BS 
 
 1198 
 
 L578dZc
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 REMARKS 
 
 UPON 
 
 DAVID LEFT'S 
 
 Btssertattons on rt)e 
 
 RELATIVE TO *#/' 
 
 THE MESSIAH?/ 
 
 AND UPON 
 
 THE EVIDENCES 
 
 OF THE DIVINE CHARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST: 
 
 Addressed to the Consideration of 
 
 BY JN INQUIRER, 
 
 Author of " Letters on the Evidences of Christianity ;" and various Papers which haw* 
 appeared in the Christian Observer, signed " TAL1B.' 1 
 
 Genesis xxvii. 29. 
 
 rap 
 
 DJtt 
 
 Numbers xxiii. 
 
 <?echariah ii. 10. 
 
 PRINTED FOR THE LOXDOX SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIANITY 
 AMONG THE JEWS. 
 
 LOXDOX : 
 
 Printed and Sold by 
 
 BLACK, PARRY, AND KINGSBURY, LEADENHALL-STREET 
 
 Sold also by 
 
 MFSSRS. RIVINGTONS, ST. 1'AUL's CHURCH YARD; HATCHADD, 
 
 IMCCADII.T.Y ; CONDER, BUCKLER S BV R Y ; AND 
 
 OGLE, GLASGOW. 
 
 1810.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE following Remarks owe their origin 
 to a letter which appeared in the Christian 
 Observer for May last, under the signature 
 ' PERSEVERANS,' wherein the writer ex- 
 horts those Christians who feel an interest 
 in the spiritual welfare of the ancient 
 people of God, to endeavour to contri- 
 bute thereto by appeals addressed to them 
 from the press. And he particularly calls 
 the attention of those who have leisure 
 and talents, to the necessity of answering 
 1 DAVID LEVI'S DISSERTATIONS ON 
 f THE PROPHECIES RELATING TO THE 
 ' MESSIAH.' 
 
 To these Dissertations the writer of the 
 following pages was, till then, a stranger ; 
 as he still is to the other works of the
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 learned Jew. And what is now offered to 
 the consideration of the Jews, is not under 
 the name of a complete answer to every 
 part of Levi's work, for which the author 
 neither possesses sufficient erudition, nor 
 can command enough of leisure; but, 
 believing, with a conviction founded upon 
 serious investigation, that JESUS is the 
 promised Messiah, he has endeavoured, 
 according to the precept of the apostle, 
 to ^ive a reason of the hope that is in 
 him, against the chief objections of David 
 Levi. The following remarks have been 
 written in the midst of various and press- 
 ing avocations and interruptions, and are, 
 upon this account, even more imperfect 
 than they might have been otherwise. 
 
 From an attentive study of the Prophe- 
 cies of the Old and New Testaments, the 
 author has long since attained to a convic- 
 tion, that the awful events of the times in
 
 PREFACE. Vil 
 
 which we live, are rapidly paving the way 
 for the restoration of Israel. . He believes 
 that their conversion and restoration are 
 very near at hand ; and that, with the 
 blessing of God, no efforts made for di- 
 recting their attention to JESUS, as the 
 promised Messiah, shall be altogether 
 fruitless. 
 
 It seems also probable, from the pro- 
 phetical writings, that no great or general 
 revival of religion will take place in the 
 Christian Church, till the conversion of 
 Israel ; for it is implied in the expression 
 made use of by St. Paul in Rom. xi. 15, 
 that when Israel is received into the 
 Church of Christ, by the conversion of 
 the whole nation, the Church shall be in 
 a dead and lifeless state, but this event 
 shall be the occasion of its emerging from 
 a state of death to a state of life. Upon 
 every account, therefore, the conversion
 
 Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 of Israel is that great event, for which 
 every Christian ought most devoutly to 
 pray. The writer requests, therefore, the 
 fervent prayers of those who are waiting 
 for the consolation of Israel, that the fol- 
 lowing pages may not be without some 
 fruit to the glory of the adorable Re- 
 deemer, who purchased his Church with 
 his own most precious blood.* 
 
 November 19, 1809. 
 
 * The Society are requested by the author of these Re- 
 marks, (who resides 400 miles from London,) to state, 
 that when they were written, he did not know that David 
 Levi was no longer in life. This circumstance will account 
 for the fact of some passages being obviously written under 
 the contrary supposition.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. I. 
 
 Page 
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. THE FUNDA- 
 MENTAL PRINCIPLE OF DAVID LEVl's 
 DISSERTATIONS ASCERTAINED. SHOWN 
 TO BE FOUNDED ON A PETITIO PRIN- 
 CIPII, OR TAKING FOR GRANTED THE 
 QUESTION AT ISSUE . . . . 1 tO Q 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 
 DAVID LEVl's FIRST PRINCIPLE CONTRARY 
 TO THE ANALOGY OF THE DIVINE 
 GOVERNMENT ... . 10 . 44 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 
 THE FIRST PRINCIPLE OF DAVID LEVl's 
 WORK ON THE PROPHECIES, SHOWN 
 TO BE CONTRARY TO THE DOCTRINES 
 OF THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES, RESPECT- 
 ING THE KINGDOM OF THE MESSIAH . 45 . 71
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. IV. 
 
 Page 
 THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES TESTIFY THAT 
 
 THE MESSIAH WAS TO SUFFER; AND 
 THE PROPHECIES OF A SUFFERING 
 MESSIAH WERE ALL ACCOMPLISHED IN 
 THE LIFE, SUFFERINGS, AND DEATH 
 OF JESUS 72 tO 108 
 
 CHAP. V. 
 
 THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED . . 109 . 119 
 
 CHAP. VI. 
 
 ARGUMENT THAT JESUS IS THE MESSIAH, 
 FROM THE PRESENT STATE OF THE 
 JEWS AND OF THE CHRISTIAN GEN- 
 TILES 120 . 15$ 
 
 CHAP. VII. 
 
 HARMONY OF THE JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN 
 SCRIPTURES BRIEFLY CONSIDERED, 
 AND ARGUMENT THENCE DEDUCED, 
 THAT JESUS IS THE MESSIAH . . 159 17
 
 CONTENTS. XI 
 
 CHAP. VIII. 
 
 Page 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS AND CONCLUDING OBSER- 
 VATIONS . 179 tO 190
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 JL HE small Work now offered to the Public, has been 
 printed from the first rough manuscript of the Author, 
 which want of leisure prevented him from transcribing 
 fair. When he sent it to the Society for promoting 
 Christianity among the Jews, he expected, that, if it were 
 thought worthy of publication, he would have an oppor- 
 tunity of again seeing and retouching it, before it was 
 printed. But circumstances have occurred to prevent this. 
 The Author hopes that this simple statement will lead the 
 Header to overlook any inaccuracies of style, or impro- 
 prieties of expression, which may be discerned in it. 
 
 The Author is under the greatest obligations to the Gen- 
 tleman zvho has taken the trouble to correct the press ; but, 
 under circumstances so disadvantageous, it can scarcely be 
 expected that there should not be a considerable list of 
 errata; and it is probable that some have yet escaped the 
 attention of the Author. The Author takes the liberty of 
 requesting the Reader to correct the errata before he begins 
 to peruse the work. 
 
 March 13, 1810.
 
 A LIST OF PUBLICATIONS 
 
 BY THE 
 
 LONDON SOCIETY, 
 
 SOLD BY 
 
 MESSRS. BLACK, PARRY, AND KINGSBURY, 
 
 LEADENHALL STREET. 
 
 LETTER to the ENGLISH ISRAELITE, by PERSEVERANS. 
 
 OBLIGATIONS of CHRISTIANS to ATTEMPT the CONVERSION 
 of the JEWS, by a PRESBYTER of the CHURCH of ENGLAND. 
 
 FIVE MINUTES' CONSIDERATION recommended to Mr. TOBIAS 
 GOODMAN, by the SAME. 
 
 JESUS the TRUE MESSIAH, a Sermon, by the Rev. ANDREW FULLER. 
 
 PROOFS from the ANCIENT PROPHECIES that the MESSIAH 
 must have come ; and that JESUS of NAZARETH is the MES- 
 SIAH; seriously addressed to the Attention of the Jewish Ration. By 
 a CLERGYMAN of the CHURCH of ENGLAND. 
 
 THE SAME, translated into the Hebrew Language.
 
 REMARKS 
 
 UPON 
 
 DAVID LEFTS 
 
 EXssertattons; on fte prophecies. 
 
 CHAP I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCI- 
 PLE OF DAVID LEVI'S DISSERTATIONS ASCERTAINED. 
 
 SHOWN TO BE FOUNDED ON A PETITIO PRINCIPII, OR 
 TAKING FOR GRANTED THE QUESTION AT ISSUE. 
 
 JN o candid Jew will deny that the controversy 
 between the Jews and Christians is of the utmost 
 importance. It involves in it the questions- 
 Whether the Messiah, so long looked for by the 
 Jewish nation, be not already come ? Whether 
 Jesus was not this Messiah ? and, Whether the 
 Jews, by continuing to deny Him, be not guilty 
 every day of crucifying the Son of God afresh. 
 
 B
 
 REMARKS UPON 
 
 inasmuch as they still confess and justify the 
 deed of their fathers ? 
 
 I lately saw it mentioned in a periodical pub- 
 lication, that the Jewish writer, David Levi, 
 had, in his controversy with Dr. Priestley, pro- 
 posed, as the fairest method of deciding the 
 momentous question, an examination of all the 
 prophecies concerning the Messiah, from Moses 
 to Malachi, and a comparison thereof with the 
 acts recorded of Jesus in the New Testament, 
 to see whether they have been fulfilled in his 
 person or not. It was further stated, that no 
 Christian writer has yet undertaken to answer 
 Levi ; and that this is often mentioned by the 
 Jews in such a way as to show that they attach 
 much weight to the silence of their Christian 
 opponents. 
 
 I felt my curiosity to be aroused by this cir- 
 cumstance, and I immediately procured a copy 
 of Levi's work, as far as it seems to be yet pub- 
 lished, viz. his three first volumes ; and have 
 perused it with that attention which the import- 
 ance of the subject demands, and which is more
 
 LEVI S DISSERTATIONS. 
 
 peculiarly necessary, from the challenge which 
 the author offers to the whole Christian world. 
 I cannot help auguring well from this challenge. 
 It shows that a spirit of inquiry has arisen among 
 the Jews ; and as candid and fair discussion is 
 always favourable to the progress of Truth, they 
 who believe the Christian revelation, will see 
 newjreasqns from it to hope that the day is near 
 at hand when the Redeemer shall come to Zion, 
 and turn away iniquity from Jacob. How ani- 
 mating and encouraging is the hope, that the 
 Day Spring from on high is at length about to 
 re-visit that highly-honoured people, ' who are 
 ' Israelites, to whom is the adoption, and the 
 
 A a. n. d 
 
 4 glory, <if the covenants, and the giving of the 
 ' law, and the service of God, and the promises ; 
 ' whose are the fathers ; and of whom, as con- 
 ' cerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, 
 ' God blessed for ever. Amen ! ' 
 
 Whatever may be the feelings of infidels and 
 men of the world towards the Jews, no true 
 Christian can harbour towards them a cold or 
 indifferent thought. He must regard them with 
 
 B 2
 
 REMARKS UPON 
 
 the tenderest and warmest affection, as his elder 
 brethren in the church of God ; and though 
 now apparently cast off because of their unbelief, 
 yet reserved to be the channels of new commu- 
 nications of grace and glory to a lost world. He 
 will therefore hail with rapture the approach of 
 that day, when ' ten men shall take hold out of 
 1 all the languages of the nations, even shall take 
 4 hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, 
 ' We will go with you, for we have heard that 
 4 God is with you/ (Zech. viii. 23.) Such, O 
 highly-honoured and beloved children of Abra- 
 ham, are the sentiments and feelings of the per- 
 son who now takes the liberty of requesting 
 your candid and patient attention to the follow- 
 ing pages, in which he proposes to offer some 
 concise remarks upon the reasoning of David 
 Levi from prophecy, and to lay before you some 
 of the evidences of the divine character and 
 mission of Jesus. 
 
 It is of a controversial work, as of a building ; 
 if the foundation be weak or unsound, the super- 
 structure must fall. Should it therefore be made
 
 LEVI S DISSERTATIONS. 
 
 out, that the fundamental principle of David 
 Levi's reasoning' against Christianity from the 
 Old Testament prophecies is unsupported by 
 the Hebrew Scriptures, as well as contrary to 
 the whole analogy of the divine government, 
 or that it is a taking for granted the very ques- 
 tion at issue between Jews and Christians, 
 then the whole superstructure which he has 
 raised on it must fall to the ground, and the 
 Jews must have recourse to other arguments, 
 to justify their continued rejection of Jesus, as : 
 the promised Messiah. 
 
 Upon an attentive perusal of David Levi's 
 work, it will be found that nearly his whole rea- 
 soning from prophecy against the divine mis- 
 sion of Jesus, resolves itself into the following 
 argument. " That since the glorious events 
 " which are predicted by the Old Testament 
 " prophets, as to take place in the times of the 
 " Messiah, were neither accomplished by Jesus 
 " during his abode upon earth, nor have been 
 " brought to pass during the eighteen centuries 
 " which have elapsed since his coming, there-
 
 " fore Jesus could not be the promised Messiah." 
 Now this argument itself rests upon the follow- 
 ing principle, That the glory of the Messiah's 
 kingdom upon earth was to take place imme- 
 diately, or very speedily after his first appearance 
 in this icorld. 
 
 I propose, in refutation of this principle, to 
 show That it is a taking for granted the very 
 question at issue between the Jews and Chris- 
 tians That it is contrary to the whole analogy 
 of the Divine government of the world That it 
 is contrary to the express intimations of the 
 Hebrew Scriptures, with respect to the nature 
 and progress of Messiah's kingdom That it is 
 expressly opposed to those prophecies which 
 foretel a suffering Messiah. And I shall next 
 call the attention of the Jews to some other 
 arguments in support of the divine mission of 
 Jesus. 
 
 As there were Sadducees among the Jews, 
 who denied the resurrection of the dead, and 
 the existence of angels and spirits, thus limit- 
 ing the hopes and fears of man, and the promises
 
 LEVI S DISSERTATIONS. 
 
 of God, to the present state of existence, so 
 there have been, and still are, in the Christian 
 church, many persons who run to a contrary 
 extreme ; who deny the obvious meaning of all 
 the prophecies which relate to the restoration 
 of the Jews to their own land, and the glory 
 and happiness which there await them. This 
 mode of spiritualizing the prophecies respecting 
 the Jews, seems now, however, to be rapidly 
 losing ground ; and nearly all the later interpret- 
 ers receive these promises in their plain and 
 literal meaning. Between these Christian 
 interpreters and David Levi, there is therefore 
 no difference of opinion with respect to the cer- 
 tainty of the accomplishment of the prophecies 
 of the future restoration of Israel; the difference 
 between them respects the person by whom 
 they are to be accomplished. The Jew, deny- 
 ing the divine mission of Jesus, asserts that 
 the Messiah is not yet come ; and that, at his 
 first coming, he is to restore the whole house of 
 Israel. The Christian asserts that Jesus is the 
 Messiah promised to the fathers ; and that, at
 
 REMARKS UPON 
 
 his second advent, He will restore and convert 
 the Jewish nation. 
 
 Which of these opinions accords best with 
 the Hebrew Scriptures, must be proved by a 
 fair and full examination of the Scriptures them- 
 selves; and it is obvious that neither of the par- 
 ties is entitled to assume that their own opinion 
 is the right one. 
 
 This seems to be the precise error into which 
 Levi has run. He has collected many prophecies 
 from the Hebrew Scriptures, which relate to 
 the excellent and glorious effects of the Mes- 
 siah's kingdom upon earth, and which are 
 equally received and believed by the Christian 
 and the Jew. In interpreting these prophecies, 
 he first takes it for granted, without proof, that 
 they are all to be fulfilled immediately after the 
 first coming of the Messiah ; and as they were 
 not thus fulfilled by Jesus, he thence argues 
 that Jesus was not the Messiah. To this the 
 Christian may answer, by demanding Levi to 
 produce one clear and unequivocal prophecy 
 from the Old Testament, which declares that
 
 LEVI S DISSERTATIONS. 
 
 the establishment of the glorious kingdom of the 
 Messiah on earth, is to happen immediately 
 after his first advent. If the Jew cannot produce 
 such proof from the Scriptures, then his whole 
 argument from prophecy falls to the ground, as 
 being founded on a petitio pr'uicipii ; and it re- 
 mains, for aught that has been advanced by David 
 Levi, that Jesus may be the Messiah, in and by 
 whom all things that are written in the prophets 
 shall still receive their accomplishment.
 
 10 REMARKS UPON 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 
 DAVID LEVI S FIRST PRINCIPLE CONTRARY TO THE 
 ANALOGY OF THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT. 
 
 JJY the Analogy of the Divine Government, 
 we mean that unity and similarity of plan which 
 m observable in all the different works of God ; 
 whether in the animal or vegetable kingdoms, or 
 in his moral creation. This analogy discovers 
 itself to the attentive observer in every part of 
 the works of God : in the generation of ani- 
 mals and vegetables ; in their progress from in- 
 fancy to maturity; and in their final dissolution. 
 it is no less discoverable in his government of 
 the rational and moral world. 
 
 It is a conspicuous part of this analogy, that 
 no animal or vegetable is brought to the perfec-
 
 LEV1S DISSERTATIONS. 11 
 
 tion of its nature at once. Every thing arises 
 from small beginnings : the vegetable produc- 
 tions from seed deposited in the earth ; and 
 animals from the semen infused into the uterus. 
 The progress, both of animals and vegetables, 
 from infancy to maturity, is gradual and slow; 
 and it seems to be a general rule, that the nobler 
 and more durable any production is, the longer 
 is the period of its reaching perfection. Thus, 
 among animals, the elephant, whose faculties 
 approach most nearly to those of man, is slowest 
 of growth, as is, in the vegetable kingdom, the 
 oak, the monarch of the forest. 
 
 We discover the same analogy in the original 
 creation of the world. God might, by that 
 Almighty power which first produced the matter 
 of the world, have commanded into existence 
 the globe which we inhabit, and the planetary 
 system to which it belongs, in all that beauty 
 and perfection with which he gradually cloftthed 
 them during the six days of creation. But we 
 learn from the first chapter of Genesis, that He, 
 in his infinite wisdom, saw fit to adopt a dif-
 
 12 REMARKS UPON 
 
 ferent plan ; one which precisely corresponds 
 with the analogy of his procedure in the provi- 
 dential government and preservation of the natu- 
 ral world. 
 
 With respect to the creation of man, who was 
 destined to replenish the earth, and to subdue 
 it, and to be in this terrestrial world the image 
 of the invisible God, it might be said by a pro- 
 fane caviller, Why all this loss of time ? Why 
 was only one pair of the human species created, 
 instead of such a number as might have been 
 sufficient, if not fully to people the earth, yet, 
 at least, accelerate the time, when, in the course 
 of nature, it would be replenished with intel- 
 lectual beings ? To such a caviller, the pious 
 Israelite might answer, in the sublime language 
 of inspiration, ' Who hath directed the Spirit of 
 ' the Lord, or, being His counsellor, hath taught 
 c Him ? With whom took He counsel, and who 
 ; instructed Him in the path of judgment, and 
 ' taught Him knowledge, and showed Him the 
 ' way of understanding ?' He might justly add, 
 that the procedure of God in creating only one
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 13 
 
 pair of the human species, was analogous to all 
 His other plans of creation and providence ; and, 
 consequently, must bear the stamp of the same 
 infinite wisdom, whether we can discern the 
 reasons of it, or not. 
 
 But, does this analogy with respect to the 
 gradual progress and developement of the works 
 of God, extend also to the economy of the 
 Messiah's kingdom ? Is the progress of His 
 kingdom, like that of the other plans of the 
 Deity, to be gradual ; small in its beginnings, 
 and slowly extending itself by the operation of 
 means appointed for the purpose ? Or, was the 
 original coming of the Messiah to be attended 
 with such signal and irresistible displays of di- 
 vine power, as should at once overcome all 
 opposition, and subject the world to his laws ? 
 
 He who believes in Jesus Christ as the pro- 
 mised Messiah, must also believe that the pro- 
 gress of his kingdom was intended to be slow 
 and gradual, like that of the other works of 
 God, at least till that period, called, by Chris- 
 tians, the Second Advent, when they are taught
 
 14 REMARKS UPON 
 
 to believe, that the power of God will be ex- 
 erted, with irresistible energy, in the establish- 
 ment of Christ's kingdom, and in breaking in 
 pieces the opposing nations. The Christian, in 
 support of this opinion, may quote the words of 
 Jesus himself ' The kingdom of Heaven is 
 4 like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man 
 ' took, and sowed in his field, which, indeed, 
 4 is the least of all seeds ; but, when it is grown, 
 4 it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh 
 ' a tree, so that the birds of the air come and 
 ' lodge in the branches thereof.' (Matt. xiii. 31, 
 32.) ' So is the kingdom of God, as if a man 
 ' should cast seed into the ground, and should 
 ' sleep and rise, night and day, and the seed 
 ' should spring and grow up, he knoweth not 
 ' how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of 
 ' herself, first the blade, then the ear, after that, 
 ' the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit 
 4 is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the 
 ' sickle, because the harvest is ripe.' (Mark iv. 
 26 29.) What is taught in these parables 
 seems tosimply this : that in the kingdom and
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 15 
 
 economy of the Messiah, God does not depart 
 from, but strictly adheres to, the analogy which 
 is observable in all His other works, even in 
 those of the vegetable kingdom ; and, conse- 
 quently, that the sudden and immediate esta- 
 blishment of the kingdom of the Messiah, in its 
 glorious state, was not to be expected. 
 
 Such was the doctrine of Jesus ; and such, 
 consequently, must be the opinion of his follow- 
 ers. After what has been already mentioned, it 
 seems scarcely necessary to say, that the scheme 
 of the modern Jewish doctors, and particularly 
 of David Levi, is quite different. Without en- 
 tering upon the discussion of the evidences of 
 the divine mission of Jesus, which Christians 
 commonly adduce, and which Jesus himself, in 
 his conversations with the Jews, insisted upon, 
 as being unanswerable proofs that He was the 
 Messiah, Levi, in every part of his work on the 
 prophecies, brings it forward, in limine, as an 
 unanswerable objection to the pretensions of 
 Jesus, that he did not while he lived upon earth, 
 and has not yet produced, the great changes
 
 16 REMARKS UPON 
 
 which prophecy leads us to expect in the times 
 of the Messiah. Were I to mention every in- 
 stance in which Levi argues in this way, I should 
 be obliged to transcribe a great part of his book, 
 I shall therefore content myself with quoting 
 one or two passages to that effect. In arguing 
 from the first prophecy of Isaiah, (Isaiah ii.) he 
 states, (Vol.1, page 72,) " Neither did Jesus at 
 " his coming judge and plead with the nations 
 " concerning their different and jarring faiths, 
 " so as to terminate their disputes, and entirely 
 " annihilate all contention about them ; and thus 
 " introduce universal peace into the world/' 
 
 In arguing from Isaiah xi. Levi writes, (Vol. I. 
 page 76',) " Neither will any one be so hardy as 
 " to say that it was fulfilled in the person of 
 " Jesus; for he did not restore the nation, nor 
 " did he fill the throne of David, although it is 
 " plain that the Jews expected a temporal 
 " prince, (see Matt. ii. 2 >6,) and the angel 
 " Gabriel is represented as promising Mary, that 
 *' the Lord God would give him the throne of 
 " his father David, and that he should reign
 
 LEVI S DISSERTATIONS. 
 
 " over the house of Jacob for ever (Luke i. 
 " 32, 3:3) ; from all which, his disciples were so 
 " fully convinced that it was one of the offices 
 " of the Messiah to restore the kingdom to 
 " Israel, that they came to the resolution of 
 " actually asking him before his ascension, whe- 
 " ther he purposed at that time to restore the 
 " kingdom to Israel. (Acts i. 6.) The answer 
 " given to them plainly shows that he wished 
 " to evade giving a direct answer to such a tick- 
 " lish question. He, however, left the nation 
 " groaning under the yoke of the Romans, who, 
 " not long after, put an end to their kingdom 
 " and government." 
 
 For other passages to the same effect, see the 
 Dissertation itself, throughout the whole of 
 which the same argument is brought forward 
 against the divine mission of Jesus Christ. 
 
 It is not my present purpose to enter into a 
 particular refutation of the above remarks of 
 Levi ; my intention in quoting them being only 
 to illustrate what I have said upon the argument 
 from analogy. And I presume that it will ap- 
 
 c
 
 18 REMARKS UPON 
 
 pear from them quite evident to the attentive 
 reader, that the expectations formed by David 
 Levi, with regard to the rapid and sudden esta- 
 blishment of the kingdom of the Messiah, im- 
 mediately after his appearance in this world, are 
 not agreeable to the analogy of the divine pro- 
 cedure in the creation and government of the 
 natural world. 
 
