Comment. Vol ii. p. 779. But nothing is advanced by thefe writers to make it probable that the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerufalem is coincident with the time of the demolition of it by Nebuchadnezzar. The prophecy of Jeremiah was firft delivered in the fourth year of Jehoiakim and the first of Nebuchadnezzar (Jer. xxv. 12.) and repeated, in a letter to the captives, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah. Ch. xxviii. 1. xxix. 10. That Agrippa could not be the latter Meffiah (if there must be two of them in this prophecy) I have fhewn, by obferving that this prince was not killed at the fiege of Jerufalem, but probably ended his days peaceably at Rome, long after. Jofephus, in the history of his own life, has given us two letters of this Agrippa, written after he had perused his history, and confequently several years after the deftruction of Jerufalem. He is also mentioned by Tacitus, as the ally of the Romans in the Jewish war. And though this writer (Hift. Lib. V.) gives a pretty pretty circumftantial account of the war, he fays nothing of the defection, or death, of that prince in the course of it. By Mr. Levi's own confeffion, there was a Meffiah cut off about that time, and who could this be but Jefus ? your Agrippa was too inconfiderable a prince to be the subject of fuch a prophecy; whereas the figure that Jefus makes in history is fo confpicuous, that it might have been expected that he would have been noticed in your prophecies on fome account. or other. No Jew, no person of any nation, your ever occafioned fuch a revolution in the religious ftate of the world (and religion is the great object of whole conftitution) as Jesus Christ has effected. By this fingle Jew, and his followers, have the idolatrous fyftems of every nation within the bounds of the whole Roman empire, and far beyond it, been already overturned; and according to prefent appearances, independent of the prophecies of the New Teftament, by Christianity, and not by the inftitutions of Mofes as fuch, will idolatry (to which those infti 3 inftitutions were particularly oppofed) be extirpated out of the world. But where will you find so distinguished a perfon in history noticed at all in your prophecies, if he be not the Meffiah of Daniel, that Meffiah who was to be cut off, and not for himself, and the fame perfon who in Daniel, vii. 13. is ftiled the fon of man, who will come in the clouds of heaven, and to whom will be given dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, whofe dominion will not pass away, and whofe kingdom will not be deftroyed? "The feventy weeks," Mr. Levi fays, p. 41, "are, without doubt, four hundred "and ninety years, the time from the "deftruction of the firft temple to the de"ftruction of the fecond." But if there be any truth in hiftory, the interval between those two events was about fix hundred and fifty years; and it is by history that prophecy must be interpreted. I obferved that it must have been from this prophecy that your ancestors first learned to diftinguish your great deliverer by the name of Meffiah. But Mr. Levi fays, p. 49, "It 94, It is not the name of the Meffiah, by the prophets that is to be regarded;" and he obferves that the Chaldee Paraphrafts have used that term, in their interpretation. of other prophecies which they apply to your future deliverer. But what could have led them to apply this term to your great deliverer, but their fuppofing that he was the fame perfon who had been so denominated in this prophecy of Daniel? The term never occurs in any preceding prophecy, except in Ifaiah, in which it is applied to Cyrus. And this heathen prince could never have been fuppofed to be the perfon whom you now call the Mefab. Undoubtedly, therefore, they who firft ufed this term, as denoting your future deliverer, must have thought that he was the fame perfon who was intended in the prophecy of Daniel; and it cannot have been any thing but your disappointment, in his not coming about the time fignified by Daniel, that has led your writers to feek out fome other. interpretation. 2 It It is manifeft that your ancestors in general did expect the appearance of the Meffiah about the time of Jefus Chrift; and what could have occafioned their expectation of him fo much, at that particular time, but a fuppofition that he was the perfon intended by Daniel in this prophecy, the accomplishment of which you even now ac knowledge falls about that time? LETTER VII. THE CONCLUSION. I CANNOT conclude this second set of letters to you, without once more entreating you to give due attention to the proper, that is the hiftorical, evidence of Christianity. For it is on this, which Mr. Levi has not fo much as touched upon, that the controversy between us must hinge. Examine the credibility of the gofpel history, as you would that of any other history that PART II. fhould E |