into the way of the gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans to enter not, chap. x. 5. And the apostles, after his ascension, began to exercise their ministry after his example, by saying to the Jews, Unto you first, God sent his Son Jesus to bless you, Acts iii. 26.

Consider, further, the means which Jesus Christ employed to recover this people. Here a boundless field of meditation opens; but the limits of these exercises forbid my enlarging, and I shall only indicate the principal articles.

What proper means of conviction did Jesus omit in the course of his ministry among this people? Are miracles proper? Though ye believe not me, believe the works, John x. 38. Were extraordinary discourses proper? If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin, chap. xv. 22. Is innocence proper? Which of you convinceth me of sin? chap. viii. 46. Is the authority of the prophets necessary? Search the scriptures, for they are they which testify of me, chap. v. 39. it proper to reason with people on their own principles? Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me, ver. 46. Is it not written in your law, I said ye are Gods? If he called them Gods, unto whom the word of God came, say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, thou blasphemest; because I said I am the Son of God, chap. x. 34-36.

Is

Consider, again, the different forms, if I may be allowed to speak so, which Jesus Christ put on to insinuate himself into their minds. Sometimes he addressed them by condescension, submitting to the rites of the law, receiving circumcision, going up to Jerusalem, observing the sabbath, and celebrating their festivals. At other times he exhibited a no

ble liberty, freeing himself from the rites of the law, travelling on sabbath-days, and neglecting their feasts. Sometimes he conversed familiarly with them, eating and drinking with them, mixing him self in their entertainments, and assisting at their marriage feasts. At other times he put on the austerity of retirement, fleeing from their societies, retreating into the deserts, devoting himself for whole nights to meditation and prayer, and for whole weeks to prayer and fasting. Sometimes he addressed himself to them bya graceful gentleness: Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Learn of me, for I am meek, and lowly in heart. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Matt. xi. 28, 29. and xxiii. 37. At other times, he tried them by severity, he drove them from the temple; he denounced the judgments of God against them; he depicted a future day of vengeance, and shewing Jerusalem covered with the carcases of the slain, the holy mountain flowing with blood, and the temple consuming in flames, he cried, Wo, wo to the pharisees! Wo to the scribes! Io to all the doctors of the law! ver. 13. &c.

Jesus Christ, in the whole of his advent, answered the characters by which the prophets had described the Messiah. What characters it may be asked, do you Jews expect in a Messiah, which Jesus Christ doth not bear? Born of your nation -in your country,-of a virgin,-of the family of David, of the tribe of Judah,-in Bethlehem, after the seventy weeks,-at the expiration of your grandeur, and before the departure of your sceptre.

VOL. II.

On the one hand, despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted, wounded for your transgressions, bruised for your iniquities, brought as a lamb to the slaughter, cut off from the land of the living, as your prophets had foretold, Isa. liii. 3, 4, 5, 7, 8. But on the other hand, glorious, and magnanimous, prolonging his days, seeing his seed, the pleasure of the Lord prospering in his hand, justifying many by his knowledge, blessed of God, girding his sword upon his thigh, and riding prosperously on the word of his truth, as the same prophets had taught you to hope, ver. 10, 11. and Psal. xlv. 2, 3. What Messiah, then, do you wait for? If you require another gospel, produce us another law. If you reject Jesus Christ, reject Moses. If you want other accomplishments, shew us other prophecies. If you will not receive our apostles, discard your own prophets.

Such was the conduct of Jesus to the Jews. What success had he? What effects were produced by all his labor, and by all his love; by so many conclusive sermons, and so many pressing exhortations; by so much demonstrative evidence, by so many exact characters, and so many shining miracles; by so much submission, and so much elevation; by so much humility, and so much glory; and, so to speak, by so many different forms, which Jesus Christ took to insinuate himself into the minds of this people? You hear in the words of the text: All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people. The malice of this people prevailed over the mercy of God, and mercy was useless except to a few. The ancient Jews were infidels, and most of the modern Jews persist in infidelity. Is not this a prodigy of hardness? Is not

this an eternal reproach and shame to the Jewish nation?

II. But we have pursued the unbelief of the Jews far enough in the first point of view; let us proceed to consider it with a view to what we proposed in the second place. We will shew that men's obstinate resistance of the most pressing motives, the most important interests, and the most illustrious examples, is not an unheard-of thing and we will prove that all which results from the example of the unbelieving Jews, is a proof of the uniformity of the depravity of mankind; that they who lived in the times of the first planters of christianity, resembled the greatest part of those who lived before them, and of those who have lived since. Would to God this article were less capable of evidence! But alas! we are going to conduct you step by step to demonstration.

First, We will take a cursory view of ancient history, and we will shew you, that the conduct of the unbelieving Jews presents nothing new, nothing that had not been done before, nothing contrary to the universal practice of mankind from Adam to Jesus Christ.

Secondly, We will go a step further, and shew you a whole community, who amidst the light of the gospel, reject the doctrines of the gospel, for the same theological reasons for which the Jews rejected it.

Thirdly, We will produce an object yet more astonishing; a multitude of christians, whom the light of the reformation hath freed from the superstition that covered the church, guilty of the very excesses which we lament in the Jews, and in superstitious christians.

Fourthly, We will go further still, we will sup

pose this congregation in the place of the ancient Jews, and we will prove, that had you been in their places, you would have done as they did.

The last is only supposition, we will therefore in the fifth place, realize it, and shew you, not that you would have acted like the Jews, had you been in their circumstances; but that you really do act so; and we will shew you an image of yourselves in the conduct of the ancient Jews.

1. The infidelity of those who heard the sermons of the first heralds of religion, might surprize us, if truth and virtue had always been embraced by the greatest number, and if the multitude had not always taken the side of vice and falshood. But survey the principal periods of the church from the beginning of the world to that time, and you will see a very different conduct. When there was only one man, and one woman in the world, and when these two, who came from the immediate hand of God, could not question, either his existence or his perfections, they both preferred the direction of the devil before that of the Supreme Being, who had just brought them into existence, Gen. iii.

Did God give them a posterity? The children walked in the criminal steps of their parents. The fear and the worship, of the true God, were confined to the family of Seth, to a small number of believers, whom the scripture calls Sons of God, chap. vi. 2. while the Sons of Men acknowledged no other religion but their own fancies, no other law but their own lust.

Did mankind multiply? Errors and sins multiplied with them. The scripture saith, All flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth. The Lord repented that he had made man on the earth, ver. 12, 6, and by an universal deluge exterminated