 I shall proceed next to inquire, Whether the 
 scheme of Levi be consistent with the analogy 
 of the procedure of God, in the government and 
 economy of the Old Testament Church ? and 
 as all my illustrations will be derived from the 
 Hebrew Scriptures, I hope that no Jew will ob- 
 ject to the conclusiveness of any arguments 
 which may be fairly deduced from that source. 
 It is proper, however, to premise, that, in argu- 
 ing from analogy with regard to the probable 
 course of the divine procedure in the economy 
 of the Messiah, we should not for a moment 
 lose sight of one most important fact, which is, 
 that the kingdom of the Messiah is in the Old 
 Testament always represented as eternal in its
 
 LEVI'S DISSERTATIONS. 19 
 
 duration. To prove this point, which is, indeed, 
 acknowledged by the Jews, it is not necessary 
 to multiply quotations. I shall rest the fact on 
 one passage ; (Daniel vii. 14.) Now it is quite 
 evident that one or two thousand years bear no 
 sort of proportion to eternity : so that, with God, 
 ' a thousand years are said to be as yesterday, 
 ' when it is past, and as a watch of the night. ' 
 (Psalm xc. 4). 
 
 It undeniably follows, therefore, that the 
 eighteen centuries which have elapsed since 
 the advent of Jesus, and during which, upon 
 the hypothesis of his being the Messiah, God 
 has delayed the establishment of his kingdom ; 
 bear not so great a proportion to the duration of 
 his kingdom, as a grain of sand does to the 
 matter of the globe. 
 
 I shall now endeavour to shew that it has been 
 the manner of the divine procedure towards all 
 his chosen servants, whose histories are recorded 
 in the Hebrew Scriptures, when promises were 
 made to them either of a temporal, or a spiritual 
 nature, to try their faith and patience by long
 
 and discouraging delays in the performance of 
 the promises ; and I shall from this deduce a 
 proposition, that even a priori, it was to be 
 presumed that something of this kind would 
 take place in the economy of the Messiah. 
 
 The first instance which I shall produce, is 
 that of the patriarch Abraham. We find it re- 
 corded in Genesis xii., ' Now the Lord had said 
 ' unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and 
 4 from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, 
 4 unto a land that I will show thee. And I will 
 4 make of thee a great nation, and I will bless 
 ' thee, and make thy name great ; and thou 
 ' shalt be a blessing/ ' And in thee shall all 
 ' families of the earth be blessed. So Abram 
 ' departed, as the Lord had spoken to him, and 
 1 Lot went with him : and Abram was seventy 
 1 and five years old when he departed out of 
 ' Haran. 3 
 
 Here we have the original promise given to 
 Abraham, upon the faith of which he left his 
 own country and family, and became a pilgrim 
 in a strange country, in which he never pos-
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 21 
 
 sessed a foot of land, excepting the field of 
 Alachpelah, which he purchased of Ephron the 
 Hittite for a burying place. But was this pro- 
 mise speedily fulfilled ? It is evident that it was 
 not. We find it indeed renewed after Abra- 
 ham's arrival in the promised land. (Gen. xii. 7.) 
 ' And the Lord appeared unto Abraham, and 
 ' said, Unto thy seed will I give this land.' 
 Again, it was renewed in a more ample and 
 detailed manner, after the separation of Abraham 
 and Lot. (Gen. xiii. 14 17.) The next re- 
 newal of the promise is recorded in Gen. xv ; 
 and we there discover, that, from the long delay 
 in the fulfilment of it, the faith even of this 
 holy man had begun to stagger. ' And Abra- 
 4 ham said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, 
 4 seeing I go childless ?' ' Behold, to me thou 
 4 hast given no seed : and lo, one born in my 
 ' house is mine heir. And behold, the word of 
 4 the Lord came unto him, saying, This shall not 
 ' be thine heir ; but he that shall come forth 
 ' out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir, 
 4 And he brought him forth abroad, and said.
 
 REMARKS UPON 
 
 ' Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars; if 
 ' thou be able to number them : and he said 
 'unto him, so shall thy seed be And he be- 
 ' lieved in the Lord, and he counted it to him 
 ' for righteousness. ' 
 
 Still, however, the performance of the pro- 
 mise is deferred; and at length, Sarah, wearied 
 out with the long delay of ten years, which had 
 elapsed from the giving of the promise, without 
 any apparent probability of its being fulfilled 
 through herself, proposed to Abraham to marry 
 her maid Hagar. The patriarch acquiesced in 
 this suggestion, and the consequence was the 
 birth of Ishmael, when Abraham was eighty- 
 six years of age, and exactly eleven years after 
 his call to come out of t-r of the Chaldees. 
 
 From this time, until he was ninety-nine 
 years of age, Abraham probably looked upon 
 Ishmael as being the promised son. But the 
 Lord then appeared to him again, (Gen. xvii.) 
 and informed him that he was to have a son by 
 Sarah, who should be the ancestor of the pro. 
 mised seed, i. e. the Messiah ; and to signify
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 23 
 
 the joyful nature of the salvation to be accom- 
 plished by him, the son to be born of the womb 
 of Sarah, now past the age of bearing, was to be 
 called Isaac, or laughter. In the following year 
 Isaac was born. 
 
 Thus it appears from the history of Abraham, 
 the father of the Jewish nation and of the Mes- 
 siah, that God was pleased to try his faith and 
 patience, during the long term of twenty-five 
 years, between the giving of the promise of a 
 son, and the fulfilment of it by the birth of 
 Isaac. During this period, indeed, to strengthen 
 the faith of the pious patriarch, the promise 
 was often renewed with increasing degrees of 
 clearness and particularity; yet it is apparent 
 from his history, that, in general, he enjoyed no 
 such extraordinary communications of divine 
 light, as to raise him above the common frailties 
 of our nature. He was an illustrious character, 
 who walked by faith, and not by sight, and 
 looked forward to that heavenly country, of 
 which Canaan was a type; but he was not a 
 faultless, or perfect character. His conduct,
 
 24 REMARKS UPON 
 
 when he first went into Egypt, in making Sarah 
 pass herself for his sister, was exceedingly cul- 
 pable; and could arise from no source but a 
 distrust of the promise. (Gen. xii. 11.) We 
 find him guilty of the same sin a second time, 
 when he sojourned in Gerar ; and he thereby 
 subjected himself to this sharp rebuke from Abi- 
 melech, a heathen, ' Thou hast done things 
 c that ought not to be done.' (Gen. xx. 1 9.) 
 
 During the above long and tedious period of 
 twenty-five years, we may conceive that the 
 pious patriarch had many dark and discouraging- 
 hours: oftentimes would he be ready to say, 
 ' Alas! I am come out of my native country, 
 and have left my kindred; but where is the per- 
 formance of the promise that I shall have a son ? ' 
 Again, we may conceive him as chiding his 
 heart for doubting the faithfulness of his God, 
 and saying to himself, ' Therefore will I look 
 4 unto the Lord ; I will wait for the God of my 
 * salvation: my God will hear me/ And as 
 none that wait upon the Lord shall ultimately 
 be ashamed ; in due time, having waited, he re-
 
 LEVI S DISSERTATIONS. 2-3 
 
 ceived the promise, in the birth of that son 
 whose name was called Isaac, or laughter. 
 Then was the mouth of the venerable servant of 
 the Lord ' filled with laughter, and his tongue 
 ' with sino-ino": then said they amonu' the 
 
 o o / o 
 
 ' heathen, the Lord hath done great things for 
 ' him.' 
 
 If, then, we see that God, after having pro- 
 mised to Abraham that he should have a son, 
 delayed the performance of the promise during 
 the long period of twenty-five years, and thus 
 tried the faith and patience of his chosen ser- 
 vant ; it is agreeable to the analogy of this pro- 
 cedure, that the performance of the promises of 
 establishing the kingdom of the Messiah in 
 
 O O 
 
 glory, should be delayed during a period of 
 many centuries after his advent; and, a priori, it 
 was probable that something of this kind would 
 take place; for a period of twenty centuries 
 bears an infinitely less proportion to the duration 
 of Messiah's reign, than the term twenty-five 
 years to the whole extent of Abraham's life. 
 Similar analogies are observable in the con-
 
 26 REMARKS UPON 
 
 duct of providence towards Isaac and Jacob ; 
 but I shall only mention them very briefly. 
 Isaac had no children by Rebekah during- the 
 term of twenty years after he took her to wife ; 
 and we read in Genesis xxv. 21. that ' Isaac in- 
 ' treated the Lord for his wife, because she was 
 4 barren ; and the Lord was in treated of him, 
 ; and Rebekah his wife conceived. 5 
 
 Jacob, who inherited the promise, that of his 
 loins the Messiah should proceed, in whom all 
 the families of the earth should be blessed, 
 (Gen. xxviii. Ik) was more than eighty years of 
 age when he married Leah, the daughter of 
 Laban ; of whom Judah, the progenitor of the 
 promised seed, was born. In the cases of both 
 these patriarchs, we therefore see, jirst, the 
 giving of the promise; and, secondly, a long and 
 trying delay in the accomplishment of it ; and 
 the inference to be deduced from both, with re- 
 spect to the probable course of the procedure of 
 God to the Messiah, is the same as has been 
 already made. 
 
 One of the most remarkable histories in the
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 27 
 
 Old Testament, and which tends most strongly 
 to support the analogy we are now tracing, is that 
 of the patriarch Joseph. Early distinguished 
 from his brethren for superior wisdom and piety, 
 he became the favourite son of his aged father, 
 who probably discerned in him the seeds of 
 those great and amiable qualities which so illus- 
 triously shone forth in his subsequent conduct 
 in life. Actuated, perhaps, more by the excess 
 of parental fondness, than by sound judgment, 
 the patriarch made for his beloved Joseph a coat 
 of many colours, thus openly giving him the pre- 
 ference over the rest of his sons. This distinc- 
 tion, however, as is common in such cases, only 
 moved the envy and hatred of his brethren ; 
 and these malignant passions were further ex- 
 cited by two supernatural dreams, in which God 
 was pleased to give Joseph a pre-intimation of 
 his future greatness. (Gen. xxxvii. o.) ' And 
 ' Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told his bre- 
 ' thren; and they hated him yet the more. And 
 ' he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream 
 ' which I have dreamed. For, behold, we were
 
 REMARKS UPON 
 
 s binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheaf 
 ' arose, and also stood upright; and behold, your 
 ' sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance 
 c to my sheaf. And his brethren said unto him, 
 
 * Shalt thou indeed reign over us ? or shalt thou 
 ' indeed have dominion over us? And they 
 
 * hated him yet the more for his dreams 
 ' and for his words. And he dreamed yet 
 
 * another dream, and told his brethren, and 
 11 said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more ; 
 4 and behold, the sun, and the moon, and the 
 ' eleven stars, made obeisance to me. And he 
 ' told it to his father and to his brethren; and 
 ' his father rebuked him, and said unto him, 
 ' What is this dream that thou hast dreamed ? 
 ' Shall 1, and thy mother, and thy brethren, in- 
 ' deed come to bow down ourselves unto thee to 
 ' the earth ? And his brethren envied him ; but 
 1 his father observed the saying.' 
 
 There can be little doubt that these dreams 
 made a deep impression upon the youthful 
 mind of Joseph, and were considered by him 
 us intimations from God, that he was destined
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 29 
 
 one day to be raised above all his brethren ; 
 and it is probable that the remembrance of 
 them was greatly instrumental in supporting 
 him under the severe and long-continued trials 
 which he afterwards underwent, before he was 
 raised to glory and empire. Jacob also seems 
 to have considered the dreams in the same light, 
 for we are informed by the sacred historian, that 
 he observed the saying. 
 
 But, instead of finding the promises of God 
 immediately fulfilled to Joseph, we see him, 
 soon after he related his dreams, overwhelmed 
 with a long course of the severest trials. 
 When sent out by Jacob to see his brethren, 
 he was cruelly seized by them, and they first 
 proposed to murder him ; but, departing from 
 this purpose, they sold him to a company of 
 Ishmaelites as a common slave. By the Ish- 
 maelites he was carried into Egypt ; and they 
 sold him to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, and 
 captain of the guard. (Gen. xxxvii.) Ad- 
 vanced to a station of trust and confidence 
 in the family of Potiphar, he became the object
 
 30 REMARKS UPON 
 
 of the adulterous desires of a worthless woman, 
 whose earnest and persevering solicitations had 
 no other effect but that of displaying, in a more 
 illustrious manner, the excellency of his cha- 
 racter, and the power of the grace of God, 
 which could preserve him without spot under 
 so dangerous a temptation. But, though he 
 thus conquered the lusts of the flesh, he fell 
 a sacrifice to the vile calumny of the wife of 
 Potiphar, disappointed of the gratification of 
 her desires. He was accused by her of an 
 attempt to violate her person ; and was cast into 
 the prison where the king's prisoners were 
 bound. Here he was permitted to remain for 
 several years ; and though he gained the esteem 
 and unlimited confidence of the jailor, there was no 
 apparent probability of his recovering his liberty. 
 It was not till fourteen years had elapsed, 
 from the time that he was sold to the Ish- 
 maelites, that Joseph was sent for out of prison 
 to interpret the dreams of Pharaoh, and was 
 raised to the highest dignity in his kingdom. 
 Eight or nine years more elapsed before the
 
 LEVIS DISSERTATIONS. 31 
 
 complete fulfilment of Joseph's dreams. (Gen, 
 xlii. o.) ' And the sons of Israel came to buy 
 * corn among those that came, for the famine 
 ' was in the land of Canaan. And Joseph was 
 4 the governor over all the land ; and he it was 
 ' that sold to all the people of the land; and 
 ' Joseph's brethren came and bowed down 
 ' themselves before him, with their faces to the 
 ' earth. And Joseph saw his brethren, and he 
 ' knew them, but made himself strange unto 
 ' them, and spake roughly unto them ; and he 
 ' said unto them, Whence came ye ? And they 
 ' said, From the land of Canaan, to buy food. 
 ' And Joseph knew his brethren, but they knew 
 ' not him. And Joseph remembered the dreams 
 ' which he had dreamed of them/ 
 
 The history of Joseph does, therefore, in the 
 fullest manner, confirm the analogy which we 
 have observed, both in the government of the 
 natural world, and in the procedure of God 
 towards the patriarchs ; and we hence see new 
 reason to presume, a priori, that in the kingdom 
 of the Messiah a similar procedure was to be
 
 REMARKS UPON 
 
 expected; and that the glorious establishment 
 of his kingdom was not to take place for many 
 ages after his first appearance in the world. 
 
 The history of Moses, the great and chosen 
 leader and legislator of the children of Israel, 
 is another example of the same analogy. It 
 seems evident, from Exod. ii. 11 14, that 
 Moses had some secret hope, or pre-sentiment, 
 that God was, by him, to deliver the Israelites 
 from Egyptian bondage ; * and, actuated by 
 love for his oppressed brethren, he was impa- 
 tient to begin the glorious work of their redemp- 
 tion, which he was prepared to expect as being 
 near at hand, from a traditionary knowledge 
 of the promise made to Abraham, that, at the 
 appointed time, God would bring his people out 
 of the land of Egypt. (Gen. xv. 14.) Filled 
 
 * I am not, perhaps, at liberty to quote the New Testa- 
 ment as a book of authority in a controversy with Jews ; but 
 I cannot help remarking, that, from Stephen's expression in 
 Acts vii. 25, it seems probable that it had been made known 
 to Moses by divine revelation, that he was chosen by God to 
 effect the deliverance of Israel.
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 33 
 
 with these expectations, Moses seems to have 
 resolved upon making an attempt to deliver his 
 countrymen. But the time appointed by the 
 Lord was not yet come ; nor was it agreeable to 
 the analogy of his procedure towards his chosen 
 servants, that the noble desires of Moses should 
 be immediately gratified. He therefore saw fit 
 to disappoint these desires; and Moses, fearing 
 the wrath of Pharaoh, who sought to slay him, 
 fled from Effvpt, and took refuge with Reuel, 
 
 O*/ i 
 
 the priest or prince of Midian, where he was 
 for forty years in the humble employment of a 
 shepherd. During this long period, the pro- 
 mised redemption of Israel was delayed, and 
 the faith and patience of Moses were severely 
 tried; and thus he was gradually prepared, in 
 the school of adversity, for the important part 
 he was destined to act in the approaching re- 
 demption. 
 
 It is acknowledged, as I suppose, by David 
 Levi, and other Jewish writers, that the re- 
 demption of Israel out of Egypt was a lively 
 type of that greater redemption to be effected 
 
 D
 
 34 REMARKS UPON 
 
 by the Messiah ; and also, that Moses himself 
 was a type of the Messiah. But if so, is it not 
 probable, even a priori^ that there should be 
 a near resemblance between the type and anti- 
 type? And if Moses, the leader of the first re- 
 demption, was tried by a delay of forty years, 
 after he first went forth from the court of Pha- 
 raoh to see his brethren, and attempt their de- 
 liverance, does it not appear probable that 
 something of the same kind should happen in 
 the economy of the Messiah, the chosen servant 
 of God, the leader of the great and final re- 
 demption of Israel ? 
 
 We see a similar analogy in the history of 
 David, the man after God's own heart; and 
 who was manifestly not only the progenitor, 
 but, in an eminent manner, a type of the Mes- 
 siah, who is, more than once, called by the 
 name of David in the prophetical writings. 
 Eight years elapsed between David's being 
 anointed as the successor of Saul in the king- 
 dom, and his accession to the throne of Judah ; 
 and seven years more before he was acknow-
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 35 
 
 ledged as king by all the tribes of Israel. 
 During the greatest part of the first of these 
 two periods, he was in trouble and affliction ; 
 wandering from one place to another, to avoid 
 falling into the hands of Saul. 
 
 Thus I have endeavoured, by a short review 
 of the divine procedure towards the most 
 eminent patriarchs, the great legislator, and the 
 most pious monarch of the Jewish church, to 
 show, that it has been the invariable analogy 
 of that procedure to delay, for a long time, 
 the performances of the promises made to the 
 chosen servants of God. I shall now endeavour 
 to trace the same analogy in the conduct of 
 God towards the children of Israel as a body. 
 
 Four hundred and thirty years elapsed be- 
 tween the first giving of the divine promise 
 to Abraham, that his seed should inherit the 
 land of Canaan, and the redemption of Israel 
 out of the land of Egypt ; which redemption 
 was only the first act of God towards the ac- 
 complishment of his own promise. During the 
 first part of this long period, Abraham and his 
 
 D 2
 
 REMARKS UPON 
 
 posterity were pilgrims and strangers in the 
 land of promise. (Exod. vi. 4.) During the 
 last part of it, they were under the most cruel 
 oppression in the land of Egypt. At length 
 the period arrived, when, in performance of his 
 holy promise, God was about to deliver his 
 people. While Moses fed the flock of Jethro, 
 near to mount Horeb, ' the Angel of the Lord 
 ' appeared to him in a flame of fire, out of the 
 
 * midst of a bush : and he looked, and behold, 
 ' the bush burned with fire, and the bush was 
 ' not consumed. And Moses said, I will now 
 
 * turn aside and see this great sight, why the 
 c bush is not burnt. And when the Lord saw 
 ' that he turned aside to see, God called unto 
 ' him out of the midst of the bush, and said, 
 c Moses ! Moses ! And he said, Here (am) I. 
 ' And he said, Draw not nigh hither; put off 
 ' thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place 
 ' whereon thou standest is holy ground. More- 
 ' over, he said, I am the God of thy fathers the 
 1 God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the 
 4 God of Jacob, And Moses hid his face; for
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 37 
 
 ' he was afraid to look upon God. And the 
 ' Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of 
 ' my people which are in Egypt, and have heard 
 ' their cry, by reason of their task-masters : 
 ' for I know their sorrows. And I am come down 
 ' to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyp- 
 * tians, and to bring them up out of that land 
 ' unto a good land, and a large: unto a land 
 ' flowing with milk and honey. Come now, 
 ' therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, 
 ' that thou mayest bring forth my people, the 
 ' children of Israel, out of Egypt/ (Exod. iii.) 
 
 Commissioned from the Most High, Moses, 
 and his brother Aaron, proceeded to the court 
 of Pharaoh, and demanded of him that he 
 would permit the children of Israel to go out 
 of the land of Egypt. And as the Egyptian 
 monarch hardened his heart against giving 
 obedience to the commands of God, the most 
 dreadful plagues were inflicted upon him and 
 his kingdom by the hand of Moses. At 
 length, after the slaying of all the first-born 
 in the land of Egypt, the children of Israel
 
 38 REMARKS UPON 
 
 were permitted to depart; and their enemies, 
 the Egyptians, having followed them to the 
 shores of the Red Sea, a passage through the 
 sea was miraculously opened for Israel ; and 
 Pharaoh and his host essaying to follow them, 
 were overwhelmed by the waters returning to 
 their channel. ' Thus the Lord saved Israel 
 4 that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; 
 ' and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the 
 1 sea shore. And Israel saw that great work 
 ' which the Lord did upon the Egyptians ; and 
 ' the people feared the Lord, and believed the 
 ' Lord and his servant Moses/ (Exod. xiv.) 
 
 Being thus redeemed from the hand of their 
 inveterate enemies, by the out-stretched arm of 
 God himself, it might have been expected 
 that nothing remained, but that the children of 
 Israel, under the same almighty protection and 
 guidance, should march in triumph, and take 
 possession of the promised land. But the ways 
 of God are not as our ways, nor his thoughts as 
 our thoughts. None of the generation which 
 came out of Egypt were accounted worthy to
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 
 
 enter the promised land, excepting Joshua and 
 Caleb. (Numb. xiv. 26 45.) Even Moses, 
 the servant of the Lord, was not permitted to 
 enter the land of promise; he only saw it from 
 Pisgah, where he died. (Deut. xxxii. 49. 
 xxxiv. 4, 5.) 
 
 The forty years during which Israel wandered 
 in the wilderness being at length elapsed, and 
 Moses being dead, Joshua, the son of Nun, was 
 commanded to lead the children of Israel over 
 Jordan, into the land of promise. And during 
 the life of Joshua they were safely settled in 
 Canaan ; the greater part of the nations which 
 previously occupied it being put to the sword. 
 
 But it is certain, that though, at this time, 
 God began to give effect to the promise made 
 to Abraham, that he would give the land of 
 Canaan to his seed for their possession, yet the 
 promise, in its full extent, was not fulfilled 
 under Joshua. To satisfy ourselves of this, 
 we need only compare the original promise, as 
 recorded in Gen. xv. 18., with the third chapter 
 of the book of Judges, which contains an
 
 40 REMARKS UPON 
 
 enumeration of the nations who were left in 
 Canaan to prove the children of Israel. Even 
 in the glorious and prosperous reigns of David 
 and Solomon, the promise made to Abraham 
 was not fulfilled in its full literal meaning ; 
 for though most of the nations, between the 
 Euphrates and the Mediterranean, were either 
 completely subjugated, or rendered tributary to 
 Israel by these monarchs, yet it is clear that 
 Tyre still continued a powerful and indepen- 
 dent state; so that the promise recorded in 
 Joshua i. 4., that the whole land, from the 
 Euphrates to the Mediterranean, was to be 
 given to the children of Israel, was not strictly 
 made good. And it is certain that it never 
 was fulfilled after the reign of Solomon ; for, in 
 less than three hundred years after his reign, 
 the ten tribes were carried away captive into 
 Assyria, whence they have never returned. 
 The captivity of Judah in Babylon followed 
 that of Israel, after an interval of nearly a 
 century and a half; and it is well known, that 
 only a small part of Judah returned to Jerusa-
 
 LEVI S DISSERTATIONS. 41 
 
 lem, in consequence of the permission granted 
 by Cyrus and Darius, the Persian monarchs. 
 During the period which elapsed between the 
 return from Babylon, and the destruction of 
 Jerusalem by the Romans, the Jews enjoyed 
 little tranquillity ; arid were always harassed, 
 and often grievously oppressed, by the Persians, 
 the Macedonians, and the Romans. 
 
 The sum of the whole of what has been said 
 upon the procedure of God towards the chil- 
 dren of Israel, is this : More than four centu- 
 ries elapsed between the giving of the promise 
 to Abraham, and the redemption of Israel out 
 of Egypt. Forty years more elapsed before 
 God began to execute his promise, by giving to 
 the Israelites possession of the land of Canaan ; 
 and neither in the time of Joshua, nor even of 
 David and Solomon, was the promise fulfilled in 
 its full extent ; and still less has it been so since 
 the reign of Solomon ; so that, though a period 
 of nearly four thousand years has elapsed, since 
 the giving of the promise of the land of Canaan 
 to the seed of Abraham, the fulfilment of
 
 REMARKS CPON 
 
 that promise, in its full extent, is still fu- 
 ture. 
 
