favour of the pretensions of the Jewish nation prejudices which the Samaritans who hated the Jews were not likely to entertain.

It may be somewhat more difficult to produce the particular predictions in which they found the Messiah described as a religious teacher. That predictions to this purpose do exist in the books of Moses, in terms which were clearly understood by the ancient Samaritans, cannot reasonably be doubted: because we find this notion of the Messiah in the previous faith of the Samarritans, of which the books of Moses were the sole foundation. If these prophecies are now not easy to be found, the whole difficulty must arise from the obscurity which time hath brought, through various causes, upon particular passages of these very ancient writings, which originally were perspicuous.

It were perhaps not difficult to prove, that the promise which accompanied the delivery of the law at Sinai the promise of a prophet to be raised up among the Israelites, who should resemble Moses had the Messiah for its ultimate object: And from the appeal which is repeatedly made to it by the first preachers of Christianity

from the terms

in which the inquiries of the Pharisees were

propounded to the Baptist

from the sent

This

iments which the Jewish multitude were accustomed to express upon occasion of several of our Saviour's miracles — it is it is very evident, that, in the age of our Lord and his apostles, the Messiah was universally looked for by the Jewish nation, as the person in whom that promise was to receive its final and particular completion. In the office of a prophet, and more particularly in the resemblance of Moses, the character of a teacher is indeed included; but of a national teacher of the Jews only, not of an universal instructor of mankind. promise therefore could hardly be the foundation of the expectation which the Samaritans entertained of a public teacher who was to rescue the whole world from moral evil, by instructing all men in the true religion : For in the letter of the prophecy no such character appears; nor is it probable, that before the merciful scheme of Providence was developed and interpreted by the appearance of our Saviour, and the promulgation of the gospel, men would be so quicksighted in the interpretation of dark figures and distant allusions, as to descry the character of a universal teacher under the image of a prophet of the Israelites. The passages therefore on which the Samaritains built their hope we have yet to seek.

One passage which, if I take its meaning right, contains an illustrious prophecy to our purpose, occurs in the book of Deuteronomy. It is the beginning of that prophetic song in which Moses, just before his death, describes the future fortunes of the twelve tribes of Israel. This song is contained in the thirtythird chapter of Deuteronomy, under the title of "The blessing wherewith Moses the man of God, at the point of death, blessed the children of Israel." The particular passage of which I speak lies in the second, third, fourth, and fifth verses. From the quick transitions that are used in it, from narrative to ejaculation, and from ejaculation again to narrativeand from the mixture of allusion to past facts and future events - it has much of that natural difficulty which is in some degree inseparable from this style of composition: And the natural difficulty of the passage seems considerably heightened by the errors of transcribers; insomuch, that the ablest critics seem to have despaired of reducing the original text to any grammatical propriety, or of drawing from it any consistent meaning, without much liberty of conjectural emendation. If the interpretation which I shall venture to propose should seem new, it will

nevertheless be thought a circumstance somewhat in its favour, that, at the same time that it brings the passage to a more interesting and more connected sense than any other exposition - - a sense too the most pertinent to the occsaion- -it requires fewer alterations of the present text than are necessary in any exposition that hath been hitherto attempted. Of forty-two words, of which the whole passage is composed, six only undergo slight alterations, and a seventh is omitted. The six alterations have the sanction of antiquity,

two from the Samaritan copy of the original text, three from the Greek translation of the Seventy, and the sixth from the SyroArabic and Chaldee versions. In the omission of the seventh word, which is the name of Moses in the fourth verse, I have the consent of all judicious critics; who have found the omission necessary in all possible interpretations of the passage. In this sacred poem, the particular benedictions of the several tribes are naturally prefaced with a thankful commemoration of that which was the great and general blessing of the whole nation

the revelation which they enjoyed, and the singular privilege of a polity and a law of Divine institution. The mention of these

national prerogatives is mixed with intimations of God's general tenderness for the whole human race, with which the particular promises to the Jews, as hath been before observed, were seldom unaccompanied in the earlier prophecies; and, as I understand the passage, a prediction of the final conversion of the Jews to Christ, after a previous adoption of the Gentiles, finishes the lofty proem of the inspired song. Such, as I conceive it, is the general scope and purport of the passage; of every part of which, with the few alterations I have mentioned, I shall now give you the literal translation, or, where that cannot be done with perspicuity in the English language, the exact meaning, accompanied with so much of paraphrase and remark as may be necessary to illustrate the connexion, and to justify my version in its principal peculiarities.

The prophet enters upon his subject with poetical allusions to the most striking circumstances of the glorious scene which accompanied the promulgation of the law. "Jehovah came from Sinai;

"His uprising was from Seir:

"He displayed his glory from mount Paran;