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from inveterate enemies to zealous preachers, their testimony would carry conviction to every heart; and while they adored that Jesus whom they had crucified, as the Son of God, and proclaim that Gospel they had for eighteen hundred years rejected as the word of life, all mankind would exclaim, "This "is the finger of God."* Thus, as during their alienation they have been unobjectionable, because hostile witnesses, of the divine origin of those prophecies to which Christianity appeals, they would, when converted from hostility, be resistless preachers of those truths which they had rejected; thus verifying the declaration of the Apostle, that "if the casting them away was "the reconciling of the world, the receiving of them will be life "from the dead."+

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The time of these events I would not presume precisely to ascertain. It will certainly be coincident with the close of the twelve hundred and sixty years, which are equivalent to the time, times, and a half," of Daniel, when God shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people; ‡ the same period during which, according to S John in the Apocalypse, the church of Christ was to remain desolate in the wilderness; the forty-two months during which the court without the Temple is to be given unto the Gentiles, and the holy city they shall tread under foot.|| At whatever era this period be considered as commencing, it is evidently now drawing to a close. The decline of Papacy and of Mahomedanism; the multiplication of missions, and translations of the Scriptures; the communication lately opened between the ancient and apostolic church of the Syrian Christians in Hindoostan ** and the

* Exod. viii. 19. Rev. xii. 14.

Rom. xi. 15.
Rev. xi. 2.

Dan. xii. 7.

¶ Faber places its commencement at the year of our Lord 606; Dr Hales, 620; Mr Bicheno, 529; Fleming, 552; Bishop Newton, 727. Its close must be equally uncertain. Vide Dr Hales's Chronology, page 1358, where seven different terminations of this period are recited.

** Vide Buchanan's Christian Researches, article concerning the Syrian Christians. -When the Portuguese compelled 150 of the Syrian clergy on the coast to attend a synod, headed by a Romish archbishop in place of their own, who had been sent prisoner to Lisbon, they were accused, says Dr Buchanan, of the following practices and opinions: "That they had married wives; that they owned but two sacraments, "Baptism and the Lord's Supper; that they neither invoked saints, nor worshipped 'images, nor believed in purgatory; and that they had no other orders or names "of dignity in the church, than Bishop, Priest, and Deacon." These tenets they

Church of England, tending so strongly to protect the former, and prove the purity of the latter; the spread of Christianity in Asia, Africa, America, in the Frozen and the Torrid Zone, under the Northern and the Southern Pole, as well as under the Equator; the changes in the situation of the Jews, and the new feelings of mankind towards this singular people ;-all these circumstances indicate the approach of that distinguished era, when the conversion of the Jews shall prepare for the fulness of the Gentiles, and all shall become one fold under one Shepherd, even Jesus Christ the Lord.

To conclude: When we observe the nature and the unity of the grand design which pervades and connects the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, and the manner in which they describe the progress and conduct of this design, it seems scarcely possible to doubt their divine original. The design is that of bringing all mankind to an exalted, pure, and spiritual happiness, by teaching, enforcing, and exciting in them, love and obedience to the one true God. As this grand object is perfectly singular and unparalleled, no other system of religion so much as professing to attempt it (except such as have plainly borrowed it from the Scriptures, and at the same time debased it with the intermixture of human error and depravity) so the manner in which the Scriptures describe this scheme to have been conducted, is also such as no human invention can be supposed to have formed, no human contrivance could have effected. Indeed when we contemplate the Jewish and Christian dispensations united in one system, which extended its views backward to the Creation, and forward to the final catastrophe of the human race-When we perceive that it connects these grand events by ascribing both, with all the intermediate gradations which combine them, to the same great Author, even the SON OF GOD,* "by whom all things were made;" who is the "only Mediator between God "and man ;" and who in the "fulness of time, forsaking that

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were called on to abjure, or to suffer suspension from all church benefices. It was also decreed, that all the Syrian books on ecclesiastical subjects that could be found, should be burned; "in order," said the Inquisitors, "that no pretended apos"tolical monuments should remain." Vide Buchanan's Christian Researches, 2d edit. p. 89.

* Vide John i. ver. 1 to 14: 1 Cor. xv. 16 to 28: Phil. ii. 5 to 11: Col. i. 13 to 23. 1 Tim. ii. 5: Dan. vii. 13 and 14: Rev. i. 5 to 8: xi. 15 to 19: xv. 3 to 5 and xix. and xx. Vide also Butler's Analogy, Part II. ch. iv. and v.