 I think, therefore, it cannot be denied, that an 
 examination of the procedure of God towards 
 the chosen people, furnishes another strong 
 instance of the analogy which I have endea- 
 voured to trace, in the histories of the patri- 
 archs ; and tends to confirm the presumption, 
 that something of the same kind was to be 
 expected in the economy of the Messiah. For 
 with what colour of reason, and upon what 
 grounds, can the Jew assert, that, in the procedure 
 of God towards the Messiah, there is to be a 
 total departure from all those principles, and an 
 entire deviation from those analogies, which are 
 observable in all the other works of God ; and in 
 his dispensations towards his most faithful and 
 highly-honoured servants, and towards that 
 people whom he chose for himself, w r hen all the 
 other nations of the earth were sunk in brutish 
 idolatry ? It is evident to every enlarged mind, 
 and to those who attentively study the works and 
 the word of God, that there is the closest analogy
 
 LEVI S DISSERTATIONS. 43 
 
 observable in every part of these works ; and as 
 all the dispensations of God towards his 
 servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their 
 posterity, form parts of one vast plan, of which 
 the final and glorious result is to be seen under 
 the economy of the Messiah; when, not the 
 children of Israel only, but all the nations of 
 the world, all the ends of the earth, are to be 
 brought to the knowledge and worship of the 
 true God ; it is certainly altogether improbable, 
 and, indeed, utterly incredible, that unity of 
 design and operation should not run through 
 the whole of this vast plan. The hypothesis of 
 David Levi is directly opposed to the idea of 
 such an unity of design and operation ; since it 
 assumes, that the kingdom of the Messiah is to 
 be established in glory immediately after his 
 first advent in the world, and that it is to meet 
 with no successful or long-continued opposition. 
 This scheme is, therefore, contradictory to the 
 whole analogy of the government of God, both 
 in the natural and moral world, so far as it has 
 come under our observation.
 
 44 REMARKS UPON 
 
 On the contrary, the Christian system, which 
 supposes that the establishment of the Mes- 
 siah's kingdom was designed to be gradual ; 
 that it was to meet with long opposition, so as 
 most severely to try the patience of his ser- 
 vants (see Matth. xxiv. 9 13); is, so far, 
 entirely agreeable to, and consistent with, every 
 preceding part of the procedure of God towards 
 his Old Testament Church. This, indeed, will 
 not, alone, prove the divine mission of Christ ; 
 but it at least removes, most effectually, the 
 chief objection to the truth of Christianity, 
 which pervades every part of David Levi's 
 work on the prophecies ; and shows, that instead 
 of being an objection, it is what was to have 
 been expected, even a priori, to take place in 
 the kingdom of the Messiah.
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 45 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 
 THE FIRST PRINCIPLE OF DAVID LEV! S WORK ON THE 
 PROPHECIES, SHOWN TO BE CONTRARY TO THE 
 DOCTRINES OF THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES, RESPECTING 
 THE KINGDOM OF THE MESSIAH. 
 
 1 COME now to examine, how far the first prin- 
 ciple adopted by Levi, in his work on the pro- 
 phecies, is agreeable to the Scriptures of the 
 Old Testament. I shall not attempt to follow 
 the learned Jew through all the different pas- 
 sages of the Old Testament which he has con- 
 
 CJ 
 
 sidered in the three first volumes of his work, 
 as this would lead me beyond the limits of my 
 present plan. Indeed, this is not necessary; 
 for all, or nearly all, his arguments from pro- 
 phecy, may be resolved into the one first prin-
 
 46 REMARKS UPON 
 
 ciple already mentioned, viz. that the glorious 
 establishment of the Messiah's kingdom is 
 
 O 
 
 immediately to follow his first advent into the 
 world. 
 
 As David Levi has expressed his confidence 
 that the Christians cannot produce one single 
 clear unequivocal prophecy from the Old 
 Testament, which foretells a two-fold coming 
 of one and the same person as the Messiah, 
 it may be proper to observe, that there might 
 be the best reasons for a certain degree of 
 obscurity in the prophecies w-hich relate to the 
 Messiah, as too great a degree of clearness 
 might have interfered with their accomplish- 
 ment. 
 
 This is obviously th case with respect to the 
 prophecies relating to the four great monarchies, 
 and to the destruction of the fourth monarchy ; 
 i. e. the Roman, which is, probably, very near 
 at hand. These prophecies are sufficiently 
 clear to be understood, in their great outlines, 
 by attentive and impartial persons who make 
 it a study to inquire into the subject ; but they
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 4? 
 
 are not so clear as to be understood by the 
 careless and inattentive, or by those who are to 
 be the great agents in their accomplishment, viz. 
 the princes and governors of the world. Were 
 they thus understood by all, it is evident that 
 they would interfere with their own accom- 
 plishment ; and would, without the interven- 
 tion of new miracles, be entirely falsified ; for 
 it cannot be. supposed that the princes of the 
 Roman world, with their eyes open to the pre- 
 dictions of their own ruin, would take those 
 very measures by which they are to be preci- 
 pitated into destruction. 
 
 It ought also to be considered, that, with 
 regard to the question whether Jesus be the 
 promised Messiah, the Jews are by no 
 means impartial, judges ; nor can they be so 
 in the very nature of things. The hypothesis that 
 Jesus is the Messiah, involves in it a charge 
 against the Jewish nation of the blackest nature ; 
 for if Jesus be the Messiah, then certainly the 
 Jews w r ere his murderers, and to his murder 
 they have added the crime of continuing to
 
 48 REMARKS UPON 
 
 reject and blaspheme him, for a period of eigh- 
 teen centuries. Now, it cannot be maintained 
 by a candid Jew, that his nation are qualified 
 to act as impartial judges in this matter ; for this 
 were to say, that a man may, at once, act the 
 part of a party and a judge, which is contrary 
 to all the received maxims of human jurispru- 
 dence, as well, indeed, as of common sense. 
 The candid Jew must therefore admit, that he 
 comes to the examination of this question 
 under circumstances peculiarly unfavourable ; 
 and that, even if the truth be on the side of 
 Christianity, he is under a strong bias against 
 the truth, and has strong temptations to resist and 
 
 ^ J. 
 
 reject its evidence. 
 
 If there be candid and reasonable men among 
 the Jews, these considerations ought surely to 
 render them suspicious of themselves ; and it 
 certainly is a part of the character of every 
 serious and humble inquirer into divine truth, 
 to examine himself narrowly, lest he should 
 unfortunately be under any secret bias against 
 the svstem, into the merits and evidence of
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 49 
 
 which he is searching. Neither can it have 
 escaped the observation of candid Jews, that 
 many well-informed and learned persons of the 
 Gentile nations, among whom they are scat- 
 tered, have, at one time, doubted the truth of 
 Christianity; and yet, on more mature exami- 
 nation, have become sincere converts to it. All 
 these persons have maintained, that the evi- 
 dence of the divine mission of Christ from the 
 prophecies of the Old Testament, is of the 
 strongest and most powerful nature ; and when 
 the Jew asserts the contrary of this, he should 
 at least remember, that he is under the strongest 
 temptation to make this assertion, even if it 
 be false, and to shut his eyes against the evi- 
 (Jence which Christians commonly refer to, in 
 support of the pretensions of the founder of their 
 religion. Let, then, the candid and humble Jew 
 only come to the examination of this question, 
 with that degree of self-diffidence which be- 
 comes the serious inquirer into divine truth. 
 In opening the Old Testament, let him bend 
 his knee in humble prayer and supplication to 
 
 E
 
 50 REMARKS UPON 
 
 the God of his fathers, the God of Abraham, 
 of Isaac, and of Jacob, that He may condescend 
 to illuminate his mind to see and embrace the 
 truth ; and Christians will then have little 
 doubt of the result of an investigation entered 
 
 O 
 
 upon with such a spirit. 
 
 Indeed, it deserves the particular attention of 
 the candid Jew, that this spirit of self-diffidence, 
 and a sense of his need of divine illumination, 
 is not to be found in the pages of David Levi. 
 We do not see, in his work, the same spirit 
 which animated the pious psalmist, the sweet 
 singer of Israel, when he uttered such petitions 
 as the following ' With my whole heart have 
 ' I sought thee : O let me not wander from thy 
 ' commandments. Thy word have I hid in 
 1 my heart, that I might not sin against thee. 
 ' Blessed art thou, O Lord : teach me thy 
 'statutes.' (Psalm cxix. 10 12.) And again, 
 ' Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold won- 
 ' drous things out of thy law. I am a stranger 
 ' on the earth, hide not thy commandments from 
 'me.' (Ibid. 18, 19.) Again, the psalmist
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 51 
 
 prays, ' Teach me, O Lord, the way of thy 
 4 statutes, arid I shall keep it unto the end. 
 ' Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy 
 * law ; yea, I shall observe it with my whole 
 ' heart. Make me to go in the path of thy com- 
 4 mandments, for therein do I delight. ' In 
 another Psalm, the xxv., David prays, ' Show 
 ' me thy ways, O Lord ; teach me thy paths. 
 ' Lead me in thy truth, and teach me ; for thou 
 ' art the God of my salvation : on thee do I 
 ' wait all the day. ' 
 
 It appears from these passages, that the 
 psalmist was deeply and habitually impressed 
 with a sense of his own blindness, and need of 
 the divine teaching, in order to understand the 
 law of God. O that there were, in the minds 
 of the modern Jews, the same sense of their 
 great and absolute need of illumination from 
 the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, 
 of Isaac, and of Jacob, in order to their under- 
 standing the prophecies relative to the Messiah ! 
 
 Having made these general observations, I 
 shall now endeavour to show, that though, 
 
 E 2
 
 52 REMARKS UPON 
 
 perhaps, there be not any one passage of the 
 Hebrew Scriptures, which clearly shows a two- 
 fold coming of one and the same person as the 
 Messiah ; yet, by comparing different passages 
 of the Scriptures one with another, we must 
 arrive at the conclusion, that there are two 
 advents of the Messiah revealed in the Old 
 Testament. 
 
 Of all the prophets of the Old Testament 
 dispensation, Daniel seems to have been the 
 only one to whom the events which form the 
 subject of his prophecies were revealed in 
 chronological order! If, therefore, the time of 
 the advent of the Messiah be revealed at all, we 
 may expect to find it in the book of Daniel. 
 The first passage of this prophet which I shall 
 consider, in reference to this point, is that part of 
 the second chapter wherein Daniel explains the 
 prophetical dream of Nebuchadnezzar, king of 
 Babylon. 
 
 Two distinct symbols were presented in sleep 
 to the mind of the Babylonian monarch. First, 
 ' agreat image/ described in ver. 31 33.; and,
 
 LEVI S DISSERTATIONS. 53 
 
 secondly, cer. 31, 3.5., ' a stone cut. out without 
 ' hands, which smote the image upon his feet 
 ' of iron and clay, and brake them in pieces. 
 ' Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the 
 ' silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together; 
 ' and became like the chaff of the summer 
 ' thrashing floor ; and the wind carried them 
 ' away ; and no place was found for them : and 
 ' the stone that smote the image became a great 
 ' mountain, and filled the whole earth. ' 
 
 The great image is declared by the prophet 
 to be a symbol of the four kings, or kingdoms, 
 which were to arise in the world, viz. the Ba- 
 bylonian, the Medo-Persian, the Macedonian, 
 and the Roman empires; the last of which was 
 to subsist in two different conditions; First, 
 as one undivided empire strong as iron; and, 
 secondly, as divided into ten kingdoms, having 
 part of its pristine strength mingled with much 
 weakness ; ' iron mixed with miry clay. ' (uer. 41 .) 
 And it was not possible that a more exact 
 picture could have been given of the state of 
 the Roman empire, since its division into ten
 
 54 REMARKS UPON 
 
 kingdoms by the invasions of the Goths and 
 Vandals. Thus far, I presume, both Jews and 
 Christians are agreed in the interpretation of 
 this prophecy. 
 
 The stone which smote the image on its feel, 
 and afterwards became a great mountain, and 
 filled the whole earth, is declared by the pro- 
 phet to symbolize a kingdom to be set up by 
 God. (ver. 44.) ' And in the days of these 
 5 kings, shall the God of Heaven set up a king- 
 ' dom, which shall never be destroyed : and 
 ' the kingdom shall not be left to other people ; 
 * but it shall break in pieces all these kingdoms, 
 4 and it shall stand for ever.' 
 
 I suppose that the Jews agree with us in un- 
 derstanding this kingdom of the God of Heaven 
 to mean the kingdom of the Messiah. In none 
 of the books of the Old Testament do we read of 
 any other kingdom, than that of the Messiah, to 
 be established by God; and, therefore, it is quite 
 incontrovertible that the kingdom of the Mes- 
 siah is spoken of in this passage of Daniel. 
 I presume further, that the Jews will admit
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 55 
 
 that the kingdom of the Messiah begins to be 
 set up at his first coming ; or, at least, at the 
 period when he first begins to exercise the 
 authority with which he is invested ; or, in 
 other words, that the kingdom of the Messiah 
 cannot be set up before his own appearance in 
 the world. 
 
 Having premised these observations, I now 
 shall deduce, from the above prophecy, the 
 following propositions, which seem to me to 
 be established by it. 
 
 First, The kingdom of the Messiah was to be 
 set up in the world, and, consequently, the 
 advent of the Messiah was to take place, not as 
 the modern Jews and David Levi suppose, at 
 the time of the destruction of the last of the 
 Gentile monarchies, i. e. the Roman, but 
 during the existence of the four monarchies ; 
 for we read in the forty-fourth verse, that ' in 
 ' the days of these kings, (or kingdoms,) the 
 ; God of Heaven shall set up a kingdom. ' 
 
 Secondly, The kingdom of the Messiah was to 
 exist in the world in two different states or con-
 
 56 REMARKS UPON 
 
 ditions. First, as symbolized by a stone cut out 
 without hands; i. e. this kingdom, in its first 
 state, was to be erected without the operation 
 or assistance of human power;* and it was to 
 be in an obscure condition, as well as small in 
 its extent. All these ideas seem to be necessa- 
 rily implied in the symbol of a stone cut out 
 without hands. But, secondly, this stone, this 
 small and contemptible kingdom of the Mes- 
 siah, is to smite the image upon its feet; or, in 
 other words, is to smite the Roman empire in 
 its last state, as divided into ten kingdoms; and 
 then the image is to be totally dissolved, and its 
 materials dissipated; and the stone (the small and 
 contemptible kingdom of the Messiah) is to 
 become a great mountain, j* and is to fill the 
 whole earth; i. e. it is to be advanced to a glo- 
 rious and triumphant state. 
 
 * In the language of symbols, a hand denotes power. 
 | In the language of symbols, a mountain denotes a 
 kingdom.
 
 LEVI'S DISSERTATIONS. 57 
 
 This smiting of the image evidently takes 
 place precisely at that time, when the judg- 
 ments against the nations, (particularly Edom or 
 Rome,) which are predicted in Isaiah xxxiv. 
 and Ixiii., begin to go forth. 
 
 From the second of the foregoing proposi- 
 tions, it is quite evident that the prophecy in 
 the second chapter of Isaiah, which is com- 
 mented upon by David Levi, relates exclusively 
 to the triumphant state of the Messiah's king- 
 dom ; for we find in that prophecy, that the 
 kingdom of the Messiah is represented, not by 
 the symbol of a stone, but by that of a mountain. 
 It is called the ' mountain of the Lord's house,'' 
 vcr. '2.; and the ' mountain of the Lord,' ver. .'3.; 
 consequently, David Levi's argument from that 
 prophecy against the divine mission of Jesus, 
 is founded upon this gross mistake, that Isaiah 
 therein describes the kingdom of the Messiah in 
 its original state in the world, which is proved 
 not to be the case. The prophecy refers only to 
 that time when the stone, having already 
 smitten the image, is become a great mountain.
 
 58 REMARKS UPON 
 
 In Daniel vii., we have also a prophecy of 
 the four Gentile kingdoms, and the kingdom of 
 the Messiah; but the symbols are here different 
 from those of the dream of Nebuchadnezzar: 
 the vision of Daniel also contains more particu- 
 
 * 
 
 lars than that dream. 
 
 After describing the three first beasts which 
 arose out of the stormy sea, and by which were 
 symbolized the Baby Ionian, the Persian, and the 
 Macedonian empires, the prophet says, ' After 
 4 this, I saw in the night visions, and behold, a 
 ' fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong 
 ' exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it 
 
 * devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the 
 : residue with the feet of it; and it was diverse 
 ; from all the beasts that were before it; and it 
 
 * had ten horns. I considered the horns, and, 
 
 * behold, there came up among them another 
 
 I little horn, before whom there were three of 
 
 * the first horns plucked up by the roots: and 
 
 II behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of 
 
 * man, and a mouth speaking great things. I 
 ; beheld till the thrones were cast down, and
 
 LEVls DISSERTATIONS. 
 
 ' the Ancient of Days did sit, whose, garment 
 ' was white as snow, and the hair of his head 
 Mike the pure wool; his throne was like the 
 ' fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. 
 ' A fiery stream issued and came forth from 
 4 before him ; thousand thousands ministered 
 ' unto him, and ten thousand times ten thou- 
 ' sand stood before him: the judgment was set, 
 4 and the books were opened. I beheld then, 
 ' because of the. voice of the great words which 
 ' the horn spake; I beheld even till the beast 
 ' was slain, and his body destroyed, and given 
 ' to the burning flame. As concerning the rest 
 ' of the beasts, they had their dominion taken 
 ' away, yet their lives were prolonged for a 
 ' season and time. I saw in the night visions.. 
 ' and behold, one like the Son of Man came 
 ' with the clouds of heaven, and came to the 
 ' Ancient of Days, and they brought him near 
 ' before him ; and there was given him clo- 
 ' minion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all 
 ' people, nations, and languages should serve 
 ' him : his dominion is an everlasting dominion.
 
 60 REMARKS LPO.V 
 
 ' which shall not pass away; and his kingdom 
 ' that which shall not be destroyed. ' 
 
 It is not my purpose to enter at length into 
 the interpretation of this part of the vision ; hut 
 I shall just mention, that the beast here de- 
 scribed, is, by the almost unanimous consent of 
 Christian, and, I suppose also, Jewish interpret- 
 ers, allowed to mean the Roman empire. The 
 ten horns signify the ten kingdoms into which 
 that empire was divided after its overthrow by 
 the Goths and Vandals; and nearly all of our 
 Protestant writers on prophecy agree that the 
 little horn symbolizes the Papal power. 
 
 It is apparent from the above passage, ver. 9 
 11., that the coming of the Messiah (the Son 
 of Man) with the clouds of heaven, which is 
 described in this vision, takes place after the 
 body of the fourth beast (the Roman empire) 
 is given to the burning- fire to be destroyed. 
 In other words, this advent of the Messiah 
 precisely synchronizes with the destruction of 
 Rome, the Edom and I3ozrah of Isaiah xxxiv. 
 and Ixiii. It also synchronizes with that period.
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 6l 
 
 when the stone, (Dan. ii. 34.) having smitten 
 the image, is upon the point of becoming a 
 great mountain to fill the whole earth. There- 
 fore, this coming of the Messiah with the 
 clouds of heaven, cannot be his first appearance 
 in this world ; for it has already been proved, in 
 considering Daniel ii., that the first coming of 
 the Messiah takes place while the Roman 
 empire is yet standing: ' In the days of these 
 ' kings (or kingdoms) the God of Heaven shall 
 ' set up a kingdom. ' (Dan. ii. 44.) It conse- 
 quently follows, that two different advents of 
 the Messiah are revealed in Daniel; the one. 
 while the Roman empire is yet standing, to 
 establish the kingdom of the stone, (Dan. ii. 
 44, 45.) the other, when the Roman empire is 
 destroyed, to establish the kingdom of the 
 mountain to give the kingdom to the saints, 
 (vii. 27.) 
 
 We may arrive at the same conclusion by 
 another chain of argument. When the Son of 
 Man comes with the clouds of heaven, (Dan. 
 vii. 13.) he evidently comes in a triumphant
 
 O2 REMARKS UPON 
 
 state; in the full possession of all the faculties 
 of mature and perfect manhood ; to be crowned 
 with that honour, glory, and power, which are 
 reserved for him in the counsels of the Most 
 High. But this cannot be his first advent ; for, 
 according to all the prophecies, as understood 
 both by Jews and Christians, he was to be born 
 of a woman, and in the family of David; and, 
 consequently, his first coming must be, not 
 with the clouds of heaven, but as an helpless 
 infant, born from the womb of his mother; and 
 we must next look for him, not as receiving do- 
 minion, and glory, and a kingdom, but as hang- 
 ing upon the breast of his mother to draw 
 nourishment from her milk ; and afterwards as 
 increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favour 
 with God and man. And as it cannot be 
 denied, that the condition of an infant is an 
 humble, lowly state, it follows, that t\vo differ- 
 ent advents of the Messiah are revealed in pro- 
 phecy; the one in a state of humility, the other 
 in a state of glory : the one as an infant born in 
 Bethlehem (Micah v. 2.) ; the other with the
 
 LEV1 S DISSERTATIONS. 
 
 clouds of heaven, to receive the kingdom pro- 
 mised to him. But where is the Messiah 
 during the period that intervenes between these 
 two advents? 
 
 Psalm ex. ' The Lord said unto my Lord, 
 
 * sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine 
 ' enemies thy footstool. The Lord shall send 
 
 * the rod of thy strength out of Zion : rule thou 
 1 in the midst of thine enemies. * ' The Lord 
 ' hath sworn, and will not repent, thou art a 
 ' priest for ever after the order of Melchisedech. 
 ' The Lord at thy right hand shall strike 
 ' through kings in the day of his wrath. He 
 
 * shall judge among the heathen ; he shall fill the 
 ' places with the dead bodies ; he shall wound 
 1 the head over many countries. ' 
 
 The person here addressed by Jehovah, and 
 whom David calls his Lord, (' Jehovah said 
 ' unto my Lord, ') can only be the Messiah ; for 
 to no other person, or character, can such 
 language belong. The Messiah is here repre- 
 sented as being exalted at the right hand of 
 God, ' till his enemies be made his footstool.'
 
 (34 REMARKS UPON 
 
 This exaltation is therefore in the heavenly 
 world; for to that world only can belong- the 
 phrase at the right hand of God. This exalta- 
 tion of the Messiah cannot be his first state as 
 man; for that we have seen was the condition of 
 an infant born at Bethlehem, and hanging upon 
 the breast of his mother. Neither is this exal- 
 tation of the Messiah at the right hand of God, 
 his last condition; for then his enemies will 
 have been made his footstool: ' he will then 
 ' have received dominion, glory, and a kingdom, 
 ' that all people, nations, and languages, should 
 ' serve him : his dominion is an everlasting do- 
 ' minion, which shall not pass away ; and his 
 kingdom that which shall not be destroyed/ 
 
 o * 
 
 Therefore, since this exaltation of the MAN, 
 the Messiah, is neither his first state nor his last 
 state, it follows, that it must be an intermediate 
 state, during which he himself is highly exalted ; 
 but he has yet enemies who are not made his 
 footstool; or, in other words, his cause and king- 
 dom are, if not in a depressed, yet at least in a 
 militant state, fighting with many, and powerful,
 
 LEVI'S DISSERTATIONS. t>5 
 
 and malicious enemies. During this period 
 we also learn, that the Messiah sustains the 
 office of a priest, made after the order of Mel- 
 chisedech, to whom Abraham himself paid 
 tithes. Now, as every priest is ordained to 
 offer gifts and sacrifices, wherefore it is of ne- 
 cessity that this man, the Messiah, have some- 
 what also to offer, of which 1 shall treat in 
 another part of this work. 
 
 The concluding- part of this prophetical 
 Psalm will be accomplished at the second 
 advent of the Messiah, w r hen the Roman empire 
 is destroyed, as in Isaiah xxxiv. and Ixiii. 
 
 From this prophetical Psalm we may con- 
 clude, that the scheme of David Levi, with 
 respect to the establishment of the Messiah's 
 kingdom in the world immediately after his 
 first advent, is altogether contrary to the Scrip- 
 tures ; and that all the prophecies which de- 
 scribe the triumphant progress of his cause and 
 kingdom, must relate, ultimately, not to the 
 period when he first comes into the world, in 
 the form of an infant; and not even to the period 
 
 F
 
 66 REMARKS UPON 
 
 when he is exalted at the right hand of God, 
 until his enemies be made his footstool; but to 
 that time when he comes with the clouds of 
 heaven, to receive the kingdom, and when his 
 enemies are made his footstool. 
 
 I shall now resume the consideration of the 
 objection so confidently advanced against the 
 divine mission of Jesus in David Levi's work. 
 (Vol. I. page 13$.) The passage is as follows: 
 "I am confident they (the Christians) cannot 
 " produce one single clear unequivocal pro- 
 " phecy from the Old Testament, which foretells 
 " a two-fold coining of one and the same person 
 " as the Messiah ; and that, too, at the distance 
 " of such a number of years as have already 
 " elapsed from the supposed period of his being 
 ; " on earth ; whence it is manifest, that the 
 " whole scheme of the Millenium is a mere chi- 
 *' mera, an ignis fatuus^ notwithstanding all the 
 " noise and pother that has been made about 
 " it. " 
 
 In answer to this objection, I would again 
 re-call to the mind of the reader an observation
 
 LEVl'S DISSERTATIONS. 
 
 already made in a former page; viz. that the 
 eighteen centuries which have elapsed from the 
 coming of Jesus, bear no more proportion to the 
 duration of the kingdom of the Messiah, than a 
 grain of sand does to the matter of the terres- 
 trial o-lobe. This, I think, removes the weight 
 
 w O 
 
 of David Levi's objection, so far as it rests upon 
 the length of time which has elapsed since the 
 first coming of Jesus. Further, the principle of 
 this objection made by David Levi, seems to be 
 this, that we have a right to prescribe to the 
 Almighty Governor of the universe, precisely 
 what degree and kind of evidence he is bound 
 to afford us of the divine mission of the Mes- 
 siah. Christians have never maintained, nor 
 did the author of their religion himself assert, 
 that the evidence of his divine mission, from 
 the prophecies of the Old Testament, is of so 
 strong and so obvious a nature as to preclude 
 the necessity of the most diligent use of our 
 reasoning faculties, in searching for that evi- 
 
 D " 
 
 dence. Christ himself said to the Jews, 
 ' Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye 
 
 F 9
 
 ()8 REMARKSUPON 
 
 ' have eternal life, and they are they which 
 - testify of me. ' (John v. 39.) Now, the com- 
 mand to search^ supposes that the truth is not 
 so evident as to be known without searching. 
 Accordingly, we read of certain Jews at Berea, 
 in Acts xvii., " who received the word with all 
 ' readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures 
 ' daily, whether these things were so ; therefore, 
 ' many of them believed. ' 
 
 This is the temper of mind which best befits 
 feeble and sinful creatures, who are anxious to 
 know and to do the will of God; and it by no 
 means becomes any of the children of men to 
 dare to prescribe to God what precise degree of 
 evidence he shall afford us of the great truths 
 of religion. 
 
