MORE THAN THE SONS OF MEN,) so shall he sprinkle many nations. He 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 wɛ estee.ned him not. Surely 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 iniquities: the chastisement of Our peace was upon him, and by his STRIPES we are healed.-The Lord hath laid on him the iniquities of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter; and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth 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. It pleased the Lord to bruise him: he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied.-The Messiah shall be cut off; but not for himself.

The attempts that have been made to explain away these prophecies, especially the fifty-third of Isaiah, and to make it apply to Israel as a nation, are marks of a desperate cause.

*

Is it not marvellous that the enemies of Jesus should so exactly fulfil the scriptures in reproaching and crucifying him; using the very speeches, and inflicting the very cruelties, which it was foretold they would? He trusted in the Lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.-They parted my garments, and for my vesture they did cast lots-They gave me gall to eat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink-They pierced my hands and my feet. These things were not true of the

*If, as Mr. D. Levi would have it, the sufferer be Israel personified, and that this nation, on account of its injuries, may be said to have borne the iniquities of the whole world, how is it said, that for the transgressions of MY PEOPLE was he stricken? Does the character of my people belong to the world, as distinguished from Israel? or, Is the sufferer and the people for whom he suffered the same?

:

writers but they were true of Jesus: in him, therefore, they were fulfiled.

7. It was foretold that the Messiah, after being cut off out of the land of the living, and laid in the grave should rise from the dead. Nothing less can be implied by all the promises made to him as the reward of his sufferings for if he had continued under the power of death, how should he have seen his seed, or prolonged his days? If his kingdom had been that of a mortal man, how could it continue as long as the sun and moon? How was he to see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied, unless he survived that travail ? But more than this, it is foretold that he should rise from the dead at so early a period as not to see corruption. The argument of Peter from this passage has never been answered. David said, Thou wilt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption: but David did see corruption; he refers to him, therefore, of whom it is witnessed that he saw no corruption.

Lastly, It was foretold that the great body of the Jewish nation would not believe in him; and that he would set up his kingdom among the Gentiles. Such is evidently the meaning of the prophet's complaint, Who hath believed our report? and of the Messiah's words, in another part of the same prophecies-Then I said, I have laboured in vain; I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain; yet surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God. And now, saith the Lord, that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength. And he said. It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the ends of the earth.

Your writers complain of ours for interpreting the promises to Israel spiritually, and the threatenings literally; and tell us that they are not greatly obliged to us for it. But this is misrepresentation. Our writers neither interpret all the promises to Israel spiritually, nor all the threatenings literally. They expect your return, and that at no very distant period, to your own land: for, besides many Old-Testament prophecies to this effect, he that said concerning the

inhabitants of Judea and Jerusalem, They 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 Gentiles added, UNTIL THE TIMES OF THE GENTILES BE FULFILLED And, in regard of the threatenings, the heaviest of them all is that which is expressed by Isaiah, (chap. vi. 9—12.) Go, 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 their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed. Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate.

This awful judgment was indeed to issue in temporal calamities; but the judgment itself is spiritual; a judgment, the nature of which prevents your feeling it, but which is a greater evil than all your other punishments put together.

Such are some of the evidences from which we conclude that Jesus is the true Messiah. Time, place, family, miracles, character, sufferings, resurrection, and rejection by his own countrymen-ali are fiulfilled in him. Never was such a body of prophecy given and accomplished in any other case. If you still shut your eyes upon the light, you must abide the consequence: for our parts, we feel the ground upon which we stand, when we say, We know that the Son of God is come.

III. It is declared that when the Messiah should come, THE WILL OF GOD WOULD BE PERFECTLY FULFILLED BY HIM-I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart. Agreeably to this, the Messiah is denominated God's servant, whom he would uphold-in whom he would be glorified--and who should bring Jacob again to him.

The will of God sometimes denotes what he approves, and sometimes what he appoints. The first is the rule of our conduct, the last of his own; and both we affirm to have been fulfilled by Jesus.

In respect of the Divine precepts, his whole life was in perfect conformity to them. All his actions were governed by love. Your fathers were challenged to convince him of sin; and you are

challenged to do the same. Yet your nation reckons him an impostor! Was there ever such an impostor? Nay, was there ever such a character seen among men? Should the account given of him by the evangelists be objected to, we might answer from ROUSSEAU," The Jewish authors were incapable of the diction, and strangers to the morality, contained in the Gospels; the marks of whose truth are so striking and invincible, that the inventor would be a more astonishing character than the hero."*

When a sinful creature is said to have the law of God in his heart, it is said to be written there, or put in him by the Spirit of God; but of the Messiah it is said to be within him. His heart never existed without the impression, and therefore needed not to have it put in him. Such was Jesus, and such the spirit that he manifested throughout his life. Let the character, besides him, be named, who dares to rest the truth of his pretensions on his being found to be holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from

sinners.

But it was not merely to fulfil the Divine precepts that the Messiah was to come, but to execute his purpose in saving lost sinners. Even his obedience to the law was subservient to this, or he could not have been the Lord our righteousness. He was God's servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, to give light to the Gentiles, and to be his salvation to the ends of the earth. In accomplishing this, it behoved him to endure the penalty, as well as obey the precepts, of the law. His soul must be made an offering for sin; he must be cut off out of the land of the living-cut off, but not for himself; and this that he might make reconciliation for iniquity, and bring in everlasting righteousness.

Such was the doctrine of the ancient Israelites; and such is that of the New Testament. If it be true, let me intreat you to consider the consequences. While you hold fast the traditions of later ages, you have renounced the religion and the God of your ancient fathers; and, in doing this, have rejected the only way of salvation. If the things which I have attempted to establish be true, your fathers crucified the Lord of Glory; and you, by ap

* Works, Vol. V. pp. 215-218.

proving the deed, make it your own. Moreover, if they be true, Jesus Christ will one day come in the clouds of heaven, and every eye shall see him; and they also who pierced him shall wail because of him! Consider of it, take advice, and speak your minds

We doubt not but the time will come when your nation shall look on him whom their fathers pierced, and shall mourn as one that mourneth for an only son; but if it be not so with you, it is the more affecting. To see, at the last judgment, not only Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, but millions of your own unborn posterity, sitting down in the kingdom of God, and ye yourselves cast out, is inexpressibly affecting!

I have lately looked into some of the modern Jewish writings. It would be going beyond my limits to attempt an answer to many of their objections to the gospel; but I will touch upon a few, which struck me in the course of reading.

They find many things spoken in prophecy of the reign of the Messiah, which are not as yet fulfilled in Jesus; such as the cessation of wars, the restoration of the Jewish nation, &c. &c. and argue from hence, that Jesus is not the Messiah. But it is not said that these effects should immediately follow on his appearing. On the contrary, there was to be an increase of his government; yea, a continued increase. Jesus may be the Messiah, and his reign may be begun ; while yet, seeing it is not ended, there may be many things at present unfulfilled. The kingdom of the Messiah was to continue as long as the sun and the moon. It was to be set up during the reign of the fourth monarchy; but was itself to survive it, and to stand for ever.

But they object that the doctrine taught by Jesus was not of a pacific tendency-that, on the contrary, it was, by his own confession, adapted to produce division and discord-Think not that I am come to send peace on earth, but a sword: for I am come to set a man at variance with his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law; and a man's foes shall be they of his own household. These words, however, (as a child in just reasoning would perceive,) do not express what the gospel is in its own nature; but what it would occasion,