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glory which he had with the Father before the world was," took our nature upon him, that he might live to instruct, and die to redeem, mankind, and has ascended into heaven, there to make intercession for us; whence he will return again in power and great glory to judge the world, and to "render to every man ac"cording to his deeds: to them who, by patient continuance in well-doing, seek for glory and honour, and immortality; eternal "life but unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribu"lation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of "the Jew first, and also of the Gentile: but glory, honour, and peace, to every man who worketh good, to the Jew first, and "also to the Gentile for there is no respect of persons with "God."*-When we see that the Scriptures represent this Divine Being as the centre in whom all revelations meet, the great Agent on whom all human expectations depend—When we view the scheme carried on under this Supreme Lord and King, according to the Scriptures, with an uninterrupted progress from the creation to this hour, and still evidently progressive; exhibiting the Church of Christ, and the Jewish Nation which rejects that Christ, as rendered equally subservient to this grand design of Providence; by which "the kingdoms of this world "will finally become the kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ :"+ and the triumph of grace here will prepare for the kingdom of glory hereafter.-When we contemplate all this, can we avoid exclaiming with the Apostle, "O the depth of the riches both of "the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his 'judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath "known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsel"lor? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recom"pensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to “him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen."

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*Rom. ii. 6-11.

+ Rev. xi. 15.

Rom. xi. 33-36.

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SINCE the time when this last Lecture was composed, Providence, by a series of unexpected and illustrious events, has overturned that portentous Power which threatened universal slavery and ruin, and has restored freedom and peace to the European world. Surely this happy consummation, as it must revive the intercourse and increase the union of the European States, and encourage a spirit of moderation and justice in public measures, by the illustrious example which the allied Powers exhibited in their hour of triumph-so it tends to inspire the religious observer with the cheering hope, that it will accelerate the removal of national and religious prejudices, the free communication of opinion, the diffusion of knowledge, and the final triumph of Truth. At the same time I confess that the restoration of the Inquisition in Spain, and the efforts of the Roman Pontiff to restore the Order of the Jesuits, and give new vigour to the monastic institutions of Popery, and also the difficulties which appear to impede the total abolition of the Slave Trade, throw a cloud over this otherwise bright prospectthey appear to indicate a slower advance in religious and moral improvement, and inspire a fear, that much labour, and perhaps much suffering may intervene, before genuine Christianity can overcome the impediments which retard its spread and the corruptions which resist its influence. Of this only we may be sure, that the grand scheme for the advancement of human happiness, by the extension of the Gospel, is in progress, and that in the fuluess of time "the earth shall be full of the knowledge of "the Lord, as the waters cover the sea," and that thus "the kingdoms of this world "shall become the kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ."

APPENDIX.

SECTION I.

The texts which were collected by Le Clerc, as affording reason to doubt whether the Pentateuch was composed by Moses, considered;* with the answer to the objection founded on each text annexed to it-Dr Geddes's opinion on the authenticity of the Pentateuch considered-Specimens of his reasonings on this subject—An Article in the Appendix to the eighth volume of the Critical Review for September, 1806, in which Mr De Wette's work on the Old Testament is briefly considered-An humble remonstrance to the Reviewers.

No. I.

TEXT: Gen. ii. 11, 12. "The name of the first river is “Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, "where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good: there "is bdellium and the onyx-stone."

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OBJECTION. These observations appear the production of some one residing in Chaldea, for Pison is that branch of the Euphrates which falls into the Persian Gulf, and passes by those countries which were formerly called Chaldea, and where now Ormus is; and it is not credible that Moses, who had but just left Egypt, should be so well acquainted with the geography and productions of distant countries, or have been inspired on such a subject.

ANSWER, by Le Clerc himself.-Admitting these observations to relate to Chaldea, that country might be extremely well known in Egypt at the time of Moses, by merchants trading thither. For if in the time of Jacob, companies of merchants traded from Gilead (vide Genes. xxxvii. 25.) to Egypt, with spices, &c.; why might not merchants from Chaldea trade thither, near four hundred years after, in the * Vide Clerici Prolegomena in Vet. Testam. Dissertatio 3ia de Scriptore Pentateuchi, et Witsii Miscellanea Sacra, Tom. I. Lib. I. cap. xiv. An Moses Auctor Pentateuchi,

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