 It is not upon one passage of the Old Testa- 
 ment, that Christians found their belief that 
 Jesus is the Messiah, but it is upon the whole 
 of the prophecies relating to the Messiah. By 
 comparing scnpture with scripture, they are con- 
 vinced that the life, the doctrine, the sufferings, 
 the death, the resurrection, the ascension, and the
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 69 
 
 second advent of Jesus, are all predicted in the 
 Hebrew Scriptures. And if it be necessary 
 diligently to search the Scriptures, in order to 
 attain this conviction, this is quite analogous to 
 the whole economy of the providential govern- 
 ment. In no part of the vast circle of know- 
 ledge does important truth lie on the surface. 
 To be a good mathematician, an astronomer, or 
 a logician ; to attain a competent knowledge of 
 any one of the arts which are necessary for the 
 well-being of man, as a member of civil societ3 r , 
 require the diligent and persevering application 
 of our faculties. And shall it be thought that 
 the only species of knowledge which is tran- 
 scendently important, viz. that of the revealed 
 will of God, is to be attained without diligent 
 and solicitous inquiry ? or that God will bestow 
 it upon the idle, the careless, or the in- 
 different? Surely not. 
 
 This may show how unreasonable David Levi's 
 objection is, even if it had not been proved, 
 from the prophecies of Daniel, that there are 
 two advents of the Messiah revealed in the
 
 70 REMARKS UPON 
 
 Hebrew Scriptures. Indeed, from the infidelity 
 of many of his own nation, who, though sur- 
 rounded by the strongest evidence of the truth 
 of the Mosaic revelation, and themselves living- 
 evidences of its truth, yet do not believe a 
 syllable of revelation, (see Levi's Dissert. Vol. 
 III. page 141.) David Levi might have been 
 led to see, that our reception of the truths re- 
 vealed to us in the Scriptures depends less 
 upon their being supported by over-powering 
 evidence, than upon our being disposed to give 
 a willing and patient hearing to the evidence 
 actually given. What evidence, for instance, 
 can be more over-powering to a candid mind, 
 than that which arises from the fulfilment of 
 the wonderful prophecies recorded in Deutero- 
 nomy with respect to the children of Israel ? 
 Yet it is a fact, acknowledged by David Levi 
 himself, that many of his own people turn a 
 deaf ear to this evidence, and believe not a syl- 
 lable of revelation ! No\v, had it pleased the 
 Almighty to give that precise degree and kind 
 0f evidence of the divine mission of Jesus
 
 LEVI'S DISSERTATIONS. 71 
 
 which Levi requires, how does he know but 
 that this evidence would have been resisted in 
 the same way as many of his nation resist that 
 which supports the Mosaic revelation? Nay, 
 how does he know but that he himself is now 
 resisting that evidence which God hath seen 
 fit to give of the mission of him who is the 
 true Messiah ?
 
 72 REMARKS UPON 
 
 CHAP. IV. 
 
 THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES TESTIFY THAT THE MESSIAH WAS 
 TO SUFFER; AND THE PROPHECIES OF A SUFFERING 
 MESSIAH WERE ALL ACCOMPLISHED IN THE LIFE, 
 SUFFERINGS, AND DEATH OF JESUS. 
 
 ISAIAH liii. ' Who hath believed our report? 
 ' and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed ? 
 ' For he shall grow up before him as a tender 
 ' plant, and as a root out of a dry ground : he 
 1 hath no form nor comeliness ; and when we 
 ' shall see him, there is no beauty that we 
 * should desire him. He is despised and re- 
 < jected of men ; a man of sorrows, and ac- 
 ' quainted with grief; and we hid as it were our 
 4 faces from him: he was despised, and we
 
 LEVI'S DISSERTATIONS. 73 
 
 ' esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our 
 ' griefs, and carried our sorrows ; yet we did 
 4 esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and 
 4 afflicted. But he was wounded for our trans- 
 ' gressions ; he was bruised for our iniquities; 
 ; the chastisement of our peace was upon him ; 
 ' and with his stripes we are healed. All we, 
 ' like sheep, have gone astray ; we have turned 
 ' every one to his own way; and the Lord hath 
 * laid on him the iniquity of us all. lie was 
 ' oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened 
 ' not his mouth. He was taken from prison, 
 ' and from judgment, and who shall declare his 
 ' generation ? for he was cut off out of the land 
 'of the living; for the transgression of my 
 ' people was he stricken. And he made his 
 ' grave with the wicked, and with the rich, in 
 4 his death; because he had done no violence, 
 1 neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet 
 ' it pleased the Lord to bruise him : he hath 
 ' put him to grief: when thou shall make his 
 ' soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed. 
 ; he shall prolong his days, aud the pleasure of
 
 74 REMARKS UPON 
 
 4 the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall 
 4 see of the travail of his soul, and shall be 
 ' satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous 
 'servant justify many; for he shall bear 
 ' their iniquities. Therefore will I divide unto 
 ' him (a portion) with the great, and he shall 
 4 divide the spoil with the strong; because he 
 ' hath poured out his soul unto death : and he 
 4 was numbered with the transgressors, and he 
 4 bare the sin of many, and made intercession 
 4 for the transgressors. ' 
 
 The point at issue, between Jews and Chris- 
 tians, with respect to the foregoing prophecy, 
 is, what person is spoken of. The modern Jews 
 allege, that the Jewish nation is here per- 
 sonified ; and their sufferings during their long 
 and dreadful captivity are thus foretold. The 
 Christians, on the contrary, apply this passage 
 to the sufferings and death of Jesus. I shall 
 therefore inquire, first, how far the features of 
 character possessed by the person who is the 
 subject of this prophecy, are to be found in the 
 Jewish nation ; and. secondly, whether all these
 
 LEVI S DISSERTATIONS. 
 
 features of character did not shine forth conspi- 
 cuously in the life, and sufferings, and death of 
 Jesus. 
 
 The person here described, is styled the 
 righteous servant of God. (ver. 11.) Righte- 
 ousness, therefore, forms a prominent feature of 
 his character. How far this feature of character 
 belongs to the children of Israel, at any period 
 of their history, we may learn from the Hebrew 
 Scriptures, and the writings of David Levi. 
 When they were about to inherit the land of 
 Canaan, Moses, in the name of the Lord, thus 
 addresses them: ' Speak not thou in thine 
 ' heart, after that the Lord thy God hath cast 
 ' them out before thee, saying, For my righte- 
 ' onsness the Lord hath brought me in to pos- 
 ' sess the land ; but for the wickedness of these 
 1 nations the Lord doth drive them out from 
 1 before thee. Not for thy righteousness, or for 
 4 the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go 
 ' to possess the land ; but for the wickedness of 
 ' these nations the Lord thy God doth drive 
 them out from before thee, and that he
 
 76 REMARKS UPON 
 
 ' may perform the word which the Lord sware 
 4 unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 
 1 Understand, therefore, that the Lord thy God 
 4 giv r eth thee not this good land to possess it for 
 4 thy righteousness; for thou art a stiff-necked 
 ' people. Remember, and forget not, how thou 
 * provokedst the Lord thy God to wrath in the 
 ' wilderness : from the day that thou didst de- 
 ' part out of the land of Egypt, until ye carne 
 4 into this place, ye have rebelled against the 
 4 Lord. ' (Deut. ix.) 
 
 After their entrance into the promised land, 
 and their settlement in it, Joshua, who inti- 
 mately knew the character of his people, thus 
 addresses them, at a time when they had just 
 renewed the profession of their firm determina- 
 tion to continue in the service of the Lord, 
 (xxiv. 19.) ' And Joshua said unto the people, 
 ' Ye cannot serve the Lord; for he is an holy 
 
 ; God ; he is a jealous God: he will not forjnve 
 
 o 
 
 ' your transgressions nor your sins/ The mean- 
 ing- of this seems to be, that there was some- 
 thing in the character of the children of Israel
 
 LEVl S DISSERTATIONS. 7? 
 
 so opposite to the holiness of God, that it was 
 impossible for them sincerely to love and obey 
 him. 
 
 In the time of the prophet Isaiah, the chil- 
 dren of Israel and Judah are described as ' a 
 ' sinful nation ; a people laden with iniquity ; 
 ' children that are corrupters.' ' Except the 
 1 Lord had left us a very small remnant, (of righ- 
 ' teous persons,) we should have been as Sodom, 
 ' and we should have been like unto Go- 
 ' morrah.' Even their religious worship is de- 
 scribed as being abominable in the sight of God. 
 (Isaiah i. 13.) In the time of Jeremiah they 
 were equally depraved and wicked ; the prophet 
 says, (ch. ix. 2.) ' Oh that I had in the wilder- 
 ' ness a lodging-place of way-faring men, that I 
 4 might leave my people, and go from them ; for 
 ' they be all adulterers, an assembly of trea- 
 ' cherous men ! And they bend their tongues 
 ' like their bow for lies, but they are not valiant 
 ' for truth on the earth ; for they proceed from 
 - evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the 
 ; Lord. Take ye heed every one of his neigh-
 
 78 REMARKS UPON 
 
 ' hour, and trust ye not in any brother ; for every 
 ' brother will utterly supplant, and every neigh- 
 ' bour will walk with slanders.' No descrip- 
 tion can convey ideas of more deplorable obli- 
 quity and degeneracy of character. The eighth 
 chapter of Ezekiel contains a most affecting 
 account of the wickedness of the Jews about 
 the same period. In that inimitable prayer of 
 the prophet Daniel, recorded in Daniel ix., we 
 see how deeply that holy man was affected with 
 the sins of his people. The same thing appears 
 after their return from the Babylonian captivity. 
 (Ezra ix. 4.) ' Then were assembled unto me 
 ' every one that trembled at the words of the 
 ' God of Israel, because of the transgressions of 
 ' those that had been carried away ; and I sat 
 ' astonished until the evening sacrifice. And 
 4 at the evening sacrifice 1 arose up from my 
 ' heaviness, and having rent my garment and my 
 ' mantle, I fell upon my knees, and spread out 
 ' my hands unto the Lord my God, and said, O, 
 ' my God, 1 am ashamed, and blush to lift up 
 ' my face unto thee, my God ; for our iniquities
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 79 
 
 4 are increased over our head, and our trespass is 
 ' grown up unto the heavens. Since the days of 
 ' our fathers have we been in a great trespass 
 ' unto this day; and for our iniquities have we, 
 
 our kings, and our priests, been delivered into 
 ' the hands of the kings of the lands, to the 
 
 sword, to captivity, and to a spoil, and to acon- 
 ' fusion of face, as it is this day.' The con- 
 cluding book of the canon of the Old Testa- 
 ment shows, that the children of Judah were not 
 better at that time than in the days of the more 
 ancient prophets. 
 
 Let us now hear the testimony of David 
 Lcvi with regard to the character of his people, 
 from the time of the Babylonian captivity to 
 the present day. In his remarks upon the pro- 
 phecy of Hosea, in Vol. III. page 06, he says. 
 " The prophet having thus briefly represented. 
 " by the above figure, the captivity of the ten 
 " tribes, the destruction of Jerusalem and the 
 " first temple, with the visitation of Babylon to 
 " the house of Judah, and not to the house of 
 " Israel, proceeds to inform us of the destruction
 
 80 REMARKS UPON 
 
 " of the second temple, under the figurative re- 
 " presentation of the name of the third child, 
 " (tier. 8, 9.) And she conceived, and bare a 
 " son, and God said, call his name Lo-ammi, 
 " (not my people). This was to show, that the 
 " children of Judah, during- the second temple, 
 " would not, by their actions, be his people. " 
 Levi elsewhere testifies, (Vol. I. page .59.) that 
 upon the return of Judah from Babylon, " their 
 44 sins were not yet done away ; and they greatly 
 " added to them, so that they were doomed to 
 " a future captivity. " 
 
 David Levi says, " that there are many of 
 ' his brethren at present who laugh at all the 
 *' warnings of the divine judgment, and ridicule 
 " the idea of a Messiah coming to save them ; 
 44 (for they do not believe a syllable of revela- 
 ; ' tion;) much less, say they, can we believe, 
 44 that God can ever be so vindictive as to 
 " destroy his creatures by war, &c. Thus" (says 
 Levi,) " do they pretend to honour God, by 
 " denying his justice, and depriving him of the 
 ;; government of the world which he hath
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 81 
 
 " created in his wisdom, in opposition to what 
 " the word of God teaches us as the punish- 
 " ment of the antediluvians, of Sodom," &c. 
 (Vol. III. page 141.) 
 
 Indeed, the authority of David Lewi was no 
 way necessary to show that the Jews continue 
 to be a wicked people like their fathers ; for it is 
 plainly foretold in Ezekiel xxxvi., that they will 
 continue in wickedness till the day of their re- 
 demption ; and they are there charged with 
 causing the name of the Lord to be profaned 
 among the heathen by their great wickedness. 
 
 The conclusion to be drawn from what has 
 been said on this subject, is, that the Jews 
 have, at no period of their history, been a 
 righteous people; and, consequently, the pro- 
 phecy of Isaiah liii., which relates to a person 
 called the righteous servant of God, cannot 
 relate to the sufferings of the Jewish nation ; nor 
 can a people, who, throughout every part of 
 their history, have been wicked and rebellious, 
 and whose sufferings have been only the just 
 punishment of their sins, be personified under
 
 82 REMARKS UPON 
 
 the character of a righteous servant of God. 
 The Jewish interpretation of this prophecy is 
 therefore false. 
 
 The next feature in the character of the 
 righteous servant of God, who is the subject 
 of this prophecy, is, that his sufferings are 
 expiatory of the sins of others : ' He hath 
 ' borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows ; yet 
 ' we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, 
 * and afflicted. But he was wounded for our 
 ' transgressions; he was bruised for our iniqui- 
 ' ties; the chastisement of our peace was upon 
 ' him, and with his stripes we are healed. 
 ' All we, like sheep, have gone astray ; we 
 4 have turned every one to his own way ; and 
 ' the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of 
 ' us all. ' 
 
 It is quite clear that the person here spoken 
 of, the righteous servant of God, upon whom 
 the iniquities of us all are laid, must be different 
 from those whose iniquities are laid upon him; 
 in other words, they are not his own sorrows, 
 and his own iniquity, which he bears, but the
 
 LEVI S DISSERTATIONS. 83 
 
 sins and sorrows of others: else why is it said he 
 hath borne our griefs, and not he hath borne his 
 otcn griefs? If the Jewish nation were here 
 personified, and a description given of their 
 sufferings, then the passage would run as 
 follows: . ' He hath borne his griefs, and car- 
 ' ried his sorrows : he was wounded for his 
 ' transgressions, and the chastisement of his 
 ' peace was upon him ; and with his stripes was 
 ' he healed/ To understand the third personal 
 pronoun he, to mean the same individuals, or 
 nation, as the first personal pronoun we, in one 
 and the same sentence, is in the highest degree 
 absurd. But to such shifts are the Jews re- 
 duced, by denying the plain and obvious mean- 
 ing of their own sacred books. 
 
 It follows, therefore, that the sufferings of 
 the person here described are expiatory ; they 
 are submitted to for the benefit not of himself, 
 but of others. Now, there is no passage of the 
 prophetical Scriptures which declares this of 
 the sufferings of the children of Israel. On the 
 contrary, it is said, in numberless passages of 
 
 G 2
 
 34 REMARKS UPON 
 
 the Scriptures, that all their sufferings are the 
 fruit of their own sins. (Levit. xxvi. 39.) 
 4 And they that are left of you, shall pine away 
 ' in their iniquity in their enemies' lands ; and 
 4 also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they 
 4 pine away with them. If they shall confess 
 4 their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, 
 fc with their trespass which they trespassed 
 4 against me ; and that also they have walked 
 ' contrary unto me; and that I also have walked 
 ' contrary unto them, and have brought them 
 ' into the land of their enemies; if then their 
 4 uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they 
 4 then accept the punishment of their iniquity, 
 4 then will I remember my covenant with 
 4 Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and 
 4 also my covenant with Abraham will I remem- 
 4 ber ; and I will remember the land. ' 
 
 In the above passage, we see Israel led into 
 captivity for their own iniquity ; and it is only 
 when they shall have accepted the punishment 
 of their iniquity, as being their just due, that 
 they shall find mercy, and be restored to their
 
 LEVl'S DISSERTATIONS. 85 
 
 own land. Indeed, it deserves the particular 
 attention of the Jews, that there seems to be 
 some great offence, which is emphatically dwelt 
 upon by the Spirit of God in this passage, as 
 the procuring cause of their misery: it is called 
 ' the trespass which they trespassed against me. } 
 The Hebrew word tyo here rendered trespass, 
 seems to mean, properly, a falling away, or 
 apostacy from the truth, which is the very 
 worst species of sin. (See Parkhurst on this 
 word.) 
 
 Since, then, it is evident, that the punish- 
 ments inflicted upon the Jewish nation have 
 been for their own sins, their sufferings cannot, 
 in any sense, be an expiation for the sins of 
 others. Consequently, the passage of Isaiah, 
 which we are now considering, does not describe 
 their sufferings, since it relates to the sufferings 
 of a person who is styled the righteous servant 
 of God, and who suffered for the iniquities of 
 others, not for his own. 
 
 But farther, If we suppose that in the liii. of 
 Isaiah the Jewish nation is personified, then we
 
 86 REMARKS UPON 
 
 must suppose that the person styled, in ver. 11, 
 the righteous servant of God, is one and the 
 same with those who, in the 6th verse, are said 
 to ' have all gone astray, like sheep, and to 
 ' have turned every one to his own way. J But 
 how can a people, described as so laden with 
 iniquity, receive the title of the righteous ser- 
 vant of God in the very same passage of Scrip- 
 ture? This would be making the Scriptures 
 contradict themselves. The Jews are therefore 
 certainly mistaken in their application of this 
 prophecy. 
 
 The clause in the 8th verse, ' he was cut off 
 ' out of the land of the living, ' cannot possibly 
 apply to the nation of Israel : neither can the 
 phrase in the 9th verse, ' he made his grave 
 ' with the wicked, and with the rich in his 
 ' death;' for these are things that cannot be 
 affirmed of a nation : and if it be said that 
 these expressions are figurative, the reply is, 
 that they still cannot apply to the Jews, who. 
 though led captive in all nations, are preserved 
 from destruction, and are destined, by provi-
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 87 
 
 deuce, to be raised to glory and happiness 
 at a future, and, probably, not very remote 
 period. 
 
 It does not characterize the Jewish nation, 
 that they ' have done no violence, neither was 
 4 deceit found in their mouth. ' On the con- 
 trary, it is testified against them, by God him- 
 self, that they ' filled their land with violence.' 
 (Ezek. viii. 17-) And if, in this and all the fore- 
 going particulars, the prophecy will not answer 
 to the character of the Jews, it follows that it 
 has no relation whatever to their sufferings. 
 
 I would now proceed to examine whether 
 the prophecy was not fulfilled minutely in the 
 life, the sufferings, and death of Jesus. I 
 think it impossible for any unprejudiced person 
 to read the four gospels attentively, without 
 feeling a conviction that Jesus was a preacher of 
 righteousness. To prove how 7 often he preached 
 righteousness, it would be necessary to tran- 
 scribe a great part of the gospels ; I shall 
 therefore content myself with quoting a few 
 passages, earnestly beseeching the Jews to
 
 88 feEMARKS tPON 
 
 judge for themselves in this matter, by an atten- 
 tive perusal of the gospels. 
 
 ' Blessed are the poor in spirit ; for theirs 
 ' is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they 
 6 that mourn ; for they shall be comforted. 
 ' Blessed are the meek ; for they shall inherit 
 ' the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger 
 ' and thirst after righteousness ; for they shall 
 ' be filled. Blessed are the merciful ; for they 
 ' shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in 
 ' heart ; for they shall see God. Blessed are 
 ' the peace-makers ; for they shall be called 
 
 * the children of God. Blessed are they which 
 4 are persecuted for righteousness' sake ; for 
 
 * theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ' ' Ye have 
 ' heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love 
 ' thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I 
 ' say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them 
 ' that curse you, do good to them that hate 
 ' you, and pray for them which despitefully 
 
 * use you, and persecute you ; that ye may be 
 4 the children of your Father which is in heaven ; 
 ' for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil, and
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 89 
 
 4 on the good, and sendeth rain on the just, and 
 ' on the unjust. For if ye love them which 
 ' love you, what reward have ye? do not even 
 ' the publicans the same? And if ye salute 
 ' your brethren only, what do you more than 
 4 others ? do not even the publicans so ? Be 
 ' ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which 
 ' is in heaven is perfect.' (Matt, v.) 
 
 ' Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, 
 ' Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven ; 
 ' but he that doeth the will of my Father which 
 ' is in heaven. Many will say unto me in that 
 ' day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in 
 ' thy name ? and in thy name have cast out 
 ' devils? and in thy name done many wonderful 
 ' works? And then will I profess unto them, 
 ' I never knew you : depart from me, ye that 
 ' work iniquity. Therefore, whosoever heareth 
 ' these sayings of mine, arid doeth them, I will 
 ' liken him unto a wise man, which built his 
 ' house upon a rock : and the rain descended, 
 4 and the floods came, and the winds blew, and 
 ' beat upon that house ; and it fell not, for it
 
 90 REMARKS UPON 
 
 ' was founded upon a rock. And every one 
 ' that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth 
 ' them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, 
 ' which built his house upon the sand : and 
 ' the rain descended, and the floods came, and 
 4 the winds blew, and beat upon that house; 
 ' and it fell, and great was the fall of it. ' 
 (Matt, vii.) 
 
 * But when the Pharisees had heard that he 
 ' had put the Sadducees to silence, they were 
 ' gathered together. Then one of them, which 
 4 was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting 
 ' him, and saying, Master, which is the great 
 ' commandment in the law ? Jesus said unto 
 1 him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with 
 ' all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with 
 ' ail thy mind. This is the first and great coin- 
 ' mandment. And the second is like unto it, 
 ' Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On 
 ' these two commandments hang all the law 
 ' and the prophets. ' (Matt, xxii.) 
 
 ' And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up and 
 * tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do
 
 LEVl'S DISSERTATIONS. Ql 
 
 ' to inherit eternal life ? He said unto him, 
 ' What is written in the law ? How readest 
 4 thou ? And he, answering, said, Thou shalt 
 ' love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 
 4 and with all thy soul, and with all thy 
 ' strength, and with all thy mind ; and thy 
 4 neighbour as thyself. And he said unto him, 
 ' Thou hast answered right ; this do, and thou 
 ' shalt live. But he, willing to justify himself, 
 ' said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour? 
 ' and Jesus, answering, said, A certain man 
 ' went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and 
 ' fell among thieves, which stripped him of his 
 ' raiment, and wounded him, and departed. 
 ' leaving him half dead : and by chance there 
 ' came a certain priest that way ; and when he 
 ' saw r him, he passed by on the other side. 
 ' And likewise a Levite, when he was at 
 4 the place, came and looked on him, and 
 ' passed by on the other side. But a certain 
 ' Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he 
 ' was; and when he sa\v him, he had compas- 
 ' sion on him; and went to him, and bound
 
 ' up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and 
 8 set him on his own beast, and brought him 
 ' to an inn, and took care of him. And on the 
 ' morrow, when he departed, he took out two- 
 ' pence, and gave them to the host, and said 
 4 unto him, Take care of him ; and whatever 
 ' thou spendest more, when I come I will repay 
 ' thee. Which now of these three thinkest 
 ' thou was neighbour unto him that fell among 
 ' the thieves ? and he said, He that showed 
 4 mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, 
 ' Go thou, and do likewise. ' (Luke x.) 
 
