either Affyrian or Babylonian; others in the time of their captivity which prophecies wereaccomplished and fulfilled on their re-peopling Paleftine, and during the time of their fecond temple. Your fcriptures particularly mention that your fecond temple would be more glorious than your firft, and fhould be honoured with the manifeftation of the Meffiah. Under Herod the great, your temple was magnificently beautified, he being a politick prince, knowing how tenacious the Jews were for their own princes, their expectation of the Meffiah, himself an alien; refolved to gratify their predominant paffion, the thirst for earthly pomp and greatnefs, the temple he neither fpared art, nor expence, to complete it a wonder. He built many cities, and towns, and laid out immense treasures; not only to make Palestine the garden of delights, but his munificence paffed into other countries, he being a favorite and faft friend of Auguftus, then emperor of the Roman empire, which at that period was in its meridian, and in profound peace, gave Herod every advantage to execute the great and noble projects, that were done at that epoch. By this refined policy of king Herod every with fucceeded, fo that Jerufalem feemed the centre to which all nations reforted and number of profelytes made. Cities, towns and inhabitants in the kingdom of Judah were innumerable, which awed the Romans, and at the death of Herod the Great, it was thought too powerful to be placed under one crown, and was therefore divided. It is worthy your attention to

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confider the space, or time, that intervened betwixt the Babylonian captivity to that of the Romans, which you will find to be from the date of Darius's decree, five hundred and ninety, or near fix hundred years; and from the finishing the fecond temple, to its being destroyed, five hundred, eighty-five or thereabouts, in which long space many prophecies that you are perplexed and flattered by, imagining, they relate, as the chapter in Zachariah you last quoted, to the joyful return of your nation from your prefent captivity, related to the return from the Babylonian. Zachariah prophecied, at the very time of the Jews returning, this and many other pleafing promises, on which you build your hopes, went no further than to the putting your Meffiah to death, and others are gracious promises to the Meffiah and those of the new covenant. Some prophecies give us hopes that near the end, Ifrael will be converted when Chrift will manifeft himself. Zachariah 12th chapter, "And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inabitants of Jerufalem the fpirit of grace and of fupplications, and they fhall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they fhall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only fon, and fhall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born. In that day fhall there be a great mourning in Jerufalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Migiddon. And the land fhall mourn, every family apart, and their wives apart; all the families apart, and their wives apart.' In the

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following chapter. "And one fhall fay unto him, What are thefe wounds in thy hands? then he fhall anfwer, Thofe with which I was wounded in the houfe of my friends. Awake, O fword, against my fhepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, faith the Lord of Hofts: Smite the fhepherd, and the sheep fhall be fcattered; and I will turn my hand upon the little ones. And it hall come to pass that in all the land, faith the Lord, two parts therein fhall be cut off, and die; but the third fhall be left therein. And I will bring the third part thro' the fire, and I will refine them as filver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried; they fhall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will fay, It is my people; and they fhall fay, The Lord is my God.

Mofes. Who has Ifrael pierced but Jesus. Chrift, who can the Lord of Hofts call his Fellow or Equal, but Meffiah? whofe hands did Ifrael wound, Jefus Chrift, and also his feet, nailing him to the Crofs? O misery, mifery, my heart fickens, and as a cold hand preffing into a clod of death, my mind feels loft in the dark region of woe. My forrows redouble your force, overpower and place me where no comfort can be admitted, but be expofed imprecated and feel malicious infults, ceaseless, from those fiends, whofe infernal gall against my God, I have fo deeply drank. O dark horror of black defpair, wreak vengeance on my guilty head. O my foul, can you look even by diftant thought on your God, that you have pierced, and, if it were poffible, not only robbed

fobbed him of human life, but his Godhead. I fhudder and find dark defpair cloud my reafon, offering the baneful cup, which, fhould I take, it would be a fresh infult to that God at whofe dread tribunal I now stand arraigned. The cup I mean is death. O my God, my Lord, that from my remembrance I have been infulting with one continued infult, by a rooted hatred, impreffed and imbibed from my parents, and which was handed from the perpretrators of the bloody act, in perpetual fucceffion, through our generations, to us now living; grant the fcourge may not fpare the wretch, who, tho' not the immediate perpetrator of the horrid deed, yet gave place and nourished, not only in his own, but in thousands of hearts, the gall of hatred and blafphemy against our God and Father. But do not permit me to offer any any farther infult, more particularly the heinous crime of the Traitor Judas, in deftroying the life you created, after the crime he ftands charged long before by the prophecy of Jeremiah, as we took notice, and then farther forewarned and fet forth by Zachariah in the 11th chapter, which takes in the treafon of Judas and reprobation of the Jews (518 years before Chrift). "Open the doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars. Howl, fir-tree, for the cedar is fallen; becaufe the mighty is spoiled: howl, O ye oaks of Bafhan, for the foreft of the vintage is come down. There is a voice of the howling of the fhepherds; for their glory is fpoiled: a voice of the roaring of young lions; for the pride of

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Jordan is fpoiled." Thus faith the Lord thy God, "Feed the flock of the flaughter, whofe poffeffors flay them and hold themselves not guilty; and they that fell them fay, Bleffed be the Lord, for I am rich, and their own fhepherds pity them not. For I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land, faith the Lord, but I will deliver the men every one into his neighbour's hand, and into the hand of his king and they fhall fmite the land, and out of their hand I will not deliver them. And I will feed the flock of flaughter, even you, O poor of the flock. And I took unto me two ftaves; the one I called Beauty, and the other I called Bands, and I fed the flock. Three fhepherds alfo I cut off in one month, and my foul loathed them, and their foul also abhorred me. Then, faid I, I will not feed you; that that dieth, let it die and that that is to be cut off, let it be cut off, and let the reft eat, every one the flesh of another. And I took my staff, even Beauty, and cut it asunder, that I might break my covenant, which I had made with all the people. And it was broken in that day; and fo the poor of the flock that waited upon me knew that it was the word of the Lord. And I faid unto them, if you think good, give me my price, and if not forbear; fo they weighed for my price thirty pieces of filver. And the Lord faid unto me, Caft it unto the potter; a goodly price that I was prized at.of them. And I took the thirty pieces of filver, and cast them to the potter in the houfe of the Lord. Then I cut afunder my other ftaff, even Bands, that

I might