it is adequate and complete. The only point in difpute remaining between you

on the one hand, and me and my brethren on the other is this, viz. You contend, that the Meffiah is already come, and that Jefus, the son of Joseph and Mary,

was the Chrift, or Meffiah: We ftill wait for this prophet and inftrumental

⚫ favior,

favior of Ifrael, whom our redeemer, the Lord our God, has promifed to raise up · unto us. However, I frankly declare to you in confidence, that I think we are mistaken in refpect to the time of his coming; that the æra fixed by the Chriftians for his appearance, feems to minutely agree with Daniel's prophecy of the weeks, and that the crucified Jefus BenJofeph and our Meffiah are one and the fame perfon, fent by God, not to deliver us from our temporal adverfaries, the Romans, (as our ancestors vainly expected, 'who'"erred, not knowing the Scriptures," or prophecies) but to fet us free from those more dangerous enemies to our peace and happiness, thofe fpiritual enemies, fin and death.

The opinion prevalent among us, that our prophecies refer to two different Meffiahs, the one suffering and afflicted, and the other glorious and triumphant, I regard as a mere figment invented by our hiftorian Jofephus, or by his Jewish cotemporaries, and hitherto adopted from ge'neration,

⚫neration to generation by our rabbis. The 'occafion which gave birth to it, may with

probability be conjectured. It is natural to suppose, that, as the Jewish Christians in their endeavors to convert their unbelieving brethren, would appeal to other prophecies as irrefragable teftimonies of the fufferings and death of that man of forrows, the Meffiah, so also they would not fail to produce this prophecy of Daniel in particular, not merely as a proof, that,' "the Meffiah should be cut off," but in confirmation, that the time of the appearance of Jefus, as fuch, exactly coincides with the number of Daniel's weeks of years, to be computed' "from the going "forth of the commandment," or edict of Cyrus, king of Perfia,' to reftore and to "build Jerufalem." The unbelieving Jews therefore, afhamed to impute the guilt of crucifying the Meffiah to their own countrymen, and the deftruction of their city and temple to the divine punishment of that guilt, and at the fame time unwilling to gainfay the truth of the prophecy,

6

had recourse to the expedient of inventing

two Meffiahs as a folution of the diffi

'culty,

culty, viz. a fuffering Jefus Ben-Jofeph at the time predicted by Daniel, and a 'glorious prince whofe coming our brethren ftill anxiously expect. However, from ⚫ the known circumstance, that they in ge•neral are so much difpleafed with Daniel,

for forcing them on this expedient of evading the obvious meaning of this prophecy, that, far from being a favorite prophet with them, they fcarcely allow him to be worthy of the name of a prophet at all, we may conclude, that the fhuffling expedient itself feems to them, on the whole, to be more ingenious than fatisfactory.

• From what I have now faid, Christian friend, I doubt not, that you are willing to infer, that I am altogether fuch an one as thyself, viz. a Chriftian; and verily fcruple not to declare to thee, that nothing but the heterogeneous and confused mafs of erroneous opinions concerning the nature, effence, and birth of Jefus, current among his followers, have hinder"ed me from embracing him as the pro• mifed Meffiah. The other particulars re

fpecting

bring

fpecting the time of his coming, his divine ⚫ commiffion to preach forgiveness of fins, on the terms of repentance and faith in him as the Meffiah, and to "life and immortality to light," the 'miracles, which by the power of God, he was enabled to work, in confirmation of ⚫ that commiffion, and lastly his fufferings, death, and refurrection, are in perfect uni• fon with our prophecies, and not discordant with that gift of an everlasting domi'nion, "a kingdom which shall not be destroyed," predicted in Daniel vii. 14. and given him by God in reward for his • obedience to the divine will in these se⚫veral important points. This kingdom indeed is not yet established in perfect ⚫fulness, the great events of the completion

of the Gentiles and the converfion of my ⚫ brethren, their fubfequent reftoration to their own land, and the government of ⚫ them there under their prince, the Meffiah, ‹ being yet unfulfilled.

Now, as the Chriftian Scriptures accord, for I have examined them with no small degree of accuracy, with the Jewish pro•phecies

I