Israel, in his Defense of the Jews, in the Phoenix, vol. ii. p. 401.

The account of the Jews who have been plundered, sent naked into banishment, starved, tortured, left to perish in prisons, hanged and burnt by Christians, would fill many volumes. But now they enjoy better times; they escape persecution even in some Popish countries, and those of them who dwell in Protestant nations have been well used, and no where more kindly than here; so that they have great reason to remember the command which God gave them by Jeremiah, when they were in Babylon, and to apply it to their present situation; Seek the 'Seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried, and pray unto the Lord for it; for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.' Why should we not, in charity, suppose them to be thus inclined? for they are men; and men will commonly love those who treat them gently, and will certainly entertain a bad opinion of their persecutors. In this let us judge of others by what we feel ourselves; since there are two things which every honest person equally dislikes, to oppress, and to be oppressed.

If we had a circumstantial and an impartial account of all the insurrections and rebellions of the Jews, and of the causes which produced them, we should perhaps find this people to have been often provoked and exasperated by ill usage, and therefore rather less turbulent and seditious than they have been commonly represented. We should not forget that it is oppression which, usually speaking, begets rebellion; oppression, which, as the wise man observes, will make a wise man mad,

St. Paul, in the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, observes, that God had rejected the Jews, and chosen the Gentiles to be his people; but, says he, this rejection of the Jews, as it is not universal, so neither is it final and irreversible; some of them are now called to the faith, but to the greater part blindness has happened, and this blindness must continue till the fulness, the more complete conversion of the Gentiles be come, and then the people of Israel shall also be saved; that is, shall be converted to the Gospel, and so be put in a state of salvation. St. Paul argues thus; If God hath called the Gentiles to his grace after a long idolatry and infidelity,

though they were never before admitted to those privileges which the Jews enjoyed, and though God had never promised to be their God for ever, much more will he recall his chosen people from their infidelity. Here we have his own authority for it, which he also strengthens by appealing to the Scriptures: 'It is written,' says he, "The Deliverer shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob, and God shall make a covenant with his people, and take away their sins.' The Jews were called God's own people, and his first-born; to them Christ was sent, to them the apostles first preached the Gospel, and the first Christian church was that of Je rusalem, which in the primitive times was as the motherchurch, and had some degree of dignity and pre-eminence over all churches. The prophets speak of a future calling of the Jews, and of a state of stability, piety, power, hap piness, glory, peace, and prosperity which they should en joy. The expressions which are used upon this occasion are extremely strong and magnificent, and have not as yet been literally accomplished, St. John, also, in the Revelation, when he describes the New Jerusalem and the glorious state of the church, adopts the same ideas, and uses the same expressions; and therefore may be supposed to have had the same event in view: and the antient Christians, either by tradition, or by examining the Scriptures, were gene rally agreed in holding that the Jews should in those last days become God's people again; and in the expectation of happier times the Jews also agreed with them.

The question here is, whether St. Paul's declaration were fulfilled in the conversion of several Jews after the destruction of Jerusalem, and during the four first centuries, or whether he had a view to a still future and a much more extensive conversion, Upon this question commentators are divided; but the preservation of this people under so long, so signal, and so unexampled persecutions and calamities, would incline one to think that they are reserved for some illustrious purpose of Providence; and the expressions of St. Paul most naturally promise a conversion which is yet to come. Whitby has treated of the calling of the Jews, in his Commentary on the Eleventh Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, and in an Appendix, where the reader will find the substance of all that can be said on this side of the

question. I know of no satisfactory answer that ever was made to it.

The utmost that can be collected from the passages of Scripture concerning this great event is, that the Gospel shall, before the consummation of all things, flourish more, and extend itself further than at present; that Christianity shall be reformed, and reduced to its primitive and genuine purity and simplicity, and have a happier effect upon the manners of its professors; and that many, at least, of the Jews and Gentiles shall flow into the church.

But to descend to particulars is to indulge the most uncertain conjectures. Predictions in general, before their accomplishment, are never perfectly understood; and the metaphorical and figurative style of prophecy adds to the difficulty, and hath often misled the unwary interpreter. The expounding such sort of expressions on this occasion too literally has produced strange and precarious notions amongst antient and modern Christians concerning the Millennium; thus it has been supposed that Christ shall come and reign personally upon earth a thousand years; that the old Christian martyrs shall rise again to reign with him; that the Jews shall have a temple rebuilt, and a temple-service renewed; and that the righteous shall in those days enjoy the utmost temporal felicity: all which seems to agree neither with the abolishment of the ceremonial law, nor with the pure and spiritual nature of the Gospel, nor with the promises of a true happiness; which is to be expected not here below, but in the kingdom of heaven.

