more be restored to the Promised Land. And such we know from the book of Tobit to have been the belief even before their first captivity at Babylon, as predicted by Jonah, in a prophecy now no longer extant. "For I surely believe (says Tobit) those things which Jonas the prophet spake of Nineve, &c.--and that our brethren shall lie scattered in the earth from that good land: and Jerusalem shall be desolate, and the house of God in it shall be burned, and shall be desolate for a time; and that again God will have mercy on them, and bring them again into the land, where they shall build a temple, but not like to the first, until the time of that age be fulfilled : and afterward they shall return from all places of their captivity, and build up Jerusalem gloriously, and the house of God shall be built in it for ever with a glorious building, as the prophets have spoken thereof *"

Let us remember that, as Christians, St. Paul has warned us not to be highminded as regards our relative position to the Jew that we are but as the wild branches grafted upon the goodly olive tree, and liable at any time to be cut off: while he tells us that the original branches, if they abide not in unbelief, shall again be grafted in. Let us remember that, as concerning the Gospel, they have been enemies for our sakes, but as touching the election, they are beloved for the father's sake. For blindness in part has happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in; and so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, there shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob; for this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins *.

*Romans xi. 25.

NOTES.

(1) Page 2.

Bishop Newton avoids the subject of the Seventy Weeks' prophecy altogether. Whiston, in his Literal Accomplishment of Prophecy, omits it: but, in the supplement to his work, submits an hypothesis, which is universally rejected, viz. that the Artaxerxes of Nehemiah was the Xerxes of the Greeks. Nehemiah's Artaxerxes reigned, as he tells us, more than thirty-two years (Nehem. xiii. 6.); but no chronologist has ever supposed Xerxes to have reigned more than twenty-one years. Whiston also proposes the reading of seven weeks and a half, and sixty-two weeks and a half unto Messiah. Keith, in his treatise upon Prophecy, does not dwell with that fulness and confidence upon this prophecy that one would wish.

(2) Page 3.

Fieri non potest ut hoc vaticinium de Jesu Nazareno exponant, cum ipsimet (Christiani) fateantur

eum 42 annis ante excidium suspensum fuisse et cruci affixum. Non igitur excisus est post 62 hebdomadas, sed post hebdomadas 56. secundum verissimam computationem.De cætero, Nazarenorum libros inspicientibus constat, nihil liquido cognitum illos habere, nec de principio nec de fine harum hebdomadarum. Unus enim hinc, alter inde initium numerandi arcessere jubet, citra ullum fundamentum cui innitantur, testante ipso viro doctissimo Martino Zack wiz Nazareno, in libro Dialogorum, p. 170. Hanc ob causam dissentiunt inter se circa tempus crucifixionis Jesu Nazareni, &c. &c. Rabbi Isaac. Munimen Fidei, p. 342.

(3) Page 4.

Omnis controversiæ hujus chronologica (de ærâ Contractuum) cardo in his tribus versatur, unde æra Contractuum sit inchoanda, num ab anno primo monarchiæ Alexandri Magni, vel sexto imperii ejus, quo Darium Codomannum devicit, an verò a morte Alexandri, cùm regnum ejus inter quatuor duces. exercitus divisum fuit. G. H. Vorstius, Observat. in Chronologiam R. Davidis Gantz, p. 253.

(4) Page 5.

Anna the prophetess is supposed to have been looking for the coming of Christ some fifty or sixty years before the birth of our Saviour. Luke ii. 36-38.

(5) Page 8.

Tertius Ezræ ut canonicus censetur, ab Origene sub finem Hom. ix. in Josue, Athanasio lib. iii. contra Arianos, Augustino lib. xviii. de Civitate Dei, c. iii. Cypriano Epist. ad Pompeianum; et apud Græcos non modo est canonicus, sed etiam Ezræ primus. Genebrard. Chronographia, p. 181.

(6) Page 8.

Moreover, when the city of Jerusalem was taken by force, Titus Cæsar persuaded me frequently to take whatsoever I would of the ruins of my country: so I made this request to Titus, that my family might have their liberty: I had also the holy books by Titus's concession.-Life of Josephus, c. 75.

See also Whiston on the Old Testament, p. 193, on this passage.

(7) Page 9.

The internal objections raised against the first book of Esdras may be entirely removed, by placing, or rather replacing, part of the fifth chapter (i. e. from the forty-eighth verse to the end) where it is found in the canonical book; and from which place I suspect it has been erroneously removed, together with the preceding part of that chapter (i. e. the list of those who went up to Jerusalem with Zerubabel), in