 That Jesus was not only a preacher, but a 
 doer of righteousness, is evinced in every part 
 of the evangelical history. His whole public 
 ministry was a course of unwearied, and per- 
 severing, and ardent charity, to the souls and 
 bodies of men, as well as of piety to God. 
 Even his enemies and murderers could not prove 
 any crime or fault against him. He himself 
 said to the Jews, ' Which of you convinceth me 
 ' of sin:' (John viii. 46.) It is evident, from 
 the history of his condemnation by the Sanhe-
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 93 
 
 drim, that they were destitute even of a pretext 
 for putting him to death : they could allege no 
 crime against him, excepting that of his con- 
 fessing himself to be the Messiah, the Son of 
 God. (See John xix. 7-) 
 
 Mat. xxvi. o9. ' Now, the chief priests and 
 ' elders, and all the council, sought false witness 
 ' against Jesus to put him to death, but found 
 ' none : yea, though many false witnesses came, 
 ' yet found they none. At the last came two 
 ' false witnesses, and said, This (fellow) said, I 
 ' am able to destroy the temple of God, and to 
 ' build it in three days. And the high priest 
 ' arose, and said unto him, Answerest thou 
 'nothing? what is it which these witness 
 ' against thee ? But Jesus held his peace. And 
 ' the high priest answered and said unto him, I 
 c adjure thee, by the living God, that thou tell 
 ' us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of 
 ' God. Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said : 
 ' nevertheless, I say unto you, Hereafter shall 
 4 ye see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand 
 ' of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.
 
 94 REMARKS UPON 
 
 ' Then the high priest rent his clothes, saying, 
 4 He hath spoken blasphemy ; what further 
 ' need have we of witnesses? Behold, now ye 
 ' have heard his blasphemy. What think ye ? 
 ' They answered and said, He is guilty of 
 ' death. ' 
 
 Matth. xxvii. ' When the morning was 
 ' come, all the chief priests and elders of the 
 ' people took counsel against Jesus, to put him 
 * to death: and when they had bound him, they 
 ' led him away, and delivered him to Pontius 
 ' Pilate, the governor. Then Judas, which had 
 ' betrayed him, when he saw that he was con- 
 ' demned, repented himself, and brought again 
 ' the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests 
 ' and elders, saying, I have sinned, in that 1 
 ' have betrayed the innocent blood. And they 
 ' said, What is that to us ? See thou to it. 
 ' And he cast down the pieces of silver in the 
 ' temple, and departed, and went and hanged 
 ' himself. ' 
 
 ' And Jesus stood before the governor ; and 
 the governor asked him, saying, Art thou the
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 95 
 
 c king of the Jews ? And Jesus said unto him, 
 ' Thou sayest. And when he was accused of 
 4 the chief priests and elders, he answered no- 
 c thing. Then said Pilate unto him, Hearest 
 ' thou not how many things they witness 
 ' against thee? And he answered him to never a 
 
 O 
 
 ' word, insomuch that the governor marvelled 
 ' greatly. Now, at the feast, the governor was 
 4 wont to release unto the people a prisoner, 
 ' whom they would. And they had then a 
 ' notable prisoner, called Barabbas. Therefore, 
 ' when they were gathered together, Pilate said 
 ' unto them, Whom will ye that I release unto 
 ' you ? Barabbas, or Jesus, which is called 
 ' Christ? For he knew that for envy they had 
 c delivered him. When he was sat down on the 
 ' judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, 
 ' Have thou nothing to do with that just man; 
 ' for I have suffered many things this day in a 
 ' dream because of him. But the chief priests 
 ' and the elders persuaded the multitude that 
 ' they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus. 
 ; The governor answered and said unto them,
 
 96 REMARKS UPON 
 
 ' Whether of the twain will ye that I release 
 
 * unto you ? They said, Barabbas. Pilate saith 
 
 * unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus, 
 ' which is called Christ? They all say unto 
 ' him, Let him be crucified. And the governor 
 ' said, Why, what evil hath he done? But they 
 ' cried out the more, saying, Let him be cru- 
 ' cified. When Pilate saw that he could prevail 
 ' nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, 
 4 he took water, and washed his hands before 
 ' the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the 
 ' blood of this just person; see ye to it. Then 
 
 * answered all the people, and said, His blood be 
 ' on us, and on our children. Then released he 
 'Barabbas unto them; and when he had 
 
 * scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be cruci- 
 ' fied. > 
 
 My purpose, in giving the preceding quota- 
 tions, is to show, that of the three parties con- 
 cerned in the murder of Jesus, viz. Judas, his 
 betrayer; the chief priests, his accusers ; and 
 Pilate, his judge ; the first and the last pro- 
 nounced him completely innocent : and the se-
 
 LEVI'S DISSERTATIONS. 97 
 
 cond had no charge whatever to prefer against 
 him, but that one already mentioned, viz. that he 
 professed himself to be the Messiah. This is 
 evident from the proceedings of the Sanhedrim ; 
 for, though they ' sought false witness against 
 ' him, they found none ; ' and it was not till he 
 confessed himself to be the Son of God, that the 
 ' high priest rent his clofctlis, saying, He hath 
 
 * spoken blasphemy ; what further need have we 
 c of witnesses ? J The same thing is evident 
 from John xix. 6, 7, ' Pilate saith unto them, 
 c Take ye him, and crucify him, for I find no 
 4 fault in him. The Jews answered him, We 
 ' have a law, and by our law he ought to die, 
 
 * because he made himself the Son of God.' 
 
 Now, it is quite obvious, that, in order to 
 prove that Jesus was guilty of falsehood and 
 blasphemy, in confessing himself to be the 
 Messiah, it was necessary that the Sanhedrim 
 should have convicted him either of leading the 
 people away from the worship of God, (see 
 Deut. xiii. 1 5.) or of uttering false predic- 
 tions. (Deut. xviii. 20 22.) ' But the pro- 
 
 H
 
 98 REMARKS UPON 
 
 * phet which shall presume to speak a word in 
 
 * my name, which I have not commanded him 
 
 * to speak, or that shall speak in the name of 
 4 other gods, even that prophet shall die; and if 
 
 * thou say in thine heart, How shall we know 
 the word which the Lord hath not spoken ? 
 
 * When a prophet speaketh in the name of the 
 
 * Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, 
 4 that is the thing which the Lord hath not 
 4 spoken ; but the prophet hath spoken it pre- 
 4 sumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of 
 4 him.' 
 
 Did the Sanhedrim institute an inquiry into 
 the pretensions of Jesus upon these principles, 
 by which they were bound to be guided, as being 
 a part of the law of Moses ? It is evident that 
 they did not. They neither convicted Jesus 
 of false doctrines, nor of false predictions. 
 They could not call in question the spotless 
 innocency of his life ; nor can the modern Jews 
 prove that the Sanhedrim did, upon this occa- 
 sion, pay the smallest attention to the com- 
 mands of the law. It follows, therefore, (even
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 99 
 
 upon the supposition which is most favourable 
 to the Sanhedrim,) that they condemned Jesus 
 without any evidence whatever of his guilt; 
 i. e. they were (even on the supposition of his 
 being an impostor,) guilty of a judicial murder, 
 by condemning him as such without evidence. 
 But O ! if it be indeed true, as we Christians 
 believe, that he was the promised Messiah, how 
 awful is the load of guilt which this act of the 
 Sanhedrim entailed on the Jewish nation ! ' His 
 'blood' (said the Jews) 'be on us, and our 
 ' children:' that blood does still lie upon them 
 as a curse, and will do so, ' till they shall look 
 ' on him whom they have pierced, and mourn 
 ' for him as for an only son ; and shall be in 
 ' bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness 
 ' for his firstborn.' (Zech. xii.) 
 
 As, therefore, we have seen that Jesus was a 
 preacher of righteousness ; that his whole mini- 
 stry was a course of active beneficence to the souls 
 and bodies of men ; and that his greatest enemies, 
 the Jewish Sanhedrim, with all the advantages 
 they possessed from their official situation, could 
 
 H 2
 
 100 REMARKS UPON 
 
 prove nothing against him ; and, as we have 
 further seen, that both his betrayer^ Judas, and 
 his judge, Pilate, pronounced him innocent; it 
 follows that, in every respect, his character and 
 conduct showed him to be ' the righteous ser- 
 ' vant of God;' which is the great characteristi- 
 cal mark of the person described in Isaiah liii. 
 
 The next feature of character belonging to the 
 person who is mentioned in Isaiah liii., is, as we 
 have seen, that his sufferings are expiatory; and 
 submitted to by him for the sins of others, arid 
 not for his own. ' He was wounded for our 
 
 * transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, the 
 ' chastisement of our peace was upon him, and 
 ' with his stripes we are healed. We all, like 
 4 sheep, have gone astray, &c. ; and the Lord 
 
 * hath laid, or caused to meet on him, the ini- 
 4 quity of us all.* And, in the concluding verse 
 it is said, that ' he bare the sin of many. * Now, 
 it deserves particular consideration, that the 
 Hebrew word here used for he bare, is precisely 
 the same which, in Leviticus xvi. 22, is applied 
 to the bearing away the sins of the children of
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 101 
 
 Israel by the scape-goat. In Isaiah liii. 12, the 
 phrase is MM DU"| NZDnand in Leviticus xvi. 22, 
 it is D/W~^3~~.nN ?ty TjnOT MM1 The inference 
 is, that the bearing of sin, in both passages, has 
 the same meaning; and it is natural also to sup- 
 pose, that the scape-goat was a type of the 
 righteous person mentioned in Isaiah liii., who 
 was, in the proper sense of the word, to bear the 
 sins of many. 
 
 Let us now compare the doctrines of the 
 New Testament, with respect to the sufferings 
 of Jesus, with the foregoing prophecy. Does 
 Isaiah say of the righteous servant of God that 
 ' he bare the sin of many?' The New Testa- 
 ment testifies the same of Jesus, (John i. 29.) 
 ' The next day, John seeth Jesus coming unto 
 ; him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, 
 
 which taketh away the sin of the world.' 
 (Matth. xx. 28.) * The Son of man came not 
 
 to be ministered unto, but to minister; and to 
 ; give his life a ransom for many.' (Rom. v. 6.) 
 ' For when we were yet without strength, in 
 ' due time Christ died for the ungodly.' (1 Pet.
 
 102 REMARKS UPON 
 
 ii. 21.) ' Christ also suffered for us, leaving us 
 c an example that ye should follow his steps ; 
 ' who did no sin, neither was guile found in his 
 ' mouth.' * Who, his own self, bare our sins on 
 ' his own body on the tree, that we, being dead 
 ' to sin, should live unto righteousness ; by 
 1 whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as 
 ' sheep going astray; but are now returned 
 ' unto the shepherd and bishop of your souls/ 
 
 Isaiah says of the righteous servant of God, 
 (liii. 10.) ' It pleased the Lord to bruise him ; he 
 ' hath put him to grief. ' The New Testament 
 says, (Rom. viii. 32.) ' He that spared not his 
 ' own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how 
 ' shall he not with him also freely give us all 
 ' things?' (1 John iv. 9.) ' In this was mani- 
 ' fested the love of God towards us, because 
 * that God sent his only begotten Son into the 
 ' world, that we might live through him. 
 ' Herein is love, not that we loved God, but 
 ' that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the 
 ' propitiation for our sins.' 
 
 Isaiah says, ' he bare the sin of many; and
 
 LEVI S DISSERTATIONS. 103 
 
 ' made intercession for the transgressors. 3 St. 
 Paul says, (1 Tim. ii. 5, 6.) ' For there is one 
 ' God, and one Mediator between God and 
 1 man, the man Christ Jesus ; who gave him- 
 1 self a ransom for all, to be testified in due 
 c time. 5 (Heb. ix. 26.) ' But now, once in the 
 
 * end of the world hath he appeared, to put 
 ' away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as 
 ' it is appointed unto men once to die, but after 
 4 death the judgment; so Christ was once 
 ' offered to bear the sins of many ; and unto 
 ' them that look for him shall he appear the se- 
 ' cond time, without sin, unto salvation. 5 St. 
 Peter says, (1 Pet. iii. 18.) ' For Christ 
 4 also hath once suffered for sins, the just 
 
 - for the unjust ; that he might bring us to 
 
 God. 5 
 
 Isaiah says, (liii. 9-) ' He made his grave with 
 4 the wicked, and with the rich, in his death.' 
 We are informed by the evangelists, that Jesus 
 was crucified in a place called Golgotha, or the 
 place of a skull ; which was probably so called 
 from its being the place of burial for the male-
 
 104 REMARKS UPON 
 
 factors who had been executed there. * St. 
 John further says, (ch. xix. 41, and 42.) ' Now, 
 4 in the place where Jesus was crucified, there 
 
 * was a garden, and in this garden a new sepul- 
 ' chre, wherein was never man yet laid ; there 
 ' laid they Jesus therefore, because of the Jews' 
 c preparation, for the sepulchre was nigh at 
 ' hand.' 
 
 4 Here, then, we may see and admire the exact 
 
 * completion of this famous prophecy of Isaiah, 
 ' He made his grave with the wicked, and with 
 4 the rich, in his death. He was buried like the 
 4 wicked companions of his death, under the 
 ' general leave granted to the Jews for taking 
 
 * down their bodies from the cross ; and was, 
 ' like them, buried in, or near the place of exe- 
 
 * cution. 
 
 4 But here the distinction, foreseen and fore- 
 4 told many hundred years before, took place in 
 4 favour of Jesus; who, though numbered with 
 
 * See West on the Resurrection, Sec. xviii. page 209.
 
 LEVI S DISSERTATIONS. 10.5 
 
 ' the transgressors, had done no violence, neither 
 4 was there any deceit in his mouth; for Joseph 
 ' of Arimathea, a rich man, and an honourable 
 ' counsellor, (Matth. xxvii. 57. Markxv. 43. 
 ' John xix. 38.) and Nicodemus, a man of the 
 ' Pharisees, a ruler of the Jews, a master of Israel, 
 
 * conspired to make his grave with the rich, by 
 ' wrapping his body in linen cloaths, with a mix- 
 ' ture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred 
 ' pounds weight, and lay ing it in anew sepulchre, 
 ' hewed or hollowed into a rock, which Joseph 
 ' of Arimathea had caused to be made for his 
 ' own use; circumstances which evidently show, 
 ' that he was not only buried by the rich, but 
 ' like the rich also, according to the prophecy. ' 
 (West on the Resurrection, page 210.) 
 
 Isaiah says, (i-er. 12.) ' Therefore will I 
 ' divide him a portion with the great, and he 
 4 shall divide the spoil with the strong; because 
 ' he hath poured out his soul unto death. ' St. 
 Paul says of Jesus, (Phil. ii. 8.) ' Being found 
 ' in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and 
 
 * became obedient unto death, even the death of
 
 106 REMARKS UPON 
 
 * the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly 
 4 exalted him, and given him a name which is 
 
 * above every name ; that at the name of Jesus 
 c every knee should bow ; of (things) in heaven, 
 ' and in earth, and under the earth : and that 
 ' every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ 
 4 is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. ' The 
 same doctrine respecting Jesus is taught through- 
 out the whole of the New Testament. (Matth. 
 xxviii. 18.) ' And Jesus came and spake unto 
 e them, saying, All power is given unto me in 
 
 * heaven and in earth/ (See Acts ii. 33. iii. 
 21. Heb. i. 3.) 
 
 Finally, Isaiah says, ' he was numbered with 
 ' the transgressors;' and the evangelists tell that 
 4 there were two thieves crucified with Jesus, 
 4 the one on his right hand, the other on his left.' 
 (Matth. xxvii. 38.) Isaiah tells us, ' he made 
 4 intercession for the transgressors;' and Luke 
 informs us, (xxiii. 34.) that Jesus made inter- 
 cession for his murderers, saying, ' Father, for- 
 ' give them, for they know not what they do.' 
 We are also told in Heb. vii. 25, that Jesus
 
 LEVl's 7DISSERTATIONS. 107 
 
 * ever liveth to make intercession for them that 
 
 * come unto God by him.' 
 
 I have thus shown, that there is the most 
 exact coincidency between this prophecy of 
 Isaiah, and the life, and sufferings, and death, 
 the character, and offices of Jesus, as described 
 in the New Testament; and this, not in one 
 particular, but in all. Now, as God knoweth, 
 and ' declareth the end from the beginning, and 
 ' from ancient times things that are not yet 
 4 done, ' (Isaiah xlvi. 10.) it follows, that this 
 coincidency must have been foreknown by the 
 Lord when he inspired his servant Isaiah to 
 utter this prophecy; and, consequently, that it 
 must have been designed by Him. Therefore, 
 God did, in this passage, design to describe 
 Jesus as his righteous servant, who should, by 
 his sufferings, atone for our iniquities. Conse- 
 quently, as Jesus is the righteous servant of 
 God, we must receive his testimony concerning 
 himself; and it follows that he is the Messiah. 
 
 Oh that there were such a heart in every 
 one of the children of Abraham who may read
 
 108 REMARKS UPON 
 
 these pages, as to lead them seriously to pray to 
 the God of theirfathers, the God of Abraham, 
 of Isaac, and of Jacob, that he would give them 
 a heart rightly to understand this prophecy of 
 Isaiah ! Then I have no doubt that the pro- 
 phecy of Zechariah xii. 10 14, would also be 
 very soon fulfilled with respect to them. I 
 would now conclude this chapter in the words 
 of the pious psalmist, * O that the salvation of 
 
 - Israel were come out of Zion ! When the 
 ' Lord bringeth back the captivity of his people, 
 
 * Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad. '
 
 LEV! S DISSERTATIONS. 
 
 109 
 
 CHAP. V. 
 
 THE SAME SUB.JECT CONTINUED. 
 
 IN the twenty-second Psalm, David, speaking 
 in the first person, describes a series of the most 
 dreadful sufferings, which correspond, in the 
 most particular and minute manner, with the 
 sufferings of Jesus, as related by the evangelists. 
 I shall place the following quotations from the 
 psalmist and the evangelists, in opposite co- 
 lumns, that the reader may the more easily dis- 
 cern the exact correspondence between them. 
 
 Psalm, ver. 6. ' I am a 
 
 * worm, and no man ; a re- 
 
 * proach of men, and d,e- 
 
 * spised of the people. ' 
 
 Matth. xxvi. 67. ' Then 
 * did they spit in his face, 
 ' aud buffeted him ; and 
 ' others smote him with 
 ' the palms of their hands, 
 ' saying, Prophesy unto 
 ' us, tfoou Christ : who is 
 he that smote thee ? '
 
 110 
 
 Psalm, ver. 7- ' All they 
 ' that see me. laugh me to 
 1 scorn : they shoot out the 
 lip, they shake the head, 
 4 saying, He trusted in the 
 
 * Lord that he would deli- 
 
 * ver him ; let him deliver 
 ' him, seeing he delighted 
 ' in him.' 
 
 Psalm, ver. 14. ' 1 am 
 ' poured out like water, 
 
 * and all my bones are out 
 
 * of joint : my heart is like 
 
 Matth. xxvii. 39. ' They 
 ' that passed by reviled 
 ' him, wagging their heads, 
 ' and saying, Thou that 
 
 * destroy est the temple, 
 ' and buildest it in three 
 'days, save thyself: if 
 
 * thou be the Son of God, 
 
 * come down from the 
 
 * cross. Likewise, also, the 
 ' chief priests, mocking 
 ' (him) with the elders and 
 
 * scribes, said, He saved 
 
 * others, himself he cannot 
 ' save : if he be the king 
 ' of Israel, let him now 
 
 * come down from the 
 
 * cross, and we will believe 
 him. He trusted in God ; 
 ' let him deliver him now, 
 ' if he will have him, for 
 ' he said, I am the Son of 
 < God. ' 
 
 Matth. xxvii. 27- ' Then 
 ' the soldiers of the gover- 
 4 nor took Jesus into the 
 ' common hall, and ga-
 
 LEVI S DISSERTATIONS. 
 
 Ill 
 
 * wax ; it is melted in the 
 
 * midst of my bowels. My 
 ' strength is dried up like 
 
 * a potsherd ; and my 
 
 * tongue cleaveth unto my 
 ' jaws ; and thou hast 
 ' brought me into the dust 
 ' of death. For dogs have 
 ' compassed me ; the as- 
 
 * sembly of the wicked 
 ' have inclosed me : they 
 
 * pierced my hands and my 
 ' feet. I may tell all my 
 
 * bones : they look and 
 ' stare on me. They part 
 ' my garments among 
 ' them, and cast lots upon 
 ' my vesture. ' 
 
 thered unto him the 
 ' whole band of soldiers. 
 ' And they stripped him, 
 ' and put on him a scarlet 
 ' robe. And when they 
 had platted a crown of 
 ' thorns, they put it upon 
 ' his head, and a reed in 
 ' his right hand ; and they 
 ' bowed the knee before 
 ' him, and mocked him, 
 
 * saying, Hail ! king of the 
 1 Jews ! And they spit 
 ' upon him ; and took the 
 ' reed, and smote him on 
 ' the head. And after 
 ' that they had mocked 
 ' him, they took the robe 
 ' off from him, and put his 
 
 * own raiment on him, and 
 
 * led him away to crucify 
 ' him. (John xix. 23.) 
 ' Then the soldiers, when 
 ' they had crucified Jesus, 
 
 * took his garments, ami 
 
 * made four parts, to every 
 ' soldier a part ; and also
 
 112 
 
 REMARKS UPON 
 
 his coat : now the coat 
 ' was without seam, woven 
 4 from the top throughout. 
 
 * They said, therefore, 
 ' among themselves, Let 
 
 * us not rend it, but cast 
 
 * lots for it whose it shall 
 be ; that the Scripture 
 ' might be fulfilled, which 
 saith, They parted my 
 ' raiment among them, and 
 
 * for my vesture they did 
 ' cast lots : these things, 
 ' therefore, the soldiers 
 < did.' 
 
 As we read of nothing in the history of 
 David's life, which at all corresponds with the 
 language of this Psalm, we must conclude, that 
 though the psalmist here speaks in the first 
 person, yet the Spirit of God, who inspired him 
 to express himself as above, had some other 
 person in view; and when we see how exactly 
 the language corresponds with the history given 
 us by the evangelists, of the last sufferings of 
 Jesus, we cannot avoid coming to the conclu-
 
 LEVI S DISSERTATIONS. 113 
 
 sion, that Jesus and his sufferings are here 
 spoken of. At least, if the Jews deny this, 
 they must produce some other individual to 
 whose history the description may answer 
 better. 
 
 There are various other passages in the pro- 
 phets which were fulfilled in Jesus. (Zechariah 
 ix. 9.) ' Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion ! 
 ' shout, O daughter of Jerusalem ! Behold, thy 
 < king cometh unto thee: he is just, and having 
 
 * salvation ; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and 
 4 upon a colt, the foal of an ass. ' This predic- 
 tion was fulfilled in Jesus, (Matth. xxi. 6.) 
 ' And the disciples went, and did as Jesus com- 
 
 * manded them ; and brought the ass and the 
 1 colt, and put on them their clofcih^, and they 
 ' set him thereon. And a very great multitude 
 ' spread their garments in the way ; others cut 
 ' down branches from the trees, and strawed 
 
 * them in the way. And the multitudes that 
 
 * went before, and that followed, cried, saying, 
 ' Hosanna to the Son of David ! Blessed is he 
 ' that cometh in the name of the Lord ! Hosan- 
 
 i
 
 114 REMARKS UPON 
 
 e na in the highest! And when he was come 
 ' into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, 
 c Who is this ? And the multitude said, This 
 4 is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth of Ga- 
 ' lilee. ' 
 
 It may be remarked, that the Hebrew word 
 *& which our translators render ' lowly 9 ' in the 
 foregoing passage of Zechariah, signifies likewise 
 ' afflicted; 1 * (see Parkhurst on the word rtiy) the 
 clause might, therefore, without violence to the 
 original, be rendered, ' Behold, thy king cometh 
 ' unto thee, just, and having salvation; he (is) 
 ' afflicted, and riding upon an ass, even upon a 
 ' colt, the foal of an ass. J To show with 
 what minute accuracy the prophecy was fulfilled 
 in Jesus, we have only to turn to Luke's 
 
 * j# seems to signify uny kind of distress which op- 
 presses or depresses a man. It is translated poor in Deut. 
 xxiv. 12, 14, 15. It is used in Exod. iii. 7, to express the 
 oppression and affliction of Israel in the land of Egypt : 
 perhaps it is best rendered in English by a complex term, 
 oppressed with affliction) or poverty.
 
 LEVls DISSERTATIONS. 
 