The conversion and the restoration of the Jews, and the calling of the Gentiles, if ever it be accomplished, must in all probability be performed by the visible manifestation of -God's power and spirit, and not by ordinary and human means. This will appear, if we consider the present situa tion of the Jews, and of the unbelieving nations, and the impediments to their conversion, both from their own state, and from the state of Christianity.

When the Gospel was first preached, its progress was swift and extensive. If you ask why it was so, and how it came to pass, the reason is, that it was accompanied with a plentiful effusion of divine and preternatural gifts, with prophetic and miraculous powers; else it could never

have prevailed, and even the prejudices of education would have kept it out from all lands.

Christianity at present is destitute of these aids, and is to be proved by no other ways than by inferences and deductions, and moral and historical proofs, which not only require learning and the exercise of reason in the teacher, but also a tolerable capacity in the persons to be taught. Now those men in general who make up the bulk of society are incompetent judges of complicated moral evidence, and of probabilities; which makes it extremely difficult to introduce Christianity any where by mere argumentative me thods, and by convincing the understanding.

The Mohammedans and Pagans are, for the most part, poor reasoners; and take up implicitly the religious opinions which they find established. Good sense and intel lectual abilities are indeed natives of all climes; but they are not equally cultivated every where, and no where less than in those countries of which we are speaking, where the vulgar are often only a better sort of brutes, and a little above the monkeys. Man is in a great measure what edu cation and instruction make him. Despotic government, which is an enemy to the free exercise of the understanding, and the danger of examining points of faith, increase the stupidity and ignorance in such places. Where the will of one insolent man is the only law, there is usually neither learning, nor courage, nor virtue, nor religion. The manners also and the customs of those nations are in some things directly contrary to the spirit of the Gospel. The Gospel restrains polygamy and divorce, enjoins chastity and humanity, orders servants or slaves to be kindly used, and the female sex to frequent the public worship of God; and therefore must be odious to those nations where different practices prevail. Hence it may be observed, that when Christianity, not long after the death of the apostles, made

its

way in some parts of the eastern world, it probably had the assistance of miracles; not only because of the hardships and persecutions which its professors then underwent, but because it contradicted the manners and customs of those who embraced it, and opposed itself to those indulgences and practices which men are never willing to give up, and which are to them a kind of second nature. This,

joined to some testimonies in ecclesiastical history, is no bad argument to show that miracles might continue somewhat longer than the apostolical age, and be performed upon some important occasions, particularly in preaching and establishing the Gospel amongst infidels.

There is little reason to hope that Pagan and Mohammedan nations should be converted at present by the Christians. They are not at all disposed to receive the Gospel, and to judge of the force of moral arguments and of strong probabilities. It would be a hard matter to convince them of the antiquity and the authority of our sacred books, not because our proofs are weak and defective, but because they are not acquainted with our chronology and history. Yet these impediments and difficulties are not such as should discourage the attempts made by our teachers and missionaries amongst the Pagans in those countries where we have commerce and settlements. Such attempts are highly useful and commendable, and deserve public encouragement; and surely it is the duty of Christians, when they have means and opportunities, to relieve the spiritual no less than the corporal wants of their fellow-creatures.

The Jews are dispersed over the earth, and dwell in Mohammedan, in Pagan, and in Christian countries: so that, though by descent they be Jews, by birth they are Persians, Turks, Italians, &c. and partake in some measure of the genius and temper of the nations in which they are born and educated. By dwelling amongst Pagans and Mohammedans, and under tyrannical government, they learn to reason as little as their masters and their neighbours, and to go on implicitly in the faith of their forefathers. Their neighbours never dispute much about religion; and it is controversy and free debate that opens and enlarges the mind and improves the understanding; without this there is a dull stagnation of the intellectual faculties.

Besides this, the Jews were never remarkable for accurate and methodical reasoning; and their traditionary doctrines and mystical interpretations help to spoil their judgment.

R. Falk began A. D. 1530 to exercise his scholars in dispute, after the manner of the Christians: but this method did not please the wise, and was not generally approved. The Jews, who have a theology altogether my