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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

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written, My house shall be called the house of have made it a den of thieves. prayer; but And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful 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 of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?'

Thus, by the appearance of Jesus, the Mes

siah, in the second temple, before his last sufferings 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 protection.

CHAP. VI.

ARGUMENT THAT JESUS IS THE MESSIAH, FROM THE PRESENT STATE OF THE JEWS AND OF THE CHRISTIAN

GENTILES.

Ir 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 Messiah, 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,

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 worship 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.

But,

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. 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. I. page 266.)

"That God hath chosen Israel for his glory; "to hand down the knowledge of his unity among "the nations hitherto; and, at their restoration, "to be the means of bringing all mankind to "the true knowledge of God." And, in Vol. I. pages 52, 53, and 223; and Vol. II. page 235, 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 Godhead. I therefore understand Levi as maintaining, 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 worshippers of God, He, on the other hand, has

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