 Gospel, (xix. 41.) where we are told in what 
 manner he was aftlicted when he approached 
 the holy city. ' And when he was come near, he 
 ' beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If 
 ' thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this 
 ' thy day, the things that belong to thy peace ! 
 ' but now they are hid from thine eyes : for the 
 ' days shall come upon thee that thine enemies 
 ' shall cast a trench about thee, and compass 
 'thee round, and keep thee in on every side; 
 ' and shall lay thee even with the ground, and 
 ' thy children within thee ; and they shall not 
 ' leave in thee one stone upon another ; because 
 ' thou knewest not the time of thy visitation/ 
 
 It was foretold by the prophet Haggai, that 
 the Messiah was to appear during the standing 
 of the second temple, (ii. 6.) ' For thus saith 
 < the Lord, yet once, it is a little while, and I 
 ' will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the 
 ' sea, and the dry land ; and I will shake all na- 
 ' tions ; and the desire of all nations shall 
 4 come ; and I will fill this house with glory, 
 ' saith the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine, 
 
 i 2
 
 116 REMARKS UPON 
 
 4 and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts. 
 4 The glory of this latter house shall be greater 
 * than of the former, saith the Lord of hosts; 
 1 and in this place will I give peace, saith the 
 ' Lord of hosts. ' 
 
 If the Jews, about the time that Jesus ap- 
 peared, did not understand this prophecy as 
 foretelling the advent of the Messiah while the 
 second temple was standing ; and if they did 
 not understand Daniel's famous prophecy of the 
 seventy weeks as Christians now do, it seems 
 very difficult, if not impossible, to account for 
 the universal expectation which they then in- 
 dulged, of the immediate coming of the Mes- 
 siah. That such an expectation was prevalent 
 among them is evident, not only from the 
 evangelical history, but also from the testimony 
 of Sfcuetonius and Tacitus, who agree in affirm- 
 ing, that there was an opinion spread through 
 the whole East, that at that very time some 
 person was to arise in Judea, who should 
 obtain the empire of the world. But, if such 
 was the opinion of the Jews, it supports the
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 117 
 
 pretensions of Jesus : and, if that was the 
 time appointed for the appearance of the Mes- 
 siah, no other person but Jesus did appear, who 
 could have any pretensions to that character, 
 and the Jews look in vain for the appearance 
 of another Messiah now; and it is only by 
 complying with the prediction of Zechariah 
 xii. 10 14, that they will be enabled to dis- 
 cover the true Messiah. 
 
 The shaking of the heavens, and earth, and sea, 
 and dry land, mentioned by the prophet Haggai, 
 in the above passage, seems to refer to the over- 
 throw of the Persian empire by Alexander the 
 Great, which took place in about two centuries 
 from the time of this prophecy ; for it is by 
 such symbols that the prophets describe the 
 revolutions of states and empires. By the shak- 
 ing of all nations, mentioned in the seventh 
 verse, the Spirit of God seems to intend the 
 overthrow of the Macedonian empire, and the 
 conquest of Syria and Judea by the Romans, 
 and those dreadful wars and commotions which 
 accompanied these events, and took place im-
 
 118 REMARKS UPON 
 
 mediately before the coming of Jesus. It was 
 after this shaking that Jesus appeared in the 
 world ; and the evangelist, having related his 
 entry into Jerusalem, riding upon an ass, 
 (Matth. xxi.) thus describes his appearance in 
 the temple. ' And Jesus went into the temple 
 ' of God, and cast out all them that bought and 
 ' sold in the temple ; and overthrew the tables 
 ' of the money-changers, and the seats of them 
 ' that sold doves ; and said unto them, It is 
 ' written, My house shall be called the house of 
 ' prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves. 
 ' And the blind and the lame came to him in 
 4 the temple, and he healed them. And when 
 ' the chief priests and scribes saw the woncler- 
 4 ful things that he did, and the children crying 
 ' in the temple, and saying, Hosanna to the Son 
 ' of David ! they were sore displeased, and said 
 ' unto him, Hearest thou what these say? And 
 ' Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never 
 ; read, Out ot the mouths of babes and suck- 
 ' lings thou hast perfected praise ?' 
 
 Thus, by the appearance of Jesus, the Mes-
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 119 
 
 siah, in the second temple, before his last suffer- 
 ings and death, that temple acquired a greater 
 glory than the one built by Solomon. There is 
 no other way by which the second temple, 
 which had not the Shechinah, or the Ark of 
 the Covenant, or the Tables of the Law, or the 
 Urim and Thummim, or the Holy Fire, can be 
 shown to have had a greater glory than the first 
 temple, which was glorified by all these 
 emblems of the divine presence and favour; 
 for it is not in the external ornaments of gold 
 and silver that the glory of either temple did 
 consist, but in the presence of the Almighty, 
 and the visible emblems of his favour and pro- 
 tection.
 
 120 REMARKS UPON 
 
 CHAP. VI. 
 
 ARGUMENT THAT JESUS IS THE MESSIAH, FROM THE PRE- 
 SENT STATE OF THE JEWS AND OF THE CHRISTIAN 
 GENTILES. 
 
 IF Jesus be the Messiah, then it follows, 
 that all the Gentiles who believe on him are 
 now the people of God ; and that the Jews, 
 by crucifying the Messiah, and still continuing 
 to reject him, have ceased to be in a covenant 
 relation with the God of their fathers. 
 
 On the other hand, if Jesus be not the Mes- 
 siah, but either an enthusiast, or an impostor, 
 then his followers, who acknowledge him as the 
 Messiah, and worship him as God, one and 
 equal with the Father, are, by so doing, guilty 
 both of blasphemy and idolatry : and it follows,
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 1*21 
 
 upon this supposition, that the Gentile nations, 
 who have embraced the religion of Jesus, are 
 not the people of God ; and that the Jews, who 
 yet wait for the true Messiah, are the only 
 people who can be said to continue in the wor- 
 ship of the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and 
 Jacob : i. e. they are, on this hypothesis, still 
 the people of God ; for it will not be denied 
 that the true worshippers of God, and those 
 who believe in, and embrace the promises made 
 in his written word, are his people. 
 
 It is my design, in this chapter, to examine 
 
 which of these conclusions is most agreeable 
 
 ~ 
 
 to the language of the Hebrew Scriptures, and 
 to the present state of the Jewish nation. But, 
 previous to this, I shall endeavour to show 
 what are the sentiments of David Levi upon 
 this point. 
 
 Levi does, in his work on the prophecies, 
 expressly admit, " that it was for their enormous 
 " wickedness that the Jews were removed from 
 "their own land;" (Vol. I. page 43 62.) 
 yet he elsewhere maintains, (Vol. 1. page 266.)
 
 REMARKS UPON 
 
 " That God hath chosen Israel for his glory ; 
 " to lutnd down I lie knowledge of Ins unity among 
 " the nations hitherto ; and, at their restoration, 
 " to be the means of bringing all mankind to 
 " the true knowledge of Cod." And, in Vol. I. 
 pages .52, o3, and 223 ; and Vol. It. page 23o, 
 he represents the Jews as worshipping the one 
 true God the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and 
 Jacob ; and that their dreadful persecutions 
 and massacres have been endured because of 
 their adherence to the doctrine of the pure 
 unity of God, so strongly inculcated in the 
 Mosaic dispensation, in opposition to every 
 other doctrine, and particularly to the Christian 
 doctrine, of a plurality of persons in the God- 
 head. I therefore understand Levi as main- 
 taining, that, throughout the whole period of 
 their captivity, the Jews have been the only 
 true worshippers of the God of their fathers: 
 and as all the relations between God and man 
 are mutual, it follows, upon this supposition, 
 that as the Jews have been the only true wor- 
 shippers of God. lie, on the other hand, has
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 123 
 
 been to them as their God, and they have been 
 his people. It also follows, that the Christian 
 Gentiles, being- corrupters of the doctrine of the 
 pure unity, and worshippers of a deceiver or 
 enthusiast, God has never stood in a covenant 
 relation towards them, and they have never 
 been his people. Having thus seen what is 
 the opinion of David Levi, and the conse- 
 quences of his opinion, I shall proceed to ex- 
 amine how far it is agreeable to the Hebrew 
 Scriptures. 
 
 In a preceding- chapter, various passages 
 were quoted from the Hebrew Scriptures, to 
 show that the cause of the Jews being led into 
 their present long and dreadful captivity, was 
 their having grievouslv sinned against the Lord 
 
 c O 
 
 their God. I shall now bring forward such 
 passages as seem most directly to bear upon 
 the question, & . whether the Jews have, 
 during their long captivity, been the true wor- 
 shippers of Goci ? And here I would premise, 
 that, to worship God, to serve God, to seek, or 
 to obev, or love, or know God, are all terms.
 
 124 REMARKS UPOX 
 
 which, in the Scripture language, are nearly 
 synonymous : at least, any one of these actions 
 or affections certainly implies, in itself, all the 
 rest ; and, on the other hand, the negation of 
 any one of them implies the absence of all. 
 
 Moses prophesied as follows, in Deuter. xxx. 
 ' And it shall come to pass, when all these 
 ' things are come upon thee, the blessing and 
 4 the curse, which I have set before thee, and 
 ' thou shalt call (them) to mind among all 
 1 the nations whither the Lord thy God hath 
 ' driven thee ; and shalt return unto the Lord 
 ' thy God, and shalt obey his voice, accord- 
 ' ing to all that I command thee this day, 
 c thou, and thy children, with all thy heart, 
 ' and with' all thy soul, that then the Lord 
 ' thy God will turn thy captivity, &c. ' (ver. 6.) 
 ' And the Lord thy God will circumcise thy 
 ' heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the 
 ' Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy 
 ' soul, that thou mayest live. ' 
 
 The inference I draw from the above passage, 
 is this: as the restoration of the children of
 
 LEVI'S DISSERTATIONS. 125 
 
 Israel from their long and dreadful captivity, 
 is to take place as soon as they return unto the 
 Lord their God, and not before, it follows, 
 that, during this captivity, they have been 
 afar off from God ; for a people that is already 
 near to God, cannot be called upon to return to 
 him. Now, to be afar off from God necessarily 
 includes in it the absence of his true fear, and 
 love, and worship, from the heart of those 
 who are thus afar off. Therefore, as the Jews 
 have been, during their long captivity, and 
 still are, afar off from God, it follows that 
 they have not, and do not, truly love and 
 worship him ; and, consequently, they do riot 
 know him. And hence we may see the suita- 
 bleness to their present condition, of the promise 
 contained in Hosea ii. 20, that the children of 
 Israel shall, upon their return from captivity, 
 * know the Lord. ' 
 
 From this we may also see the absurdity of 
 the reasoning of David Levi, in Vol. I. page 32, 
 of his Dissertations ; for he there represents 
 one party among the Jews as having " con-
 
 126 REMARKS UPON 
 
 " stantly adhered to the true faith, " and' al- 
 ways continued in the covenant ; and yet he 
 says that this party of true worshippers are, 
 at the period of their restoration, to return to 
 God by a sincere repentance in a public manner . 
 But if they have always adhered to the true 
 faith, and to the covenant, then they have 
 always been near to 'God; and there can be 
 no need of a public and solemn returning to 
 God, such as is necessary for those w r ho have 
 apostatized. According to Levi, the Christian 
 nations, among whom these Jews dwell, have 
 corrupted the doctrine of the pure unity of the 
 Godhead; and the Jews are witnesses and 
 martvrs for this true doctrine. Now, if Levi 
 
 ft/ 
 
 were right in this opinion, we certainly might 
 have expected that the restoration of the Jews 
 to their own land would have been promised 
 to them, not upon their returning to God, 
 (for, on this hypothesis, they have never de- 
 parted from God,) but as a reward for their 
 long and faithful adherence to the worship 
 and the covenant, of God. in the midst of the
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 127 
 
 most trying and adverse circumstances. The 
 language of Moses is, therefore, quite inconsis- 
 tent with the scheme of David Levi ; for, by 
 promising their restoration upon their return to 
 God, it supposes that they have departed from 
 God, and from his covenant. 
 
 There is a passage in the xxviii. of Deu- 
 teronomy, the 28th and 29th verses, which is 
 no less inconsistent with Levi's scheme. It 
 is as follows: ' The Lord shall smite thee 
 ' with madness, and blindness, and astonish- 
 ' ment of heart ; and thou shalt grope at noon 
 * day, as the blind gropeth in darkness. ' This 
 is one of the judgments denounced against 
 the children of Israel for their disobedience : 
 and the only question which arises in consider- 
 ing the passage, is, What is the nature of the 
 blindness here threatened ? 
 
 The following is Levi's explanation of the 
 blindness mentioned in the first clause of 
 Isaiah xxxv. o, ' Then shall the eyes of the 
 ' blind be opened. ' " In this figurative lan- 
 " guage," (says Levi,) " the prophet, in a most
 
 128 REMARKS UPON 
 
 " masterly manner, has drawn an exact picture 
 " of the state of the (Jewish) nation during this 
 " dreadful captivity ; for, on account of the 
 " great troubles they have undergone, they 
 " may be said to be blind ; their sight being 
 " darkened, as it were, by the excessive 
 " afflictions which they have suffered ; dark- 
 " ness being an emblem of affliction. " 
 
 In his remarks upon Isaiah xlii., (Dissert. 
 Vol. I. page 256.) and particularly on that part 
 of the Messiah's office which relates to his 
 opening the blind eyes, (see ver. 7,) Levi has, 
 however, adopted a very different explanation 
 of the blindness there mentioned, and which he, 
 very properly, refers to the Gentiles. " Here" 
 (says Levi,) " the proper office of the Messiah 
 " is clearly shown, in respect to the nations, 
 " (Gentiles,) who may justly be said to be in 
 " a state of spiritual blindness, on account of 
 " their not having a clear idea of the truth and 
 " unity of God : he is therefore to enlighten 
 " them, and open their eyes to the truth." 
 
 It thus appears, that when blindness is pre-
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 129 
 
 dieted of his own nation (the Jews) in the 
 prophetical writings, David Levi explains the 
 term as denoting the " effects of the excessive 
 "afflictions they have undergone; darkness 
 " being an emblem of affliction ; " but when 
 blindness is predicted of the Gentiles, he 
 explains it as denoting " a state of spiritual 
 " blindness, on account of their not having 
 " a clear idea of the truth and unity of God ! " 
 We of the Gentiles have no objections to this 
 interpretation, in so far as it respects ourselves. 
 We acknowledge, with the deepest gratitude 
 to God, that we were blind, and did sit in 
 darkness, worshipping the works of our own 
 hands, and devils; but, blessed be God, that 
 ' the Day Spring from on high hath visited us, 
 ' to give light to us who did sit in darkness, 
 4 and in the shadow of death; to guide our 
 4 feet in the way of peace. ' We acknowledge 
 that Jesus, the Messiah, did open our blind 
 eyes by the light of his glorious gospel, 
 whereby he hath called all who believe in his 
 name from darkness into his marvellous light ; 
 
 K
 
 130 REMARKS UPON 
 
 and we produce this, as an incontrovertible 
 argument, that He is the true Messiah. But 
 we demand of David Levi, upon what prin- 
 ciples of just and fair interpretation of the 
 prophetical writings does he understand blind- 
 ness, when predicted of the Jews, to mean one 
 thing ; and, when predicted of the Gentiles, 
 to mean quite a different thing? -'If this be 
 allowable, then we rm<y make any thing we 
 please of prophecy, and turn and twist it just 
 as it suits our purpose . If this be allowable, 
 it destroys every principle of certain interpreta- 
 tion, and we degrade the word of Jehovah him- 
 self to a level with the abominable quibbles of 
 the Delphic oracles . 
 
 David Levi complains, I think with great 
 reason, (Dissert. Vol. I. page 129.) of the 
 unfairness of those interpreters, among Chris- 
 tians, who " explain the prophecies which 
 " foretel the calamities of the Jews, in a literal 
 " sense, and those which speak of their future 
 *' felicity, in a spiritual, and mystical sense." 
 " It is not a little pleasant," (says Levi,) " to
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 131 
 
 " observe the great kindness of Christians 
 " towards us in this respect; for they are 
 " extremely ready and willing to grant us the 
 " entire and undisturbed possession of all the 
 "evils foretold us; which, indeed, we have 
 " fully experienced for upwards of seventeen 
 " hundred years ; whilst they, with equal gene- 
 Ci rosity, apply to themselves all the glorious 
 " promises, which, with equal certainty, pre- 
 " diet our future happiness in the latter days. 
 " This is kind indeed ! and for which, I am 
 " sorry to say, our nation in general, and my- 
 " self in particular, are not quite so thankful, 
 " as, perhaps, might be expected of us ! " &c. 
 The writer of these pages is happy to be 
 able to express his perfect concurrence with 
 the learned Jew in the above sentiments ; 
 but he would put t home to every candid Jew, 
 whether Levi, in his interpretation of the term 
 blindness, as applied to the Jews and Gentiles 
 respectively, has not been guilty of a want 
 of fairness and candour, not unlike that of 
 the above spiritualizing interpreters among the 
 
 K2
 
 132 REMARKS UPON 
 
 Christians. To be consistent with himself, 
 the Jewish writer must admit, that, whether 
 the term blindness be applied to the Jewish 
 nation or the Gentiles, it has one and the 
 same signification, viz. spiritual blindness ; ig- 
 norance of God and his law; of ourselves, 
 our duty, and true happiness. Indeed, I 
 should have thought that David Levi would 
 have found no difficulty in admitting this 
 interpretation ; since, in his remarks upon the 
 very same prophecy of Isaiah, he represents 
 the prophet as upbraiding the Jews " with 
 " acting as deaf and blind persons ; since they 
 " would neither hear the words of the prophet, 
 *' nor see and consider the wonderful works of 
 -' God: on the contrary, they scoffed and 
 " mocked the prophet. " (Vide Dissert. \o\. I. 
 page 260.) 
 
 The blindness, therefore, which is denounced 
 by Moses against Israel, as one of the judg- 
 ments brought upon them by their sins ; and 
 which is so great, that they are to ' grope at 
 ' noon day, as the blind gropeth in darkness ; J
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 133 
 
 does, without controversy, signify spiritual 
 blindness. And the idea here suggested to us, 
 is, that the Jews, though surrounded with the 
 ftft blaze of the light of revelation, and dwell- 
 ing in that light, shall be unable to discern one 
 single ray of it ; and, though involved in long 
 continued and most dreadful calamities, they 
 shall be unable to discover the cause of them, 
 but shall grope and feel their way, even as 
 we see the blind do at noon day. How un- 
 speakably awful and affecting is this descrip- 
 tion of the spiritual condition of this once 
 highly-honoured and happy nation ! O ! that 
 every Jew who may read these pages would 
 take it to heart; and, retiring into his closet, 
 would bend his knees to the God of Abraham, 
 and Isaac, and Jacob, beseeching God to en- 
 lighten the eyes of his understanding, to know 
 the true nature of the blindness, which, ac- 
 cording to the prediction of Moses, the servant 
 of the Lord, has befallen the people of God ! 
 
 I need scarcely add, after what has been 
 said, that this state of spiritual blindness is
 
 134 REMARKS UPON 
 
 quite opposite to the opinion formed by David 
 Levi, of the condition of his own nation. We 
 have already seen that the learned Jew repre- 
 sents one party of his nation as having ".con- 
 " stantly adhered to the truth, and made open 
 " profession of the faith, and always continued 
 " in the covenant. " Another party he states 
 (Vol. I. page 30.) as " consisting of such, who, 
 " through the length of the captivity, number- 
 " less massacres, persecutions, and banishments, 
 " have not sufficient fortitude to support them, 
 " and therefore seem to apostatize, and pretend 
 " to embrace Christianity ; but, in their hearts, 
 " secretly adhere to the true faith and law of 
 " Moses : and such arc, at this day, called 
 " among us O'D'ON Tlie compelled ones; because 
 " they act by compulsion ; for, as soon as they 
 " can by any means escape from the popish 
 " countries, they instantly return to Judaism." 
 According to Levi, then, both these parties 
 of the nation know the truth, and the cove- 
 nant; and, while the one party openly professes 
 the faith, the other secretlv adheres to it. But,
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 13.5 
 
 in the Hebrew Scriptures, they who know the 
 truth, and adhere to the covenant of God, 
 are said to walk in the light. (Ps. Ixxxix. 15.) 
 ' Blessed are the people that know the joyful 
 ' sound ; they shall walk, O Lord, in the light 
 ' of thy countenance : in thy name shall they 
 ' rejoice all the day.' (cxix. 160.) ' Great peace 
 ' have they which love thy law ; and nothing 
 * shall offend them.' (xcvii.) ' Light is sown 
 ' for the righteous, and gladness for the upright 
 ' in heart. ' If, therefore, Levi be right in the 
 account which he gives of his nation, we might 
 expect that, at least, that party of it which 
 openly adheres to the covenant, and law of 
 God, would dwell in that light which is sown 
 for the righteous ; and as they know the joyful 
 sound of God's statutes, which, according to 
 the declaration of the psalmist, (xix. 8.) rejoice 
 the heart of those who walk in them, we might 
 suppose that they would enjoy the light of 
 God's countenance in the lands of their cap- 
 tivity. But. instead of this, we are informed 
 by Moses, that the whole nation are ' to grope
 
 136 REMARKS UPON 
 
 ' at noon-day, as the blind gropeth in darkness; ' 
 and therefore it is manifest that they are to see 
 no light, and to enjoy no comfort or consolation 
 of a spiritual nature, during their captivity. 
 (Vide Deut. xxviii. 6.3.) Thus, it is quite appa- 
 rent, from the whole of what has been said, that 
 the scheme of David Levi is directly opposite 
 to the account which is given of the state of the 
 Jews during their captivity, by Moses the servant 
 of God: and, whether Moses or David Levi 
 be right, let the Jews themselves judge. 
 
 If Levi, to escape the conclusion of his 
 having advanced sentiments altogether incon- 
 sistent with the writings of Moses, shall refer to 
 other parts of his work, wherein he expressly 
 acknowledges the present " impious and irreli- 
 " gious behaviour of the Jewish nation, " 
 (Dissert. Vol. II. page 230.) it will only prove, 
 that, besides being chargeable with supporting 
 sentiments inconsistent with the writings of 
 Moses, he is inconsistent with himself. 
 
 The commission given to the prophet Isaiah, 
 when he saw that remarkable vision of the Lord
 
 LEVl'S DISSERTATIONS. 13* 
 
 in the temple, (vi. 8.) confirms, in the most de- 
 cided manner, the view which is taken above, of 
 the nature of the blindness which was to happen 
 to Israel. The prophet says, ' Also, I heard the 
 ' voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send ? 
 4 and who will go for us ? Then, said I, Here 
 ' am I ; send me. And he said, Go, and tell 
 ' this people, Hear ye, indeed, but understand 
 'not; and see ye, indeed, but perceive not. 
 ' Make the heart of this people fat, and make 
 4 their ears heavy, and shut their eyes ; lest they 
 4 see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and 
 ' understand with their heart, and convert, and 
 ' be healed.' It is impossible that language 
 could convey, in plainer or more significant 
 terms, a denunciation of spiritual blindness, 
 hardness of heart, and stupidity, in the midst of 
 all the means of knowledge. The words do not 
 signify that the Jews were to be deprived of the 
 light of divine truth ; but that, though sur- 
 rounded by this light, and having the word of 
 God sounded in their ears, they should be 
 so hardened, as to become morally incapable
 
 138 REMARKS UPON 
 
 of profiting by these most important privi- 
 leges. 
 
 The prophet asks, in the eleventh verse, /tow 
 long this awful judgment was to continue ? 
 4 And he answered, Until the cities be wasted 
 4 without inhabitant, and the houses without 
 ' man, and the land be utterly desolate, and 
 ' the Lord have removed men far away, and 
 ' there be a great forsaking in the midst of the 
 ' land. ' That is, not only till the time of the 
 Babylonish captivity, but till the destruction of 
 the city and second temple by Titus; for, ac- 
 cording to David Levi's own acknowledgment, 
 (Vol. III. page 06.) the Jews, during the second 
 temple, were not, by their actions, the people of 
 God, and "Cod was not to them,"/, e. was 
 not their God. Or, to use the language of 
 the prophecy of Isaiah, the Jews, during the 
 second temple, ' heard the word of God, but 
 4 did not understand it ; they saw, but did not 
 ' perceive: their hearts were made fat, their ears 
 ; dull, and their eyes were shut, that they should 
 1 not see, and hear, and convert, and be healed.'
 
 LEVls DISSERTATIONS. 
 
 It is undeniable, therefore, and the Jews 
 themselves must allow it to be so, that when 
 Jesus appeared and preached, saying, ' Repent. 
 ' for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,' he 
 spake to a people who were under the awful 
 sentence of judicial blindness, pronounced 
 against them for their sins by the prophet 
 Isaiah: a people who had ears to hear, but un- 
 derstood not ; eyes to see, but perceived not. 
 He spake to a generation, who, according to 
 Levi's view of Hoseai. 9, were, by God him- 
 self, called Lo-ammi, ' not my people;' and of 
 whom God said, ' I will not be to you.' 
 
 Now, I would beseech the candid Jew to 
 draw for himself the natural and unavoidable 
 inference from the above fact. The judicious 
 Christian will not, indeed, assert, that it follows 
 therefrom that Jesus is the Messiah ; but does 
 not the above circumstance most effectually 
 remove and answer the objection often made to 
 the divine character of Jesus, from his having 
 been rejected by the Jewish nation ? This 
 objection is insisted upon by David Levi. (Vol.
 
