By thee, what Footsteps of our Sins remain And the very Words of Haggai ii. 6. seem to be literally tranflated by Virgil. Thus fays the Prophet of the Coming of the Meffiah; Yet once, it is a little awhile, and I will shake the Heavens, and the Earth, and the Sea, and the dry Land. And I will shake all Nations, and the Defire of all Nations fhall come. And thus the Poet, Aggredere O magnos (aderit jam Tempus) Honores, Enter on thy high Honour, now's the Time, Behold how all rejoice to greet that glorious Age. And, as if Virgil had been learned in the Doctrine of Chrift, he tells that these glorious Times fhould not begin immediately upon the Birth of that wonderful PerJon, then expected to come into the World, but that Wickedness fhould ftill keep its Ground in feveral Places : Pauca tamen fuberunt prifcæ Veftigia Fraudis : Yet fome Remains shall still be left Of antient Fraud; and Wars fhall still go on. Now how Kirgil applied all this, is not the Matter whether in Part to Auguftus, or partly to Pollio, and partly partly to Saloninus his Son, then newly born: But it thews the general Expectation that there was at that Time of the Birth of a moft extraordinary Perfon, who should introduce a new and golden Age, and both reform and govern the whole World: Juftly, therefore, call'd by the Prophet, the Defire of all Nations. Now the Sibyls had pointed out the Time to be then at hand. And if it fhould be fuppofed (tho' there is no Reason for it) that the fews had forg'd, or interpolated, thefe Oracles, and made them fpeak thus in the Language of the holy Scriptures, yet this ftill fhews, that the Jews at that Time did fo understand the Prophecies of the Old Teftament concerning the Meiab, as that then was the Time prefix'd for his Coming. But if thefe Prophecies of the Sibyls be what they fpeak themselves (againft which nothing but Prefumption has yet appeared), then can they not be denied as a demonftrative Proof of our Jefus being the Meffiah; for they defcribe him fo perfonally, and fo plainly, that this is made the Caufe of Sufpicion against them; as if they could not be genuine, becaufe they fpeak fo very plainly and particularly of Jefus Chrift. This has carry'd fome Chriftian Critics too far, to reject, upon this only Prefumption, the Authority of the Sibyls. And yet they have not (not any of them that I can find) taken into due Confideration the Anfwer which Origen gives to this fame Objection of theirs; for it is not a new one: It was first objected by the Heathens: Celfus had recourfe to this, alleging, that the Chriftians had interpolated and added feveral Things to the Prophecies of the Sibyls: But Origen appeals to the ancient Copies of them; and provokes, Celfus, B * Αποφηνάμενα, ὅτι παρενεγράψαμεν εἰς τὰ ἐκείνης πολλὰ καὶ βλάσφημα· καὶ μὴ ἀποδείξας μήδ' ὅ τι παρενε Γραψαμέν. Απέδειξε δ' ἂν, εἰ τὰ ̓Αρχαιότερα Καθα ρωτέρα εδείκνυς, κι εκ έχοντα απερ οιεται παρεγεγρά φθαὶ μὴ ἀποδείξας δε μήδ' ὅτι βλάσφημα, ἔτι ταύτα, Orig, contra. Celf. 1.7. Celfus, or any of the Heathens, to fhew what was added; which, he fays, they could not inftance; and that certainly they would if they could: Yet fome of our Critics have declared themfelves in this for Celfus, against Origen, but without anfwering of Origen's Argument, which Celfus could not; and it is not to be imagin'd that Origen would have put the fue upon fuch a plain Matter of Fact, if it had not been true, and which could have been so easily disproved. But this especially is to be confidered, that the primitive Fathers of the Church, as Justin, Clemens, Theophilus, Athenagoras, Origen, Eufebius, Lactantius, &c. did lay fo great Strefs upon the Sibyls, and quoted them fo often against the Heathens, that they called the Chriftians Sibyllianifts. Clemens Alexandrinus, in his Stromat. 