rical expreffion of eating butter and honey, evinced in the temple, his endowments of fupernatural knowledge and eloquence.

So difficult however of refiftance, or at leaft of conqueft, is the force. of old prepoffeffions, that the Dean himself is unwarily driven by them, into the ufe of a kind of equivocal language. For, as you must observe, (he fays) Chrift began at that time. to come, the government began at that time to depart, and it was fully completed afterwards, in the deftruction of the temple and city of Jerufalem. So ambiguous and eva

five

five a kind of affirmation, could not poffibly have escaped fo able a writer, and fo good a man, but as the effect of the cause I have before affigned. For, it is evident, that if JESUS, or the EMMANUEL, then, at twelve years after his birth, according to this author's own computation, BEGAN to come, he really was And if Judea then BEGAN TO BE A ROMAN PROVINCE, it at that time, ACTUALLY WAS a Roman province; and no length of time, in which the Romans retained it in fubjection, or whatever tributes they might afterwards continue to exact from it, or oppreffions

come.

the

the governors they set over it, might exercife upon it, could make it

in the leaft, MORE of a Roman province. But, on the contrary, the deftruction of the temple and city of Jerufalem, fo far' from rendering Judea, as the habitation of the Jews, more of a Roman province, though the territory itself remained the fame, that fo far as relates to the Jews, it may be even faid, to have then ceafed to be a Roman province.Befides, this alfo is indifputable, that Vefpafian and Titus did not undertake the deftruction of Jerufalem, because the Jews were a nation, at that time not fubject to the Roman yoke, and becaufe Judea was not a

province of the Roman empire ;but, for thefe very reafons,-that because the nation had been fubjected to the Roman yoke, and becaufe Judea WAS a Roman province, under the adminiftration of a Roman governor, labouring under oppreffions, (only to be exceeded by thofe in this age, inflicted upon the miferable inhabitants of fome countries, by men who call themfelves Chriftians) therefore, the Jews, in refifting the Roman governors, and endeavouring to fhake off the Roman bondage, became REBELS against their LAWFUL SOVEREIGNS. Nay, they were even told by the Romans, and one of their

Own

own countrymen, that it might have been lawful at firft, to have made war, for the prefervation of their freedom from the Roman yoke, but when they had been fubjected to their dominion,-resistance and rebellion did not evince their love of liberty, but rather, their defire of a fhameful death.

The EXACT TIME of the completion of the prophecy, then, is evident BEYOND DISPUTE; and the only difference between the PREDICTION of the event, and the HISTORY of it, is, that the names of the perfons and places are inferted in the one, which are omitted in the other.