 140 REMARKS UPON 
 
 f. page 137-) in the following words: " And 
 " as they (the Christians) freely acknowledge 
 " that the Messiah belongs to the Jews, it must 
 " astonish every impartial, candid, and liberal 
 " mind, when it considers how inefficacious his 
 " (Jesus's) appearance was to them ; for it is 
 " clear, from all history, that he was so far from 
 " being endued with the power of bestowing 
 " on them the good they had just reason to 
 " expect from the prophecies of the Old Testa- 
 " merit, by accomplishing the great promises 
 " made to them, that they, on the contrary, a 
 " few years after, according to the prediction of 
 " Daniel, saw their temple burnt, their chief 
 " city destroyed, and their country laid waste, 
 " &c. ; so that it is plain he brought them 
 " nothing but misery and shame, and which is a 
 " demonstration that he conk! not be the Mes- 
 " siah. " 
 
 To this apparently formidable objection, it 
 would, perhaps, be extremely difficult for the 
 Christian to give a solid and satisfactory answer, 
 without the assistance of the Hebrew Scriptures.
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 141 
 
 But it is enough for us to appeal to these Scrip- 
 tures, as containing most complete evidence, 
 that when Jesus appeared, the great body of the 
 Jewish nation were not in a proper state for dis- 
 cerning and judging of the evidences of his 
 divine character and mission. Jesus, therefore, 
 may be the Messiah ; and the Jews, under the in- 
 fluence of that hardness of heart, and that moral 
 inability to understand divine truth, which were 
 foretold by the prophet Isaiah in the passageabove 
 quoted, may have rejected and crucified the 
 Lord of Glory : or, to say the least, the rejection 
 of Jesus, by a people who. according to Moses, 
 were to ' grope at noon-day r and of whom God 
 himself testified, ' Ye are not my people, and I 
 'will not be to you,' forms no solid objection 
 to his divine character and mission. There is a 
 necessary and most intimate connection between 
 the practice of holiness and spiritual discern- 
 ment ; between unholy practice and the spirit 
 of delusion : and as the Jews, according to the 
 testimony of David Levi himself, were, when 
 Jesus appeared, a wicked people, it is evident
 
 14'Jl REMARKS UPON 
 
 that they were not in a fit state for discerning 
 the nature of the Messiah's kingdom, or the 
 evidences of his divine mission. 
 
 The above considerations may also furnish an 
 answer to a complaint which they make against 
 the Christians, for considering them as a blind, 
 obstinate, and superstitious people, labouring 
 under a spiritual blindness. (Vide Levi's Dissert. 
 Vol. I. page 267.) We would ask the Jews, 
 Whether we are to form our estimate of their 
 present character from their own opinion of it, 
 or from the testimony of Moses and the pro- 
 phets ? Is it right for us to believe the Scrip- 
 tures, or is it not ? We appeal to their Scrip- 
 tures, and not to our own, upon this point : we 
 invite them to a candid and careful examination 
 of the writings of Moses and the prophets, for 
 a full confirmation of the fact, that blindness is 
 happened unto Israel (Rom. xi.) until the ful- 
 ness of the Gentiles be come in. 
 
 The language used by the prophet Ezekiel, in 
 his w r onderful predictions of the future restora- 
 tion of Israel, shows, likewise, that, during their
 
 LEVI'S DISSERTATIONS. 143 
 
 captivity, the nation have not sustained the cha- 
 racter of the people of God, but have been 
 estranged from his covenant and worship. In 
 chapter xx., after describing their return to their 
 own land, the Lord, by the mouth of the pro- 
 phet, says, in i-er. 42, ' And ye shall know that 
 ' I am the Lord, when I shall bring you into the 
 4 land of Israel, into the country for the which I 
 ' lifted up mine hand to give it to your fathers. 
 ' And there shall ye remember your ways, and 
 ' all your doings, wherein ye have been defiled ; 
 
 * and ye shall loath yourselves in your own 
 4 sight, for all your evils that ye have committed. 
 1 And ye shall know that I (am) the Lord, when 
 4 I have wrought with you for my name's sake ; 
 
 * not according to your wicked ways, nor your 
 ' corrupt doings, O ye house of Israel, saith the 
 
 ' Lord.' 
 
 s 
 In chapter xxxix., after prophesying of the 
 
 destruction of Gog and his hosts, the prophet, 
 speaking in the name of the Lord, adds, (ver. 22,) 
 c So the house of Israel shall know that I am 
 ' the Lord their God, from that dav and forward.
 
 144 REMARKS UPON 
 
 ' And the heathen shall know that the house of 
 'Israel went into captivity for their iniquity: 
 ' because they trespassed against me, therefore 
 ' hid I my face from them, and gave them into 
 4 the hand of their enemies ; so Ml they all by 
 * the sword.' (Ver. 27.) ' When I have brought 
 " them again from the people, and gathered them 
 4 out of their enemies' hands, and am sanctified 
 ' in them in the sight of many nations, then 
 ' shall they know that I am the Lord their God, 
 ' which caused them to be led into captivity 
 ' among the heathen: but I have gathered them 
 ' unto their own land, and have left none of 
 ' them any more there. ' 
 
 As it is repeatedly said, and with peculiar 
 emphasis, in the foregoing passages, that Israel 
 shall know the Lord their God when he shall 
 bring them into their own land; ' the house of 
 ; Israel shall know that I am the Lord their 
 ' God, from that day and forward, ' we must 
 necessarily conclude, that, during their captivity, 
 they have not known the Lord their God, and 
 have not truly served or worshipped him;
 
 LEVI S DISSERTATIONS. 146 
 
 which is quite inconsistent with David Levi's 
 assertion, that one party of his nation " has 
 " always openly adhered to the truth, and con- 
 " tinned in the covenant ; " and that the other 
 party, though from fear " they seem to aposta- 
 " tize, yet, in their hearts, secretly adhere to the 
 " true faith, and the law of Moses." 
 
 The very strong language which is used by 
 Ezekiel with respect to the repentance of the 
 children of Israel after their restoration, deserves 
 the particular attention of the Jews. It shows 
 that they will then form a very different 
 estimate of their past character and conduct, 
 from what now appears to be the opinion of 
 David Levi on this subject. And, indeed, it is 
 worthy of the anxious inquiry of the descend- 
 ants of Abraham, whether they have not been 
 guilty of some sins, the nature and extent of 
 which are now hidden from them, in conse- 
 quence of that blindness prophesied of by 
 Moses and Isaiah. 
 
 The only passage in the prophetical writings
 
 146 REMARKS UPON 
 
 which seems particularly to describe the matter 
 of the future repentance of the Jews, is that 
 one in Zechariah xii. 9 14, which I have 
 already referred to : ' And it shall come to pass 
 ' in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the 
 4 nations that come against Jerusalem. And I 
 4 will pour upon the house of David, and upon 
 1 the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of 
 4 grace and of supplications ; and they shall 
 
 * look upon me whom they have pierced, and 
 4 they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for 
 4 his only son; and shall be in bitterness for 
 4 him, as one is in bitterness for his first born. 
 ' In that day shall there be a great mourning 
 4 in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hada-drim- 
 4 mon in the valley of Megiddon. And the 
 ; land shall mourn, every family apart : the fa- 
 4 mily of the house of David apart, and their 
 ' wives apart; the family of the house of Na- 
 ' than apart, and their wives apart ; the family 
 
 * of the house of Levi apart, and their wives 
 4 apart; the family of the house of Shimei
 
 LEVl'S DISSERTATIONS. 14? 
 
 ' apart, and their wives apart. All the families 
 ' that remain, every family apart, and their wives 
 ' apart. ' 
 
 It seems quite apparent, from the context of 
 this passage, that it relates to a great national 
 repentance of the tribes of Judah and Levi, 
 which is to take place about the time of their 
 restoration. And as we likewise learn from 
 Ezekiel, that when the children of Israel are 
 restored, they shall remember their ways and 
 their doings wherein they have been defiled, 
 and shall loathe themselves in their own sight 
 for all the evils which they have committed, 
 we are naturally led to conclude, that this 
 mourning forms at least a part of the repentance 
 mentioned by Ezekiel ; and the parties con- 
 cerned in it seem to be the whole house of Judah, 
 and that part of the tribes of Benjamin and 
 Levi which were united with Judah in the time 
 of the second temple. The subject of this 
 mourning is, without doubt, the discovery made 
 by the tribe of Judah of the true character of 
 that person whom they have pierced ; even the 
 
 L 2
 
 148 REMARKS UPON 
 
 same person that is described by Isaiah, who, 
 speaking in the name of the whole nation, says 
 of him, ' lie is despised and rejected of men; 
 ' a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; 
 * and we hid as it were our faces from him: he 
 ' was despised, and we esteemed him not/ 
 This person, we have already proved, was no 
 other than Jesus the Messiah. At his second 
 coming with the clouds of heaven, (Dan. vii. 
 ly.) which takes place at the destruction of the 
 Roman empire, and about the time of the 
 restoration of the Jews, Jesus the Messiah will 
 appear to that people who pierced him, and 
 they shall look on him whom they pierced, and 
 mourn for him as for an only son. Mingled 
 emotions of astonishment, grief, and shame, and 
 holy self-abhorrence, for the crime of their fore- 
 fathers, and their own long continued sin in re- 
 jecting the Messiah, will then agitate the breasts 
 of the chosen people of God. 
 
 If the Jews object to this interpretation, then 
 it is incumbent upon them to state unto what 
 other great national sin, excepting that of the
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 149 
 
 crucifixion of Jesus, the passage now quoted 
 from Zechariah can apply; and to account for 
 the circumstance, that the only passage in the 
 Hebrew Scriptures which seems to describe 
 the matter of their future national repentance, 
 should so exactly suit the Christian scheme. 
 
 Having thus endeavoured to show, from the 
 Hebrew Scriptures, that the Jews, during their 
 captivity, have not been the people of God, 
 but have been afar off from him, and ignorant 
 of his true worship, I shall now proceed to 
 examine, whether there be any reason, from the 
 same Scriptures, to conclude, that, during this 
 period, God has had a people among the 
 Gentiles. 
 
 As the Jews have not been the people of 
 God during this period, it follows, that either 
 ( Jod lias had a people among the Gentiles, or 
 that he has had no people in the world; or, in 
 other words, that the worship and fear of God 
 have become quite banished from the earth. 
 l>ut this seems quite contrary to many plain 
 declarations of Scripture. In Psalm xxii. 30, ifc
 
 150 REMARKS UPON 
 
 is declared, that ' a seed shall serve him ; it shall 
 4 be accounted to the Lord for a generation. 
 4 They shall come and declare his righteousness 
 * unto a people that shall be born, that he hath 
 ' done this. ' From this passage we may infer, 
 that, in the darkest periods of the church, God 
 has always had a chosen seed to serve him. The 
 psalmist, in the seventy-second Psalm, which was 
 given by the Spirit of God in reference to the 
 Messiah, says, (ver. 5.) ' They shall fear thee as 
 4 long as the sun and moon endure, through- 
 ' out all generations. ' 
 
 It appears from the prophecies of Daniel, 
 (chap. vii. 25.) that, even during the reign of 
 that tyrannical power which is symbolized by 
 the little horn of the Roman beast, there are 
 upon earth a people called the saints of the 
 Most High ; and though these saints are de- 
 livered into the hand of this power, to be op- 
 pressed by him, yet they are not so given up as 
 to be quite extirpated from the earth. 
 
 Thus, then, we are led to believe, that, in 
 every age, God has had a people in the world ;
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 151 
 
 and we have already seen, that the Jews, being 
 4 smitten with blindness, so as to grope at noon 
 'day, as the blind gropeth in darkness/ they 
 are not, during the period of their captivity, 
 the people of God. Are there, then, any pas- 
 sages of Scripture which can lead us to dis- 
 cover where we are to look for the people of 
 God? 
 
 V r ery remarkable to this purpose is the 
 declaration contained in the song of Moses. 
 After predicting the idolatry of the children of 
 Israel, the prophet adds, in the ,19th and 
 following verses, ' And when the Lord saw (it), 
 4 he abhorred (them), because of the provoking 
 4 of his sons and of his daughters. And he 
 ' said, 1 will hide my face from them ; I will 
 4 see what their end shall be: for they are a 
 ' very fro\vard generation ; children in whom 
 ' is no faith. They have moved me to jealousy 
 k with (that which is) not God ; they have pro- 
 ' voked me to aii2:er with their vanities ; and I 
 
 O 
 
 4 will move them to jealousy with (those which 
 ' are) not a people : I will provoke them to
 
 152 REMARKS UPON 
 
 4 anger with a foolish nation. ' Here the Lord 
 declares his just and holy procedure towards 
 his ancient people. As they, by forsaking the 
 worship of God for that of idols, did move 
 Him to jealousy, with that which was no God, 
 He, in return, moves them to jealousy, by 
 taking to Himself, as a people, those who were 
 not a people, i.e. the Gentiles; and by hiding his 
 face from his ancient people of Israel. In this 
 most remarkable prediction, the language is 
 evidently borrowed from the sensations of the 
 conjugal state; by which, in various passages 
 of the Scriptures, God was pleased, in the 
 adorable condescension of his love, to illustrate 
 the nature of the union between Himself and his 
 chosen people. Thus, in the sixteenth chapter 
 of Ezekiel, the city of Jerusalem is represented 
 to us under the image of a woman, who had 
 been united to the Lord in the state of marriage, 
 but was, like an adulteress, gone astray from 
 her husband. And the same image is chosen 
 in the prophecies of Hosea, to denote the 
 union between God and his people, as is ex-
 
 LEV1 S DISSERTATIONS. 
 
 pressly admitted by David Levi. (Vol. III. 
 page 64, 78, 80, 81.) 
 
 The prophet Isaiah, predicting the future 
 restoration of the whole of the children of 
 Israel to the favour of God, and to a state of 
 union with Him, expresses himself in the follow- 
 ing language: (iiv. 1.) ' Sing, O barren; thou 
 ' that didst not bear: break forth into singing, 
 ' and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with 
 ' child : for more are the children of the deso- 
 ' late, than the children of the married wife, 
 ' saith the Lord.' And, (ver. 4.) ' Fear not; 
 ' for thou shall not be ashamed : neither be 
 ' thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put 
 ' to shame : for thou shalt forget the shame of 
 ' youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of 
 ' thy widowhood any more. For thy Maker 
 ' is thine husband ; the Lord of Hosts is his 
 name : and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of 
 ' Israel : the God of the whole earth shall he be 
 ' called. ' 
 
 David Levi, in his comments upon this pas- 
 sage, (Vol. II. page 2.) maintains, that ; - the
 
 154 REMARKS UPON 
 
 " barren woman denotes the Jewish nation, 
 " which, in captivity, is a barren woman de- 
 " serted by her husband. " Thus far the learned 
 Jew is, as I conceive, perfectly accurate in his 
 illustration of the passage. He then goes on 
 to say, that " the husbanded (or married) wo- 
 " man denotes the Gentiles ; who enjoy plenty 
 " and peace in their own country, as a woman 
 " that lives at ease with her husband, and is 
 " surrounded with her children. " 
 
 That the married woman here denotes the 
 Gentiles, is also, I think, without dispute ; and 
 in this I agree with the Jewish commentator. 
 But it appears to me, that David Levi has not, 
 from this admission, drawn the conclusion, 
 which, to be consistent with himself, he ought 
 to have done. We have already seen, that 
 when the Jewish nation is said to be in a con- 
 jugal union with God, Levi understands it as 
 signifying their being united to Him by a cove- 
 nant relation, as his peculiar people. (Vol. IIJ. 
 page 6 L) When, therefore, the prophet Isaiah, 
 in the above passage, gives to the Gentiles the
 
 LEVI S DISSERTATIONS. J55 
 
 title of the married wife, (while the Jews are 
 called " the barren woman deserted by her 
 husband, ") Levi ought certainly to have seen 
 that this language necessarily includes in it the 
 important fact, that, at the time when the 
 Jewish nation is deserted by God, and in a 
 state of reproach and widowhood, the Lord 
 has a people among the Gentiles, to whom he 
 gives the title of his married wife ; and who 
 must, therefore, be in a state of covenant rela- 
 tion with Him as his true worshippers. 
 
 I would, therefore, again ask David Levi and 
 the Jews, how they can make it to consist 
 with the principles of fair and impartial inter- 
 pretation, to understand the figure of a conju- 
 gal union with God, when predicted of them- 
 selves, as signifying eminent spiritual privi- 
 leges as the peculiar people of God ; and. 
 when predicted of the Gentiles, as implying 
 merely a state of temporal enjoyment and 
 prosperity ; " plenty and peace in their own. 
 " land? 7 ' Moreover, how does it consist with 
 the veracity of God, to suppose that He wouJd
 
 156 REMARKS UPON 
 
 give the title of his married wife to a people, 
 who, if Levi and the Jews be right, worship an 
 impostor, or an enthusiast ; and are guilty of 
 corrupting the fundamental doctrine of the 
 divine unity ? If Judaism cannot be defended 
 but by such a dereliction of all the principles 
 of fair reasoning, it were surely better for the 
 children of Israel at once to throw down the 
 weapons of their warfare, and - look upon Him 
 ' whom they have pierced ; mourning for Him as 
 ' for an only son ! ' Oh that there were in them 
 such a heart ! 
 
 From the preceding passage of Isaiah, it 
 therefore undeniably follows, that, during the 
 widowhood of the Jewish church, when ' Israel 
 ' is smitten with blindness, and gropeth at noon 
 ; day, as the blind gropeth in darkness, ' God 
 has a people among the Gentiles, to whom He 
 condescends to give the title of his married icifc. 
 !$ut the appointed and the glorious time will 
 come, when ' Israel shall return, and seek the 
 ' Lord their God, and David their king ; and 
 shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 157 
 
 ' latter days. ' (flos. iii. 5.) To this time the 
 above prophecy of Isaiah has reference ; and 
 the newly-converted Jewish nation is therein 
 called upon to sing, and to rejoice, because 
 more are her children, than the children of the 
 c fcBBn wife, the Gentile church. So great and 
 glorious will be the effect of the couversion and 
 restoration of Judah and Israel, and of the 
 awful judgments of God which shall introduce 
 and accompany these glorious events, that they 
 shall be the means of exciting the universal 
 attention of an unbelieving world; and, these 
 events being accompanied by an abundant effu- 
 sion of the Spirit of God, then shall be fulfilled 
 the glorious predictions both of the Old and 
 New Testaments, for all the ends of the earth 
 shall remember, and turn to the Lord ; and 
 truly, more shall be the children of the barren 
 woman, than of the married wife. 
 
 The calling of the Gentiles, and the rejec- 
 tion of the Jews upon account of their unbe- 
 lief, are also predicted in Isaiah Ixv. 1, 2, to 
 which I would refer the reader.
 
 158 REMARKS UPON 
 
 It is thus quite evident, from the Old Testa- 
 ment Scriptures, that at the period when Israel 
 is cast off from being the people of God, the 
 Lord takes to himself a people from among the 
 Gentiles. Now, where will the Jews look for 
 this people of God, unless it be among the 
 Christians ? It is apparent that the Mahom- 
 medans, and those who continue in Pagan 
 idolatry, are not the people of God ; and as 
 I suppose the Jews will agree with us in this 
 point, it seems unnecessary to enter upon the 
 proof of it. It only remains, therefore, that the 
 people of God are among those nations which 
 profess the Christian faith ; * and, if so, it follows, 
 undeniably, that Jesus is the Messiah. 
 
 * When I say that the people of God are among those 
 nations who profess the Christian faith, I mean to distin- 
 guish between real Christians, and those who bear that 
 name only, but by wicked works deny the faith. It is to 
 the first only that the honourable appellation of the people 
 of God belongs. And no candid Jew will object to a dis- 
 tinction, which is equally to be found in the Old Testament 
 history of the church of Israel.
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 15Q 
 
 CHAP. VII. 
 
 HARMONY OF THE JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURE* 
 BRIEFLY CONSIDERED, AND ARGUMENT THENCB 
 DEDUCED, THAT JESUS IS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 I SHALL consider this harmony, first, as it relates 
 to the view taken both in the Hebrew Scrip- 
 tures, and those of the New Testament, of the 
 present and future condition of the Jewish 
 nation. 
 
 The ancient prophets are unanimous in de- 
 claring, that the great national redemption and 
 restoration of Israel are to happen when the 
 Roman kingdom (the fourth beast of Daniel, and 
 the Edom of Isaiah,) is destroyed : and, from 
 the prophecies of Daniel we learn, (vii. 26.) that 
 the destruction of the fourth beast, i. e. the
 
 1GO REMAHKS UPON 
 
 Roman empire, is to commence at the conclu- 
 sion of a certain period which is called a time, 
 times, and the dividing of time; i.e. one year, 
 two years, and half a year, or three years and a 
 half. Christian writers have shown, with 
 abundant clearness, that this period, being re- 
 duced to days, is equal to twelve hundred and 
 sixty days; and they are pretty generally agreed 
 in sentiment, that each of these prophetical days 
 signifies a year; and that, consequently, the 
 true period announced by Daniel, when the de- 
 struction of the Roman empire is to commence, 
 is twelve hundred and sixty years; but from 
 what particular era this period is to be dated, 
 remains, as yet, a disputed point. It is also 
 probable, from the concluding chapter of Da- 
 niel's prophecies, that the destruction of the 
 Roman empire will occupy a space of about 
 thirty years, being the difference between the 
 above-mentioned period of twelve hundred and 
 sixty days, and another period of twelve hun- 
 dred and ninety days, announced to Daniel by 
 the angel, in c/tajj. xii. 11.
 
 LEVI'S DISSERTATIONS. 161 
 
 Now, in the most exact harmony with the 
 prophecies of Isaiah and Daniel, Jesus, after 
 predicting with wonderful minuteness the de- 
 struction of Jerusalem by the Romans, informs 
 his disciples, (Luke xxi. 24.) ' They' (the 
 Jews) ' shall fall by the edge of the sword, and 
 ' shall be led away captive into all nations ; and 
 ' Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gen- 
 ' tiles, until the times of the Gentiles be ful- 
 ' filled.' By the times of the Gentiles, we are 
 certainly to understand the period allotted for the 
 duration of the four Gentile monarchies ; and Jesus 
 seems to have had a particular reference to the 
 time, times, and half a time, or twelve hundred 
 and sixty days of Daniel, at the expiration of 
 which the destruction of the Roman monarchy 
 was to commence. Till this period, therefore, 
 Jerusalem is trodden under foot of the Gentiles, 
 according to the prediction of Jesus ; and then 
 commences that awful series of judgments on 
 the nations composing the empire of Rome, 
 or Edom, which is to issue in the destruction of 
 that empire, and the national redemption of Israel. 
 
 M
 
 162 REMARKS UPON 
 
 These judgments are described in Luke xxi., 
 in the same symbolical language as is used in 
 Isaiah xxxiv. 4, to signify the dissolution 
 of the heavens politic at the destruction of 
 Rome. Thus Jesus declares, ' there shall bf 
 1 signs in the sun, moon, and stars; ' and Isaiah 
 says, ' the heavens shall be rolled together as a 
 * scroll, and all their host shall fall down.' 
 
 It appears, therefore, that Jesus speaks pre- 
 cisely the same language as the prophets of the 
 Old Testament, with regard to the time when 
 the Jews are to be restored ; and is not this an 
 evidence of the most powerful nature of his 
 divine mission ? For it is inconsistent with all 
 our ideas of the perfections of God to suppose, 
 that if Jesus had been an impostor, or an en- 
 thusiast, he would have been so far enlightened 
 as to be enabled to discover the exact meaning 
 of the prophecies of the Old Testament; which 
 were, at the time of his appearance, so little un- 
 derstood by the best-informed of the Jewish 
 nation, that it is plain they expected the imme- 
 diate fulfilment of the predictions respecting
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATION'S. \Q3 
 
 the destruction of Rome, and the redemption of 
 Israel, which have not been fulfilled to this 
 day. 
 
 The language of St. Paul exactly corresponds 
 with that of Jesus upon this point: he informs 
 us, that ' blindness in part is happened unto 
 ' Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come 
 ' in.' (Rom. xi. 25.) By this fulness of the 
 Gentiles, I think we are to understand precisely 
 what Jesus intended when he used the expres- 
 sion, until the ' times of the Gentiles be ful- 
 * filled ;' i. e. the filling up of the' appointed time 
 for the duration of the four Gentile monarchies. 
 And perhaps St. Paul, in using the above lan- 
 guage, had some allusion also to the declaration 
 of God with respect to the Amorites, in Genesis 
 xv. 16. 
 
 There is also the most exact harmony be- 
 tween the Old and New Testaments, in the 
 view which they both take of the high privi- 
 leges and dignity of the nation of Israel; and in 
 their estimate of the glorious purposes to be 
 effected by God, through the instrumentality of 
 
 M 2
 
 164 REMARKS UPON 
 
 the Jews. No language of the Old Testament 
 can give us a higher idea of the privileges and 
 the dignity of the ancient people of God, than 
 that of St. Paul : ' Who' (says he) ' are Israel- 
 
 * ites ; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and 
 c the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of 
 c the law, and the service (of God,) and the pro- 
 ' mises. Whose are the fathers ; and of whom, 
 4 as concerning the flesh, Christ came; who is 
 4 over all, God blessed for ever.' And, as the 
 Hebrew prophets agree in predicting that the 
 national redemption of Israel, and the judg- 
 ments which shall usher it in, are to be the 
 great means, in the hand of God, of awakening 
 an universal spirit of repentance among the 
 nations ; and that then ' all the ends of the 
 ' world shall remember and turn to the Lord;' 
 (Psalm xxii. 27-} and then also ' the earth shall 
 ' be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the 
 ' waters cover the sea ; ' (Isaiah xi. 9.) so, in 
 precise harmony with these declarations, the 
 apostle Paul informs us, that ' if the casting 
 
 them ' (the Jews) ' away be the reconciling of
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 16,5 
 
 ' the world, what shall the receiving of them 
 ' be but life from the dead ?' (Rom. xi. 15.} So 
 great and glorious a change shall be effected in 
 the state of the whole world by this glorious 
 event, the restoration of Israel to the favour of 
 God, that it shall resemble a resurrection of the 
 world from death unto life. 
 
