ment, and leads directly to one of two conclusions, either that the prophets were correct in their expectation, and then their religion is really true, or that they were wrong, and therefore that the course of Providence has stamped the seal of truth upon the page of falsehood. of falsehood. But a very slight examination of the prophecies is sufficient to show that their delineation of future history is far beyond the sphere and the power of conjecture the most sagacious. There is an accuracy of outline, and a minuteness of detail, to which even now that the predictions are accomplished, the historian can add but little to make the picture more complete. A wise and thoughtful Israelite might attain, by the exercise of his reason, to a full assurance of the certainty of the unity of God, and consequently be persuaded of the folly and wickedness of the polytheistic systems by which he was surrounded; and, being equally assured of the goodness of the Creator, he might infer that, at some future period, God would send out his light and his truth to the very ends of the earth. But this is the utmost of what could be conjectured. It would be utterly impossible for such an one to foresee and to foretel that the mighty and healthbringing change the vast and universal overthrow of all the existing superstitions-the moral earthquake that was to shake the nations to the limits of the world, and to the end of time, was to be produced by the most feeble and unlikely

of agents-by the teaching of an individual known to his own nation only as a condemned and executed criminal. Still less would he enter into the detail of that individual's history, or entertain the remotest conception that the friends and disciples of truth should be found amongst the ignorant and debased polytheists, whilst the favoured people of God should prove its bitterest foes-or that the dawn of light upon the heathen should be contemporary with the destruction of the temple, and the dispersion of the holy people. Yet all this, and much more, the prophets of Israel saw and foretold. They predicted that which to their unassisted reason must have been utterly improbable, and even contrary to all the data upon which they could argue. They foretold that the conversion of the heathen should be a source of jealousy and a punishment to the Jews, and that their own favoured people should continue many days in error and dispersion, whilst the hope of Israel should appear as the head of the heathen. All the nations of the world now see that they spoke the truth.

The more these prophecies are studied, the more certain will it appear that they are beyond the range of conjecture. But the question may still be asked, whether they and their fulfilment are not the result of successful fraud-whether the prophets were not impostors, who, pretending to supernatural wisdom, and obliged, in support of

their assumed character, to predict something, uttered the prophecies which we consider, whilst succeeding generations of impostors determined to accomplish them? To this we reply, that an imposture of this kind is in the highest degree improbable, and its success altogether impossible. That any number of Jews should conspire to do good to the Gentiles, and to deprive their own nation of their religious ascendancy, is utterly incredible to those acquainted with the religion, opinions, and practice of that people from before the appearance of Christ to the present hour. Modern Judaism is far from breathing good will towards the other nations of the earth, and the expectations of the Rabbies are the very contrary of those expressed by the prophets. They regard the Jewish people as incapable of any departure from the truth, and look not for the conversion so much as the destruction of the Gentiles.* Their idea of conversion is also totally opposed to that entertained by the ancients. They believe that those Gentiles who shall be converted, will submit to circumcision, and embrace modern Judaism, whilst the prophets simply expected a conversion to the God of Israel, not to the forms of the national religion.† The Rabbies, and the

* See "Old Paths," No. 37.

In the present time no proselytes are received, unless they consent to circumcision, and every tittle of the law, (Maimonides' Hilchoth Issure Biah, c. xiv.,) and in the days of Messiah

great body of the nation, at the time when Christianity began to be propagated, and, from that time to the present hour, have considered it unlawful to receive converts, as the apostles did, without circumcision. Their principles make them zealous to proselyte, but unwilling to communicate to a Gentile, as such, the light of truth.* It is, therefore, in the highest degree improbable that any body of impostors, educated in such principles, should be able even to understand, much less have a desire to fulfil, the predictions of the prophets. There have been Jewish impostors enough who have pretended to the character of the Messiah, almost in every age from the apostolic to the end of the seventeenth century, but not one amongst them all ever attempted to fulfil the prophecies which announce Messiah as the light of the Gentiles. From Bar Kochav to Shabthai Ts'vee they all confined their efforts to the restoration of the kingdom and political power of Israel, and manifested hostility to the Gentiles. Here, then, history proves what we have already inferred from the genius and principles of Judaism, that Jewish impostors were not likely to engage in an undertaking for the benefit of the heathen, and the depression of their brethren.

the Talmud says that no proselytes at all are to be received. See Avodah Zarah, fol. iii. col. 2.

* The oral law does not allow them even to keep a slave, unless he consents to be circumcised. See Maimonides loc. citat.

But even if they had, success was entirely beyond the limits of possibility. To procure national unbelief on the part of the Jews; to overthrow the existing religions of heathenism; to effect the dispersion of the Jewish people, and their continued preservation in unbelief for eighteen centuries, and during the same time to maintain the fidelity of the Gentiles, is plainly beyond the capabilities of human wisdom or power. It might, perhaps, have been possible, in their life-time, to avert the minds of the Jews from Christianity, and to win some of the Gentiles;. but to set in motion an imposture which should operate successfully for seventeen centuries after their death, ensure the existence of the Jewish nation and the Christian Church, and maintain its influence over their minds in every clime, age, and nation, and under all circumstances, is more than all mankind joined hand in hand can effect, and to believe it, is to ascribe omnipotence to imposture. More than twenty pretenders have laid claim to the character of the Messiah, some of them having at their command the wealth and arms of the Jewish nation, and possessing strength sufficient to scatter the legions and defy the power of imperial Rome. Time has obliterated every trace of their pretensions and their operations.* The only

* See the account of the false Messiahs in "Kidder's Demonstration," P. III. c. x.