who conceived, that, as the creation was formed in fix days, reckoning according to that affertion in the Pfalms, that every day is with God as a thousand years, and was concluded by a grand fabbath or day of almighty reft, fo the world was ordained to laft only during the revolution of fix thousand years.

Time rolled on in its rapid and refiftlefs career, and proved to them the fallacy of this ancient tradition. Still, however, their most celebrated rabbins continued calculating, by the course of the stars, the times of their great Meffiah's expected advent. Repeated calculations of those times, and as repeated disappointments, have, at length, nearly plunged in despair the infatuated fons of Judah. Rabbi Abraham, who, in the year 1516, had found, engraved upon a wall, a very ancient prophecy, relative to that coming, had declared that the fame ftar which appeared when Joshua conquered the land of Canaan, and when Ezra brought back the people from Babylon, would again appear in the year 1529, when the Meffiah might, for a certainty, be expected: but the prediction was by no means verified by the event, and the more recent Talmudic

Talmudic doctors, ftung by this painful expofure of their credit, pray to God that the man who now prefumes to calculate the times of the Meffiah may burst asunder, and that his bones may fwell and break. Such is their strong language in the Gemara. His coming, they affert, is still delayed on account of the unrepented fins of the people. When this conftellation shall at length manifeft itself, the most awful prodigies in nature are to precede his defcent. The most fanguinary wars shall defolate the globe; a dew of blood shall fall down from heaven; plague and famine shall ravage the earth; and the most venomous reptiles and the most favage monsters of the defert are to be let loofe on mankind. The fun itself shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, according to Joel's prophecy; but, in thirty days, fhall recover their priftine lightness. "Men, fays the Gemara, formidable, with two heads and numerous eyes, burning like fire, fhall come from the extremities of the earth; and a powerful and defpotic monarch finally prevailing fhall govern the universe with a rod of iron."* His throne shall be established in Rome, (a proof at what period they expected the Meffiah,) but he

Gemara, Title Sanhedrim, fol. 52.

he fhall reign only nine months, when the firft Meffiah, the son of Jofeph, as he is called in the Talmud, fhall appear; and, routing this tyrant with great flaughter, shall eftablish a more righteous throne. This throne, though more righteous, is however to be fcarcely less fanguinary; for, in one battle, nearly two hundred thousand combatants with their leader are to perifh. At length the great arch-angel Michael is to blow three times the trumpet of heaven: and then the defire of nations, the true Meffiah, the Son of David, is to appear with the prophet Elijah by his fide. All the Chriftians and infidels then living are to be annihilated at the fecond blaft of that trumpet. All the virtuous deceafed of the Jews, from the time of Mofes, are to rife from their graves, and attend the Meffiah to the renovated Jerufalem; which, with its temple, is to be re-built with precious ftones. A banquet of boundless magnificence is to be prepared for them, which is to be adorned with a Leviathan fatted of old for this feaft of the bleffed; with a female Behemoth, of exquifite flavour; and with the bird BARIUCHNE, a bird of fuch ftupendous magnitude, that, when its wings are expanded, the orb of the fun is darkened. Wine, treafu

red

red up ever fince the creation, in the vault of Adam, is to flow in abundant ftreams; wine, of the rich vintage that commenced before the earth became defiled and curfed; wine, the flavour and spirit of which is not to be decayed, but improved, by its immenfe age. Such are the conceptions, reader, and others a thousand times more grofs, of the Jewish nation relative to the grand banquet to take place on the Meffiah's appearance. Bafnage profeffes faithfully to have detailed these various circumftances from Maimonides, Abarbanel, and other celebrated rabbies, and from him I have copied the luxurious picture, to mark the corruption of their minds, and their carnal notions of those future pleasures which Chriftians believe to be purely fpiritual.* Can we wonder, after this, at any mutilation or depravation of paffages in Scripture by a race fo fenfual and fo depraved ?

To resume the gravity which fo folemn a fubject requires, I muft beg permiffion again to observe, that, on these mysterious points, which human reafon cannot fathom, it is in vain that we make that reason the umpire. That finite man, however, can form no adequate conception of this great truth, by no

Bafnage's Hiftory of the Jews, P 373.

means

means implies impoffibility or contradiction in the thing itself. This circumftance arifes from the limited nature of the human faculties. It is mere ignorance; but it is an ignorance which we can never overcome. Let it ever be remembered, that Christianity by no means propofes to mankind a theological code, encumbered with no difficulties, involved in no perplexities. Its great myfterious truths are not to be folved by the light of nature, nor fcanned by the boldeft flight of human intellect. Neither the Trinity nor the incarnation can be prøved, nor were intended to be proved, by philofophical arguments. The word of God is the fole bafis of the proofs and folutions of thefe ftupendous doctrines. They are wifely fhaded from our view, the better to excite in us the ardour of faith, and exercise the virtues neceffary to obtain the sublime rewards which it proposes to persevering piety. The Almighty has been pleased to erect mounds and ramparts, as of old at Sinai, around the abode of his Majefty, to ward off the dangerous curiofity of man; he hath wrapped himself in clouds, that we might not be confumed by the full blaze of that glory which invefts the eternal throne.

СНАР