7.6. quotes St. Paul (fome Work of his now loft), in his Difputations with the Gentiles, referring them to their own Sibyls: And he lived near to the Time of St. Paul; fo that we must suppose this to have been at leaft the current Opinion of that early Age of St. Clement. This is obferved, Obiter, for the fake of fome Christian Critics, who feem not to have a due Regard for the Authority of the Primitive Fathers of the Church. But as to what concerns you Jews, and the present Subject we are upon, there can be no Difpute, by what is quoted out of the Sibyls by feveral Authors before Christ came, that they spoke of a wonderful Perfon to appear in the World, who should rule all Nations and that it was understood, as well by the then Jews, as Romans, to be about that Time in which our Jefus was born. Now there could be none but Jews or Heathens to have made these Prophecies of the Sibyls (there being no Chriftians then in the World); and, as faid before, it is all one as to our prefent Argument, whether the one or the other made them: For I bring them now only to fhew, that there was a general Expectation of the Meffiah, at that Time when our Jefus was born: And I have shewn that it was Univerfal, all the World over; the greatest Part of which was then under under the Roman Government; who likewife testify that all the Eastern Part of the World had the fame Expectation; and that not only at that Time (as if then put into their Heads by the Craft or Artifice of the Jews, as fome fanciful Men have pleafed themselves to imagine), but that they had it all along, as an antient and undoubted Tradition, written in the Books of Fate; and that it fhould come to pafs at that very Time. And never but at that Time was there any fuch general Expectation. This univerfal Impulfe (if we will call it no more), which was imprinted, in whatever manner, upon the Minds of the whole Earth, to expect a gloricus and wonderful Deliverer, Reftorer, and King of the World, at that Time when our bleffed Lord and Saviour was born (and never before nor fince), cannot be made of lefs Account, than a very extraordinary, and even divine Apparatus, or preparing of the Way, whereby to introduce the Son of God with the general Expectation and Commotion of whole Nature, into the World! 'And among all thefe, the Expectation was molt firm, as there was moft Reafon, with you the Jews; who had the lively Oracles of the holy Scriptures, which punAtually pointed out the Time wherein God had decreed to fend his great Meffiah in the World. This appears with a flagrant Evidence, in your fetting up at that Time this and that Perfon for the Meffiah (as I have before fhewn out of Jofephus), and so continued to the Deftruction of Jerufalem. And fince that Time you have not defifted looking out for your Meffiah; and following every Impoftor, that, with any or no Pretence, fet himfelf up for it: As our Lord, your true Meffiah, has foretold to you, that many would come in his Name, faying, I am Chrift: Behold (fays be) I have told you before: But you would Math.xxiv. 25. not believe; and it has turned to your Deftruc tion. " VI. The Hiftory of thefe falfe Meffiahs has been wrote by Johannes a Lent; and printed, Herbona, 1697, with fufficient Vouchers from the Rabbies of the Jews themselves. Let me but name them, to fhew the Suc ceffion of Delufion in the Jews. You have heard before, out of Jofephus, the Multitudes of falfe Meffiahs before the Destruction of Jerufalem. Afterwards, A.C. 114, you fet up another, in the Reign of Trajan, one Andrew, which occafioned the Destruction of many Thoufands of you. Again, in the Reign of Adrian, another, W hom ye called Bar Cochab, i. e. the Son of a Star; alluding to the Star of Jacob, Num. xxiv. 17. And again, Rebelling under this Meffiah caufed a moft dreadful Destruction amongst you; infomuch, that, as yourfelves have told it in your own Books, there was twice the Number of Jews, that perished upon this Occafion, more than all those that came out of Egypt; and that you suffered more under Adrian, than under Nebuchadnezzar, or Titus. When you were at laft undeceived (too late), then you changed the Name of this falfe Meffiah from Bar Cochab, the Son of a Star, to Bar Cofibah, i. e. the Son of a Lye, as being a falfe Meffiab. And how oft have you been deceived fince! In the Year of Chrift 434, in the Reign of Theodofius the Younger, another Pfeudo-Meffiah arose in the Island of Crete, who faid that he was Mofes, and fent from Heaven, to carry the Jews in Crete on dry Ground, thro' the Sea; and perfuaded feveral of them to throw themselves into the Sea. In the Year of Chrift 520. another Pfeudo-Meffiah, one Dunaan, arofe in Arabia; and, with the Jews who followed him, fet upon the Bishop and Christians in the City of Negra, and committed great Outrages, till he was destroyed. A. C. 529, the Jews and Samaritans in Palestine were feduced into Rebellion by Julian, a Pfeudo-Meffiah, which occafioned the Deftruction of many of them. And when Mahomet appeared about the Year 620, the Jerus flocked to him as their Meffiah; to which he at |