more ineffectual, by the extravagant fables of their Talmud, (which, however, begin to be, in a great measure, rejected by you, for a rational form of prayer ufed in your fynagogues, which I have feen, feems to be free from them,) so also the Christians have corrupted the original fimple narrative of the nature, effence, and birth of their Jefus. Moft of the first Gentile converts to Christianity, were fo prepoffeft in favor of the mythology interwoven with the fuperstition and idolatry of their Heathen state, and their minds were fo deeply tinctured with the vifionary reveries of a vain philofophy, or sophistry, particularly that of the platonic fpecies, that, inftead of divesting themselves of inveterate prejudices, which, though a difficult task, they might, and ought to have done, they engrafted their own fabulous intricate theogony on the true plain account of the one God and father of all, delivered in the religion of Jefus; and the moderns, O imitatores fervum pecus! have, unhappily, too faithfully copied the ancients, in their predilection for mysterious hyper-metaphyfical nonfence. Hence fome contend, that Jefus pre-exifted as a God, inferior to the fupreme God,

and

and post-existed in the shape and substance of an human babe, of the mafculine gender, preternaturally born of a virgin, unconfcious of carnal connexion with a man. Others, improving on this abfurd hypothefis, maintain, that the effence of Jefus confifted of a third part of the Supreme Being himself, which, after having felf-exifted without a beginning, began to reexist in the fame ineffable manner, from the womb of a virgin. There is still a third fet of men, who deny the pre-exiftence of Jefus, in any fenfe, or modification whatever; but yet retain the monftrous figment of his birth derived from feminine parturition alone, without the previous instrumentality of masculine generation. To this they add, in common with the two other fects, a fuperlative fpecimen of abfurdity, in ftiling this undefinable being, of their own creation, a man ; thus combating the fingle true idea of a man, who, from the day of the creation of the first human pair, to the prefent hour, is no other than a being begotten by a man on the body of a woman; God having never altered the ordinary mode of propagation of the human species, which he at the creation,

creation established for all fucceeding generations. The feveral advocates of these three fenfeless hypothefes, ufually known under the denomination of the Arian, the Athanafian, and the Socinian, taken from the names of men, who were, or were fuppofed to be, the authors, or rather revivers, of them, affert, that their respective Jefus was your promifed Meffiah, foretold by the prophets of God to your fathers.

But happily, my Jewish friends, neither you, nor I, your English Christian friend, want arguments to convince us, that these are three pfeudo Meffiahs, exifting merely in the fancies of hyper-metaphyficians, and compaflion alone, to the errors of wellmeaning men, forbids us to treat these three non-entities as objects of merited derifion; for the prophecies, delivered by your and my Jehovah, to your ancestors, defcribe your Meffiah, as a man, of the feed of David.

Convinced of this grand truth, neceffary to be admitted, in order to effect your conviction of the first past advent of your

Meffiah,

1

Meffiah, and irrefiftibly impelled by a reverential and filial love and gratitude for the one true God of your fathers Abraham, Ifaac, and Jacob, (a God long-suffering, abundant in goodnefs and love, and in what is called his "wrath, ever thinking upon mercy," punishing Jews and Chriftians, in a degree greatly inferior to the demerits of their iniquities) I cannot but earnestly exhort you to regard a religion, as at least, an object worthy of your ferious difpaffionate inquiry, the great publisher whereof not only avows that he was fent by God to preach it, but appeals for the truth of his divine commiffion, to the teftimony of your prophecies, and farther irrefragably establishes it by that other external pofitive evidence, the difplay of miraculous powers, and by that internal prefumptive proof of its divine original, the tranfcendent excellence and purity of the moral fyftem of his religion, and its peculiar diftinguishing characteristic, love, or unbounded philanthropy.

I have, with a ferioufnefs and attention, infeparable from a difpaffionate and impartial love of truth, examined thofe canoni

cal

cal books of the Chriftians, which contain the hiftory of the life, actions, difcourfes, fufferings, and death, of their Jefus, and the acts and writings of his apoftles. The refult of my researches is a discovery, that here and there a paffage occurs in the prefent established canon of their Scriptures, which is plainly irreconcilable with the Jewish prophecies concerning the Meffiah, the delight of all nations, as well of the Gentiles, as of the Jews; but that the general tenor of them accords, or rather is in perfect unifon, with the faid divine predictions, and that thofe paffages, which by the blundering tribe of puzzling commentators, have been made to clash with your prophetic writings, present to a mind, unwarped by fyftematic prejudices, a meaning rational, and altogether confiftent with them.

In fact, my fellow Chriftians do not understand their own Scriptures, though couched in the plaineft, oft intelligible terms; their minds are fo inveloped in the thick black mift, raifed by human fyftems of divinity, that seeing they fee, but do not perceive; and reading they read, but do not understand. Hence, if I remind them that Jefus