the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him shall ye hearken." Deut. c. 18, v. 15. This prophecy, namely, that the great personage who was to come should be like unto Moses, gave such a latitude to the imagination of the Jews on this subject, that there was no end to the favourable interpretation they might give of it, both as regarded him or themselves. In the first place, Moses was a king among his own people. He was also a deliverer, that is, a deliverer from Egyptian bondage. He was the conqueror of the Canaanites, a Gentile nation. He was a great law-giver. He was at the head of the church of Israel. He was supreme judge of the people, and he was the mediator between God and man in his own time.

There were also other prophecies in the Pentateuch, which would shew what the character of the Messiah was to be, but as some of these will be introduced for examination with more propriety in the next chapter, I shall go to the books of the Prophets which were of later date, where the same great personage was pointed out and his offices described. The Jews would find there more and more particulars relating to their Messiah. They would learn there the very family from which he was to spring; the

very place in which he was to be born; the nature of his mission; the character which he was to sustain; the very time when he was to come upon earth, and other most important circumstances, so as in fact to have all the know ledge necessary for their conviction on this subject.

It is not necessary that I should cite here all the Prophecies which contain the particulars just mentioned, but there is one, which I cannot omit bringing forward in this place. The prophecy is this. "Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people aud upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy. Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem unto Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the streets shall be built again and the wall even in troublous times." Daniel c. 9. v. 24. 25.

I may now observe on this prophecy, that it was one of the most remarkable as well as valuable of all the prophecies contained in the sacred

records; for in the first place it fixed the coming of the Messiah so precisely in point of time, that every Jew was enabled to inform himself when (within a very short period) he was to appear upon earth. It is well known that computation by weeks of years was common among the Jews. It follows therefore by means of such a way of computation, that, to complete the prophecy, there would be four-hundred and ninety years from the seventh year of Artaxerxes, when Ezra received the commandment to go and rebuild Jerusalem and restore the Jewish worship, to the making reconciliation for iniquity or the death of Christ. This prophecy then afforded ground to the Jews to expect that this great personage would appear before the expiration of this period. And it is generally understood that Jesus Christ began his ministry, just about three years before this period was completed. In the second place this prophecy pourtrayed the character and offices of him, who was to come, with as much exactness as it had done the time of his appearance. What says the prophecy? "To anoint the most holy," the great personage expected therefore was to be anointed or consecrated the prophet, priest and king of mankind. "To make reconciliation for iniquity," he was

to expiate iniquity by offering his own body on the cross, and thus to reconcile men to God. "To make an end of sins," that is, of sin offerings; for when the great ante-type was sacrificed, there was no need of any farther sacrifices. "To finish," that is, to restrain "the transgression," he was to restrain the transgression by the preaching of his gospel and the pouring out of the holy spirit among men. To seal up the vision and prophecy," he was to put an end to the necessity of any further revelations, or any farther prophecies. To bring in everlasting righteousness," he was to introduce a reign of righteousness into the world, which righteousness should be as everlasting as the reign or dominion itself, that is, as the dispensation, afterwards called the gospel, which produced it. This new reign was to produce principles, which if accompanied by the Holy Spirit, would always and everlastingly cleanse the heart of him who received them, and dispose it to universal good. And this righteousness would be everlasting in another sense for it would always and for ever be acknowledged by God, while men lived upon earth, as the true righteousness, the only righteousness (whatever might be thought to be righteousness by men) and for ever acknow

ledged by him as such, and rewarded by him as such, in Heaven. Hence there would be in this reign, as far as it should be diffused, an everlasting tendency to restore that image of God in the heart of man, which he had lost.

CHAPTER III.

On the particular way in which the Samaritans gained their particular notions on the same subject.

I must now enquire where the people of Samaria gained their more enlightened views on this subject. It is notorious that they discarded all the books of the prophets, in fact all the books of the Old Testament, beginning with Joshua and ending with Malachi, as well as all those, which go under the name of the Apocrypha. It is however equally true that they received and held in high estimation the five books of Moses,