DISC. all thofe, who live and die in the Lord, VIII. fhall indeed reft from their labours. The Jews had fufficient grounds, from their own Scriptures, to confider it as fuch. They fhould have confidered it as such; and they should have carried on their thoughts to the reft and the inheritance of the faints in light, whither their fathers were gone before them through faith in the promised feed, the Meffiah, whofe office it was, like another Joshua, by vanquishing the adverfe powers, to open the kingdom of heaven, that true land of Promife, to all believers. The fourth pofition maintained by the Jews was, that the prophecies warranted them in the expectation of a Meffiah, who, as a temporal prince, fhould fecure them in their poffeffions, by fubduing their civil enemies, and reigning over them in Judea. The fame prejudice which operated with regard to the family of Abraham, the law of Mofes, and the land of Promife, operated VIII. rated likewife with regard to the Mef- DISC. fiah. This was but a natural and neceffary confequence. For if they had fixed their thoughts on their national privileges, their ceremonies, and the inheritance of Canaan, the Meffiah by them defired muft needs be one, who would defend and preferve them in the enjoyment of those privileges, those ceremonies, and that inheritance. Accordingly, the notion current among the Jews, when our Lord was upon earth, and which, we find, stuck faft to his disciples even after his refurrection, was, that Meffiah, when he came, fhould " restore again "the kingdom to Ifrael." And the grand argument infifted on in the Talmud, and by the Rabbins, is, that he did not subdue the nations by the force and terror of his arms. He overcame not the Gentiles, fay they, with martial power; he loaded us not with their fpoils; he neither enlarged our dominion, nor increased our power b *Acts i. 6. b See PASCHAL, P. 170. DISC. VIII. Now the Scriptures do undoubtedly de fcribe Meffiah, as one, who fhould deliver his people from their enemies, and reign over them in glorious majesty. The Jews construed those paffages of a temporal deliverance from the Roman yoke, and a temporal reign in Palestine. But did they conftrue them aright? Do not the fame Scriptures unfold the defign of his coming, and the process of the redemption by him, in the fullest and most particular manner? Surely they do. How many paffages are there, always allowed by the ancient, and not now denied by the modern Jews, to belong to Meffiah, which defcribe him as poor, lowly, defpifed, afflicted, oppreffed, dying, dead? Would you now compose a man's character, without accounting for the contrarieties in it? Can you be faid to have compofed that of the Meffiah, while you leave out one half of it? Are you not bound to find a perfon, in whom all the feemingly contradictory particulars are reconciled? They are eafily, they are completely reconciled in the person of Jefus, as VIII. as fet forth, by us Chriftians, in his two- DISC. But that the force of the prophetical teftimony in favour of the Meffiahship of Jefus may appear at one view, permit me, in a concise and fummary way, to recall the feveral particulars of it to your remembrance, as I find them collected by a very learned and eminent writer. The prophets speak of a new and fecond covenant, which God would make with his people they mention, not once, or twice, but very often, the converfion of the Gentiles from fuperftition and idolatry, to the worship of the true God: they speak of four fucceffive empires, the last of which was the Roman empire; and under this laft empire, they fay, that a new and DISC. everlafting kingdom fhould be established, to come, who fhould be Immanuel, or temple |