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ly powerful to bring his predictions to nought. In the design he had formed to stir up on all sides enemies to the Christians, he stooped so low as to seek out the Jews, who were the off-scouring of the earth. He excited them to rebuild their temple; he gave them immense sums, and assisted them with the whole power of the empire. But mark the event, and see how God confounds haughty princes. The holy fathers, and ecclesiastical historians relate it with one accord, and confirm their relation by the monuments that were still remaining in their time. But it was fit the thing should be attested by the heathens themselves. Ammianus Marcellinus*, a Gentile by religion, and a zealous defender of Julian, hath narrated it in these terms: "Whilst Alipius, assisted by the governor "of the province, forwarded the work with "all his might, terrible globes of fire issued "from the foundations, which they had "first rent by violent shocks; and the work

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men, who often attempted to begin the "work anew, were at different times burn"ed alive the place became inaccessible, "and the enterprise fell to the ground."

Ecclesiastical writers, more exact in representing so memorable an event, add fire from heaven to the fire of the earth. But in short, the word of JESUS CHRIST stood fast. St. John Chrysostom cries out, "He built his church upon a rock; nothing hath been able to overthrow it: He

Amm. Marcel. lib. xxii. ult.

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"overthrew the temple, nothing hath been "able to rebuild it; none can pull down "what God raiseth up; none can raise up "what God pulleth down *."

Let us talk no more of Jerusalem, nor of the temple; but let us cast our eyes on the people themselves, formerly the living temple of the God of hosts, and now the object of his hatred. The Jews are more demolished than their temple or city. The spirit of truth is no longer among them: prophecy is extinguished in them: the promises, on which they built their hopes, are vanished away every thing is overthrown in this people; and there is not left one stone upon another.

And observe to what a pitch of error they are given up. JESUS CHRIST had said to them: I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive t. From that time, the spirit of seduction has reigned so powerfully among them, that they are still ready every moment to be carried away by it. It was not enough that, the false prophets had betrayed Jerusalem into the hands of Titus; the Jews were not yet banished Judea, and the attachment they had to Jerusalem had induced many of them to chuse their abode among its ruins: when behold a false Christ comes to complete their destruction. Fifty years after Jerusalem was taken, in the century of the death of our Lord, the infamous Barchochebas, a robber,

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a miscreant, because his name signified the son of a star, called himself the star of Jacob foretold in the book of Numbers *, and gave himself out for the Christ. Akibas, a man of the greatest authority of all the rabbins, and after his example, all those, whom the Jews called their wise men, entered into his party, without the impostor's giving them any other token of his mission, than that Akibas said the Christ could not now be far off. The Jews revolted, through the whole Roman empire, under the conduct of Barchochebas, who promised them the empire of the world. Hadrian killed six hundred thousand of them: the yoke of these unhappy wretches grew heavier, and they were banished Judea for ever.

Who does not see that the spirit of seduction had got possession of their hearts?

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They received not the love of the truth, "that they might be saved. And for this "cause God sent them strong delusion, "that they should believe a liet." There is no imposture so gross, but it seduces them. In our days, an impostor called himself the Christ in the east: all the Jews began to flock about him; we have seen them in Italy, in Holland, in Germany, and at Metz, preparing to sell and leave all to follow him. They were now big with the thoughts of being presently masters of the world, when lo! they learned that their

Numb. xxiv. 17. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. iv. 6, 8. Talm. Hier. de jejun. & in vet. Com. sup. Lam, Jerem. Maimonid. ib. de jure reg. c. 12.

+ 2 Thess. ii. 10, 11.

Christ had turned Turk, and forsaken the law of Moses.

We need not be astonished, that they have fallen into such strayings, nor that the storm scattered them, when they quitted their course. That course was marked out to them in their prophecies, particularly in those which specified the time of the CHRIST. They let slip those precious moments without improving them: wherefore we see them afterwards given up to delusion, and they no longer know which way

to steer.

X. The series of the Jews errors, and the way they explain the prophecies.

ALLOW me yet a moment to recount to you the series of their errors, and all the steps they have taken to sink themselves into the abyss. The paths wherein people go astray join always to the high road; and by considering where the straying began, people walk more securely in the right

way.

We have seen, Sir, that two prophecies pointed out the time of CHRIST to the Jews; that of Jacob, and that of Daniel. They both fixed the downfal of the kingdom of Judah at the time the CHRIST should come. But Daniel shewed that the total destruction of that kingdom was to be the consequence of the death of CHRIST: and Jacob said plainly, that, in the decline of the kingdom of Judah, the CHRIST, who should

then come, should be the expectation of the people; that is, that he should be their deliverer, and that he should make to himself a new kingdom, not of one nation only, but of all the nations of the world. The words of the prophecy can have no other meaning, and it was the allowed tradition of the Jews, that they were thus to be understood.

Hence that opinion, which prevailed among the ancient Rabbins *, and which is still to be seen in their Talmud, that at the time the CHRIST should come, there should be no more magistracy; so that there was nothing of greater importance towards ascertaining the time of their Messiah, than to observe, when they should fall into that unhappy state.

Indeed, they had begun well; and had they not had their minds possessed with the worldly grandeur which they wanted to find in the Messiah, in order to share it under his empire, they could not possibly have mistaken JESUS CHRIST. The foundation they had laid was certain for so soon as the tyranny of the first Herod, and the alteration of the Jewish commonwealth, which happened in his time, had pointed out to them the moment of the decay marked in the prophecy, they made no doubt but the CHRIST was coming, and that they should see that new kingdom wherein all nations were to be united.

One thing they observed was, that the

* Gem. Sanhed. c. ii.

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