agreed that the Scriptures of the Old Testament were dictated by divine inspiration. Various passages of these Scriptures have been shown to meet in the character, the life, the last sufferings, and death of Jesus, and to accord with the declarations of the New Testament regarding the effects of his death, and his condition and offices since his exaltation. It is undeniable that this person was the founder of the Christian religion, and is believed by his followers to be the Messiah promised to the Jews. It has been shown, that he was a righteous person in his doctrines and his actions, and it is certain, that neither he nor his first followers could gain any thing by an imposture; for he himself expired upon a cross, and the rewards of his disciples, in the earliest ages of the church, were prisons, persecution, ignominious and painful deaths. It is incontrovertible also, that though his religion was contrary to the prejudices and vices of the Jews and Gentiles,and was opposed by the whole power of the reigning superstitions, aided by the secular authority of the Roman government, yet it prevailed so mightily by the force of conviction alone, that after three centuries it became the established religion of the Roman empire ; and, since that period, it has numbered among its disciples the greatest and most learned men of the Gentile world, and has been rejected only by those who equally deny the truth of the Mosaic revelation. It is certain, that though this religion has been opposed by men of great wit, acuteness, and learning, yet the founder of it has never yet been proved to be an impostor or an enthusiast; nor have any facts been brought to light which invalidate his pretensions. It is certain, that since the Jews crucified Jesus they have never prospered. Within forty years after his death Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, and the Jews led away captive among all nations, among whom they have suffered great and dreadful calamities. And what is equally remarkable, their own sacred books declare them to be at present not the people of God; not in covenant relation with God, but in a state of blindness and separation. Of the nature and cause of this blindness they themselves can give no rational or consistent account; while, upon the Christian scheme, it is at once accounted for. Such is a summary of some of the leading facts and arguments which unite in demonstrating that Jesus is the Messiah; and no answer has been made, in David Levi's work on the prophecies, to any one of these proofs of the divine mission of Jesus. We cannot close these remarks, without an earnest and most affectionate invitation to the ancient people of God, seriously to ponder the arguments advanced in the preceding pages; and to examine the Scriptures, whether these arguments be well founded or not. And oh that there were in the Jews such a disposition as to lead them now to adopt, as the language of their hearts, the pathetic prayers put into their mouths by the evangelical prophet Isaiah, in reference to the period of their restoration! O Lord, why hast thou made us to err from 'thy ways; and hardened our hearts from thy ' fear? Return, for thy servant's sake, the ' tribes of thine inheritance. The people of thy ' holiness have possessed it but a little while: our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary. We are thine: thou never barest 6 ' rule over them; they were not called by thy 'name.' (Isaiah Ixiii. 17-19.) And, again, Be not wroth very sore, O Lord; neither ' remember iniquity for ever. Behold, see, we ' beseech thee, we are all thy people! Thy holy ' cities are a wilderness; Zion is a wilderness; Jerusalem a desolation! Our holy and our 'beautiful house, where our fathers praised Thee, is burned up with fire; and all our plea'sant things are laid waste. Wilt thou refrain thyself for these things, O Lord? wilt thou 'hold thy peace, and afflict us very sore ?? (Isaiah Ixiv. 9-12.) We conclude, in the |