"taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof." Has not this prophecy been as awefully fulfilled · as that of Mofes ?

The continuance of your calamities shows that the cause of the divine displeasure against you is not only fomething wrong done by your ancestors, but also something that is approved, and perfifted in, by yourfelves and it is not for immoralities of a common kind that God punishes you with fo much feverity. For other nations have been, in these respects, as wicked as you; but no nation ever fuffered as you

have done.

It is in vain to allege that you are now fuffering for all the fins of your ancestors from the beginning of your nation, and even for that of the golden calf. God exprefsly fays, Exod. xx. 5. that he vifiteth the iniquities of the fathers upon the children to the third or fourth generation only; whereas many generations have paffed fince you have been wholly expelled from the land of Canaan. Befides, you were punished for all

your

your fins prior to the Babylonifh captivity, by that captivity. Your restoration to your country is a proof of that; and God would not punish you again, and at the distance of fo many ages, and with fo much more feverity, for the fame offences.

Confider alfo, that a captivity of seventy years only, without any peculiar hardships during the continuance of it, was deemed a fufficient punishment for all your offences committed before that period; whereas you have experienced unfpeakably greater calamities, and of much longer continuance, fince the promulgation of christianity, than the amount of all your fufferings previous to it. Befides, you have fufficiently repented of your ill ufage of all the preceding prophets, and nothing more is requifite to obtain the divine forgiveness, and the return of his favour.

Be not, therefore, offended, if, with great fincerity, but with equal affection, I must obferve, that, according to appearances, there is no other caufe of God's displeasure against you befides your rejection and perfecution

fecution of the prophets of your own nation, Chrift and the apostles, who were fent to you in the first place, and who confined their instructions to your nation, till, being rejected by you, they were directed to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. This circumftance contributed to inflame the hatred of your ancestors against the preachers of the gofpel, and against the gofpel itself; and the fame spirit (fo hoftile to the gospel, and to God, if he be the author of it, and which must neceffarily have excited his difpleafure against you) has actuated your nation, in a greater or lefs degree, in all ages, even to this day. But when, duly humbled and inftructed by your afflictions, you shall be more disposed to hear, and attend to, the voice of God fpeaking to you by his servants, so that some of you, at least, shall shew a better difpofition towards christianity (which does not at all interfere with your attachment to the laws of Mofes) he may have mercy upon you; and your complete converfion may, perhaps, be reserved till your return to the land of Canaan. For the fake of a righteous

few, God may have compaffion on the many. But he only knows what his own fecret purposes are. Of this we may be fatisfied, that "the Judge of all the earth will do that "which is right" (Gen. xviii. 25.) and least of all will he be unjust to the descendants of Abraham, Ifaac, and Jacob.

LETTER III.

Of the hiftorical Evidences of the divine Mission of Christ.

REVIEW, I intreat you, the history of the times in which the gospel was published, and the conduct of

your ancestors in them; and you will find that they rejected those who came to them from God, bringing the fame teftimonials of a divine miffion that Mofes and the preceding prophets had brought before them. For, like them, they alfo did what no men could have done, if God had not been with them.

They

They healed all difeafes by a word speaking, they even raised the dead, and Christ himself rofe from the dead after he had been publicly crucified.

As a true prophet, Chrift foretold the dreadful calamities which befel your nation in that generation, and with the trueft fympathy he even shed tears on the prospect of them. Thus we read in one of our gofpels, written before the deftruction of Jerufalem by Titus, Luke xix. 41. " And "when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, faying, If thou "hadft known, even thou, at least in this "thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! But now they are hid from "thine eyes. For the days fhall come upon thee, that thine enemies fhall caft "a trench about thee, and compass thee "round, and keep thee in on every fide, "and fhall lay thee even with the ground, "and thy children within thee; and they "fhall not leave in thee one stone upon "another, because thou knewest not the "time of thy vifitation."