 Surely, then, the descendants of Abraham 
 have no cause to entertain prejudices against 
 the Christian Scriptures. If these Scriptures 
 write bitter things against this once highly-fa- 
 voured people, during their present state of spi- 
 ritual blindness and unbelief, it is no more than 
 Moses and the prophets do, as has been seen in 
 a former chapter. And, on the other hand, if 
 Moses and the prophets concur in predicting 
 the future glorious restoration of Israel, and the 
 great and blessed purposes which are to be 
 effected by it ; if they agree in representing this 
 ancient and honourable people as being under 
 the peculiar charge and guardianship of the Al- 
 mighty, even in the time of their lowest and 
 most degraded state, it is no more than the
 
 166 REMARKS UPON 
 
 great apostle of the Gentiles does, who says, 
 that ' as touching the election, they are still 
 ' beloved for the fathers' sakes ; for the gifts 
 4 and calling of God are without repentance.' 
 (Rom. xi. 28, 29.) 
 
 Another great principle wherein the most 
 exact correspondence exists between the Jewish 
 and Christian Scriptures, is, that ' without the 
 ' shedding of blood there is no pardon or remis- 
 ' sion of sin.^ Even sins of ignorance are not 
 exempted from the operation of this principle in 
 the Hebrew Scriptures ; on the contrary, the 
 particular sacrifices to be offered up by the va- 
 rious orders of the children of Israel, to atone 
 for sins of ignorance, are enumerated in the 
 fourth and fifth chapters of Leviticus with 
 minute accuracy. The offending person is, in 
 every case, commanded to ' lay his hand upon 
 c the head of the sin-offering, and slay the sin- 
 ' offering in the place of the burnt-offering. 
 ' And the priest shall take of the blood thereof 
 ' with his finger, and put it upon the horns of 
 ' the altar of burnt-offering, and shall pour out
 
 LEVls DISSERTATIONS. 
 
 ' all the blood thereof at the bottom of the altar. 
 ' And he shall take away all the fat thereof, as 
 * the fat is taken away from off the sacrifice of the 
 ' peace- offerings ; and the priest shall burn it 
 ; upon the altar, for a sweet savour unto the 
 ' Lord: and the priest shall make an atonement 
 ' for him as concerning his sin, and it shall be 
 'forgiven him.' 
 
 Tn the sixteenth chapter of Leviticus, we have 
 an account given of a solemn atonement, 
 which once every year was made by the high 
 priest, who went into the holy of holies with 
 the blood of the sacrifices, which he offered 
 for himself, and for the sins of the people. 
 Even external and corporeal pollution, arising 
 from leprosy, or issues, was cleansed by the 
 shedding of blood. (Levit. xiv. lo.) Upon the 
 slaying of the first-born of all the land of Egypt, 
 at the redemption of the children of Israel, we 
 are told, that the blood of the paschal lamb 
 upon the lintels, and the two side posts of the 
 doors of the children of Israel, was the appointed 
 token, upon seeing which the Lord passed
 
 168 REMARKS UPON 
 
 over the door, and did not suffer the destroyer 
 to come into their houses to smite them. 
 (Exod. xii. 23.) 
 
 Oh that such of the children of Abraham as now 
 live in the expectation of the promised redemp- 
 tion from their present long-continued and dread- 
 ful captivity, would seriously ponder the above 
 great principle of their law, that without the 
 shedding of blood there is no remission of sins ! 
 And as the redemption out of Egypt was but 
 a type and shadow of that great and final redemp- 
 tion which is promised to them by all the holy 
 prophets, it surely is incumbent upon them to 
 consider, whether the paschal lamb, slain in com- 
 memoration of their former redemption, be not 
 likewise but a type and shadow of some greater 
 and nobler sacrifice, by whose blood they are 
 to be sanctified at the era of their future restora- 
 tion : for if the first redemption was not effected 
 without the shedding of blood, most assuredly 
 the second redemption can only be procured by 
 the same means ; and where is the victim which 
 is to be offered ? ' where is the lamb for a burnt-
 
 LEVls DISSERTATIONS. 
 
 ' offering?' (Gen. xxii. 7-) In answer to this 
 question, I would humbly intreat every one of 
 the children of Israel who may cast his eyes on 
 these pages, to retire into his closet, and to open 
 his bible at the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, 
 and also the xii. 10 11, of Zechariah, and 
 humbly to pray to the God of his fathers for an 
 understanding heart, to see the true meaning: 
 
 O * O 
 
 of these passages. 
 
 It is well known that the whole scheme of 
 the Christian Scriptures is founded upon the 
 above great principle of the Levitical law, that 
 without the shedding of blood there is no 
 remission of sin. These Scriptures, therefore, 
 in their great fundamental principle, completely 
 harmonize with those of the Jews. To prove 
 this, it is by no means necessary to multiply 
 quotations from the New Testament, as those 
 produced in a former chapter may be sufficient 
 for the purpose. We read, in the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews, ix. 11, ' That Christ, being 
 ' come an high priest of good things to come, 
 ' in a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not
 
 170 REMARKS UPON 
 
 ' made with hands ; not of this building; nei- 
 4 ther by the blood of goats and calves, but by 
 ' his own blood, he entered in once into the 
 ' holy place, having obtained eternal redemption 
 ' for us. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, 
 ' and the ashes of an heifer, sprinkling the 
 ' unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the 
 ' flesh; how much more shall the blood of Christ, 
 ' who, through the eternal Spirit, offered himself 
 ' without spot to God, purge your conscience 
 'from dead works, to serve the living God!' 
 And in chap. x. 11. ' And every priest standeth 
 ' daily ministering and offering oftentimes the 
 ' same sacrifices, which can never take away 
 4 sins: but this Man, (Jesus,) after he had offer- 
 ' ed one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down at 
 ' the right hand of God; from henceforth wait- 
 ' ing till his enemies be made his footstool. 
 ' For by one offering he hath perfected for 
 ' ever them that are sanctified. ' 
 
 Is it possible that any Jew can read the 
 above quotations, without being struck with 
 the exact coincidence between the doctrines
 
 LEVl'g DISSERTATIONS. ]?1 
 
 contained in them, and the concluding part of 
 the fifty-third of Isaiah, already so fully consi- 
 dered in a former chapter ? 
 
 Another great leading principle, with respect 
 to which there is no difference between the 
 Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is, 
 the absolute necessity of a priesthood to offer 
 the ordained sacrifices, and to make atonement 
 for the sins of the people. In every case under 
 the Levitical dispensation, the person who had 
 sinned was required to bring his sin-offering, 
 and to lay his hand upon its head, and slay it 
 in the place for the burnt-offering; but it was 
 not the offender himself who made the atone- 
 ment, for it is said, ' the priest shall take of 
 ' the blood of the sin-offering with his finger, 
 ' and put it upon the horns of the altar of 
 'burnt-offering,' &c. ; 'and the priest shall 
 ' make an atonement for his sin that he hath 
 ' committed.' (Levit. iv 7 . 34, ,35.) 
 
 In two memorable instances recorded in the 
 sacred history, of persons who were not of the 
 seed of Aaron taking it upon them to usurp
 
 172 REMARKS UPON 
 
 the office of the priesthood, by burning incense 
 before the Lord, it pleased God to interfere, 
 and, by awful displays of his power and anger, 
 to show that his ordinances and appointments 
 were not to be violated with impunity. Korah, 
 Dathan, and Abiram, with two hundred and 
 fifty of the princes of Israel, were swallowed up 
 by the earth for this sin, and the disease of the 
 leprosy was inflicted upon Uzziah, king of Judah, 
 for the same offence. (Vide Numbers xvi. and 
 II. Chron. xxvi. 16 21.) 
 
 It has already been observed, that the redemp- 
 tion of Israel out of Egypt was but a shadow, 
 or type, of that greater redemption which awaits 
 the nation at the period of their second restora- 
 tion. Now, as the Aaronic priesthood was 
 instituted at the period of the first, or typical 
 redemption, may it not at least be presumed 
 that this priesthood was the shadow of a more 
 perfect one to come ? Else, whence the declaration 
 of God to the Messiah, in the hundred and tenth 
 Psalm, already quoted, ' Thou art a priest for 
 ; ever, after the order of Melchisedech. } If the
 
 LEVI S DISSERTATIONS. 
 
 Messiah, who was to come of the tribe of Judah, 
 and family of Jesse, be called a priest for ever, 
 it is evident that his must be a priesthood quite 
 different from that of Aaron ; and accordingly 
 He is constituted a priest after the order of 
 Melchisedech. 
 
 But as the economy of the Messiah is the 
 last and most perfect of God's dispensations to 
 man, it follows, that every constituent part of 
 that economy must be more perfect than the 
 corresponding parts of those economies which 
 preceded it ; consequently, the Messiah's priest- 
 hood must be a more perfect one than that of 
 Aaron, which belonged to a less perfect econo- 
 my ; and it must supersede, and set aside that 
 priesthood, even as manhood supersedes infancy. 
 Now, it is deserving of the most serious atten- 
 tion upon the part of the Jews, that this is pre- 
 cisely the character which is given in the New 
 Testament Scriptures of the priesthood of Jesus. 
 He is called an high priest for ever, after the order 
 of Melchisedech ; and in the seventh chapter of 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews, we have a compa-
 
 174 REMARKS UPON 
 
 rison instituted at full length, between this 
 priesthood and that of Aaron ; and the conclu- 
 sion drawn from the whole is as follows : (ver. 2 1 .) 
 ' For those priests (the Levitical) were made 
 ' without an oath, but this with an oath, by 
 ' him that said unto him, The Lord sware, and 
 ' will not repent ; thou art a priest for ever, 
 ' after the order of Melchisedech. By so much 
 ' was Jesus made a surety of a better covenant. 
 ' And they truly were many priests, because 
 ' they were not suffered to continue by reason 
 ' of death ; but this man, because he continueth 
 ' ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Where - 
 ' fore he is able also to save them to the uttermost 
 ' that come unto God by him, seeing he ever 
 ' liveth to make intercession for them. For 
 ' such an high priest became us, who is holy, 
 ' harmless, undenled, separate from sinners, and 
 ' made higher than the heavens ; who needeth 
 c not daily, as those high priests, to offer up 
 ' sacrifice first for his own sins, and then for 
 ' the people's, for this he did once, when he 
 4 offered up himself. For the law maketh men
 
 LEVI'S DISSERTATIONS. 175 
 
 ' priests which have infirmity; but the word 
 ' of the oath, which was since the law, (viz. in 
 4 the hundred and tenth Psalm,) maketh the 
 ' Son, who is consecrated for evermore. y 
 
 Such, then, is the doctrine of the New Testa- 
 ment, with respect to the priesthood and offer- 
 ing of Jesus; and if, as the Jew must admit, 
 there is the most exact conformity between this 
 doctrine and that of the hundred and tenth 
 Psalm, and the fifty-third of Isaiah, it is incum- 
 bent upon him to account for this conformity, 
 and to show how it consists with any other hy- 
 pothesis but that of Jesus being indeed the 
 Messiah promised to the fathers. 
 
 In vain shall we search in the pages of David 
 Levi for any express acknowledgment of the 
 two fundamental principles of the Levitical 
 dispensation which have been mentioned. The 
 legal sacrifices have ceased for nearly eighteen 
 centuries ; and the family to which the priest- 
 hood was attached is not now to be dis- 
 tinguished from the rest of the Jewish nation. 
 The Jews have, therefore, no sacrifice to offer
 
 REMARKS UPON 
 
 for sins ; they have no priest to make atonement 
 for their transgressions. Levi, therefore, is re- 
 duced to the necessity of seeking some other 
 way of atonement; and hence we find him, in 
 Vol. I. page 232, mentioning, that at the period 
 of the restoration of Israel they need not be 
 under any apprehension of going into captivity 
 again \nfor that all their sins are expiated by the 
 severe punishment they will then have under- 
 gone. But if, as has already been proved, even 
 sins of ignorance could not be expiated under 
 the law without the shedding of the blood of a 
 sin-offering, and without atonement made by 
 the priest, how does David Levi's idea, that the 
 sins of the Jews (which, according to his own 
 account, are very great and aggravated,) are to 
 be expiated by their own sufferings ? how, 1 
 ask, does this idea accord with the above-men- 
 tioned fundamental principle of the Levitical 
 law? It is quite evident that the law of Moses 
 stands in direct -opposition to David Levi's 
 scheme. And, truly, if the Jews have no other 
 expiation to look to but that of their own suf-
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 177 
 
 ferings, they must (if the law of Moses be from 
 God) remain for ever under the consequences 
 brought upon them by their offences. 
 
 How can David Levi also reconcile this 
 notion, that the sufferings of the Jews, during 
 their captivity, are to expiate their sins, which 
 he elsewhere mentions, in Vol. I. page 209, with 
 the declaration of God in Ezekiel xxxvi. 22 : 
 ' Therefore, say unto the house of Israel, Thus 
 ' saith the Lord God, I do not this for your 
 ' sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine holy 
 ' name's sake, which ye have profaned among 
 ' the heathen, whither ye went ? ' And, in ver. 
 24, ' For I will take you from among the 
 4 heathen, and gather you out from all coun- 
 ' tries, and will bring you into your own land. 
 ' Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, 
 ' and ye shall be clean; from all your filthiness, 
 ' and from all your idols will I cleanse you. A 
 ' new heart also will I give you, and a new 
 spirit will I put within you ?' &c. 
 
 From this passage it is quite plain, that 
 neither the merit nor the sufferings of the
 
 178 REMARKS UPON 
 
 Jewish nation are the procuring causes of their 
 restoration, but the free unmerited mercy of 
 God, acting from a respect to the glory of his 
 great name; and if the sufferings of the Jews 
 are not the procuring cause of their restoration, 
 neither are they that which expiates their ini- 
 quity.
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 179 
 
 CHAP. VIII. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS AND CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 I PROPOSE in this chapter to offer to the con- 
 sideration of the Jews, a few concluding obser- 
 vations upon the important question at issue 
 between them and the Christians. 
 
 According to the view which David Levi 
 takes of the prophecy of Hosea, i. 8, 9, the 
 Jews, during the second temple, were not the 
 people of God, and were, therefore, by God 
 himself, called ' Lo-ammi, not my people.' 
 (Dissert. Vol. III. page 56.} Either, therefore, 
 they still continue to bear the name Lo-ammi, 
 and to be in a state of alienation from God, or 
 there was some period of their history when 
 
 N 2
 
 180 REMARKS UPON 
 
 they did from that state emerge into the cha- 
 racter, and dignity, and exalted purity of those 
 who deserve the honourable appellation of the 
 sons of the living God. (Hosea i. 10.) Now, 
 if this happy change has already taken place, it 
 is surely not of that insignificant nature that 
 the period when it happened should not be 
 known and ascertained. We therefore demand, 
 that the Jews shall inform us when the change 
 took place ? 
 
 But if the Jews shall agree with David Levi, 
 who seems to think that this change has not 
 yet taken place, and will not happen till the era 
 of their restoration, it then follows that they 
 are still ' Lo-ammi, not the people of God ; ' 
 and, in this case, we can find no difficulty in 
 accounting for the wickedness of the nation, 
 which is acknowledged by David Levi, (Vol. Jl. 
 page 23.) as being the procuring cause of the 
 length of their dreadful captivity: nor is it dif- 
 ficult to account for their " present impious and 
 " irreligious behaviour," as acknowledged by the 
 same writer. (Vol. II. page 230.) For as the
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 181 
 
 nation still continues to bear the prophetical 
 name of ' Lo-ammi, not my people/ they only 
 act in consistency with the character included 
 in this appellation, when they render themselves 
 liable to the charges contained in the above 
 passage of David Levi. 
 
 But though the present acknowledged im- 
 pious behaviour of the Jewish nation, and their 
 wickedness during their long captivity, be 
 quite consistent with the language of God in 
 the prophecy of Hosea, it is not so easy for 
 Christians to reconcile with these things the 
 merit which is claimed for his nation by David 
 Levi, of their having endured the most dreadful 
 persecutions and massacres from the nations 
 for their adherence to the true unity of God 
 (Levi's Dissert. Vol. I. page 223.) 
 
 Christians are taught to believe, that to be 
 martyrs for the doctrine of the divine unity, or 
 any other of the great truths of God, includes 
 in it all the peculiar privileges, as well as the 
 happiness and character, of those who are the 
 children of the living God : and is quite opposed
 
 182 REMARKS UPON 
 
 to the state of those who are in a condition of 
 separation from God. 
 
 There is one important fact, which cannot but 
 have come under the consideration of reflecting- 
 Jews: it is, that of all those men among the 
 Christian nations of Europe who have rejected 
 the New Testament, there are none who have 
 continued to receive the Old Testament as a 
 revelation from God. Now, if the Jews be 
 right in rejecting Jesus, how comes it that, in 
 the opinion of all among the Christian nations 
 who think the most freely on these subjects, 
 the Old and New Testaments must stand or fall 
 together? According to the Jewish hypothesis, 
 the Old Testament only is from God, the New 
 Testament is an imposture. Now, if it be so, 
 is it not quite inexplicable, that, during the 
 space of eighteen centuries, the Old Testament, 
 excluding the New, has not made a single con- 
 vert of name? Is it conceivable that God 
 would permit this to be the case, if the New 
 Testament were not from God? Many pro- 
 found thinkers, and some of the most en-
 
 LEVl's DISSEKTATIONS. ] 83 
 
 lightened philosophers who have ever lived in 
 the world, have become sincere and humble 
 Christians; but have we ever heard of converts 
 to Judaism ! How do the Jews account for 
 this? 
 
 In the preceding pages it has been shown, 
 that, according to the prophecies of Moses, the 
 Jews are, during their captivity, ' to grope at 
 ' noon-day, as the blind gropeth in darkness.' 
 Now, we would wish the Jews to consider 
 what explanation they can give of this blind- 
 ness ? Wherein does it consist ? According to 
 the Christian scheme it is easily explained: it 
 consists in their having rejected and crucified 
 the promised Messiah, the Lord of Life. But, 
 according to the system of modern Judaism, I 
 know not how it admits of any explanation ; 
 and we have already seen to what wretched 
 shifts David Levi is reduced, when he w 7 ould 
 explain the term blindness where it is pre- 
 dicted of the Israelites. 
 
 To a Jew, whose mind is filled with high 
 notions of the exclusive privileges of his own
 
 184 REMARKS UPON 
 
 nation, it must certainly appear a most offensive 
 declaration, that spiritual blindness hath hap- 
 pened unto Israel. But let the candid Jew 
 seriously reflect, whether it be not in the na- 
 ture of things equally mysterious, that God 
 should have left the whole Gentile world in a 
 state of blindness from the calling of Abraham 
 till the coming of Jesus, upon the Christian 
 hypothesis ; and, on the Jewish hypothesis, till 
 the present day. As God is no respecter of 
 persons, and his tender mercies are over all his 
 works, it is natural to suppose that there must 
 be some equality in the administration of spi- 
 ritual benefits both to the Jews and Gentiles. 
 Upon the Christian scheme, there is such an 
 equality; and after that the apostle of the Gen- 
 tiles has, in the eleventh chapter of the Romans, 
 taken a short and comprehensive view of the 
 procedure of God towards both Jews and Gen- 
 tiles, he closes the whole in the following words, 
 (tser. 2,5.) ' For I would not, brethren, that ye 
 ' should be ignorant of this mystery, (lest ye 
 4 should be wise in your own conceits,) that
 
 LEVl'S DISSERTATIONS. 185 
 
 ' blindness in part is happened unto Israel 5 
 4 until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. 
 ' And so all Israel shall be saved; as it is 
 ' written, There shall come out of Sion the de- 
 4 liverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from 
 4 Jacob. For this is my covenant unto them, 
 ' when I shall take away their sins: As con- 
 ' cerning the gospel, they are enemies for your 
 ' sakes ; but as touching the election, they are 
 4 beloved for the fathers' sakes. For the gifts 
 ' and calling of God are without repentance. 
 ' For as ye, in times past, have not believed 
 ' God, yet have obtained mercy through their 
 ' unbelief; even so have these also now not be- 
 ' lieved, that through your mercy they also may 
 4 obtain mercy. For God hath concluded them 
 4 all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon 
 4 all. O the depth of the riches both of the 
 ' wisdom and the knowledge of God; how un- 
 ' searchable are his judgments, and his ways 
 4 past finding out ! ' 
 
 To conclude: both Jews and Christians are
 
 186 REMARKS UPON 
 
 agreed that the Scriptures of the Old Testa- 
 ment were dictated by divine inspiration. Va- 
 rious passages of these Scriptures have been 
 shown to meet in the character, the life, the 
 last sufferings, and death of Jesus, and to ac- 
 cord with the declarations of the New Testa- 
 ment regarding the effects of his death, and his 
 condition and offices since his exaltation. 
 
 It is undeniable that this person was the 
 founder of the Christian religion, and is believed 
 by his followers to be the Messiah promised to 
 the Jews. It has been shown, that he was a 
 righteous person in his doctrines and his actions, 
 and it is certain, that neither lie nor his first 
 followers could gain any thing by an imposture; 
 for he himself expired upon a cross, and the re- 
 wards of his disciples, in the earliest ages of 
 the church, were prisons, persecution, ignomini- 
 ous and painful deaths. It is incontrovertible 
 also, that though his religion was contrary to the 
 prejudices and vices of the Jews and Gentiles, 
 and was opposed by the whole power of the
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 187 
 
 reigning superstitions, aided by the secular au- 
 thority of the Roman government, yet it pre- 
 vailed so mightily by the force of conviction 
 alone, that after three centuries it became the 
 established religion of the Roman empire ; 
 and, since that period, it has numbered among 
 its disciples the greatest and most learned men 
 of the Gentile world, and has been rejected 
 only by those who equally deny the truth of 
 the Mosaic revelation. It is certain, that 
 though this religion has been opposed by men 
 of great wit, acuteness, and learning, yet the 
 founder of it has never yet been proved to be 
 an impostor or an enthusiast; nor have any 
 facts been brought to light which invalidate his 
 pretensions. It is certain, that since the Jews 
 crucified Jesus they have never prospered. 
 Within forty years after his death Jerusalem 
 was destroyed by the Romans, and the Jews 
 led away captive among all nations, among 
 whom they have suffered great and dreadful 
 calamities. And what is equally remarkable.
 
 REMARKS UPON 
 
 their own sacred books declare them to be at 
 present not the people of God ; not in covenant 
 relation with God, but in a state of blindness 
 and separation. Of the nature and cause of 
 this blindness they themselves can give no 
 rational or consistent account; while, upon the 
 Christian scheme, it is at once accounted for. 
 Such is a summary of some of the leading facts 
 and arguments which unite in demonstrating 
 that Jesus is the Messiah; and no answer has 
 been made, in David Levi's work on the pro- 
 phecies, to any one of these proofs of the 
 divine mission of Jesus. 
 
 We cannot close these remarks, without an 
 earnest and most affectionate invitation to the 
 ancient people of God, seriously to ponder the 
 arguments advanced in the preceding pages ; 
 and to examine the Scriptures, whether these 
 arguments be well founded or not. And oh 
 that there were in the Jews such a disposition 
 as to lead them now to adopt, as the language 
 of their hearts, the pathetic prayers put into
 
 LEVl's DISSERTATIONS. 18Q 
 
 their mouths by the evangelical prophet Isaiah, 
 in reference to the period of their restoration ! 
 ' O Lord, why hast thou made us to err from 
 ' thy ways ; and hardened our hearts from thy 
 'fear? Return, for thy servant's sake, the 
 ' tribes of thine inheritance. The people of thy 
 ' holiness have possessed it but a little while : 
 ' our adversaries have trodden down thy sanc- 
 ' tuary. We are thine : thou never barest 
 ' rule over them ; they were not called by thy 
 ' name.' (Isaiah Ixiii. 17 19-) And, again, 
 ' Be not wroth very sore, O Lord ; neither 
 4 remember iniquity for ever. Behold, see, we 
 ' beseech thee, we are all thy people ! Thy holy 
 ' cities are a wilderness; Zion is a wilderness; 
 ' Jerusalem a desolation ! Our holy and our 
 ' beautiful house, where our fathers praised 
 ' Thee, is burned up with fire ; and all our plea- 
 ' sant things are laid waste. Wilt thou refrain 
 1 thyself for these things, O Lord ? wilt thou 
 'hold thy peace, and afflict us very sore? 3 
 (Isaiah Ixiv. 9 12.) We conclude, in the
 
 language of the pious psalmist, ' Blessed be the 
 * Lord God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous 
 ' things ; and blessed be his glorious name for 
 ' ever; and let the whole earth be filled with his 
 ' glory ! Amen, and Amen. ' 
 
 1T1K END. 
 
 Printed by Black, Parry, and Kingsbury, 
 Leadenhall-street, London.
 
 3 1158 00564 9784 
 
 A 001 429 320 3