that there was such a person as Jesus Christ." The Jew replied, "To be sure I do believe there was such a person as Jesus." "And that he was crucified?" said the Barrister. "Yes, certainly," replied the Jew. "And who crucified him, then ?" "Why, my nation, to be sure, along with the Gentiles." "Do you believe, then," asked the Barrister, "that those books of the New Testament were written by such men as Matthew, and John, and Paul, and Peter ?" "Yes," exclaimed the Jew. "They could have been written by none but such. men. None but a Jew could have penned these books, and a Jew well acquainted with the law." The Barrister was, of course, struck with this testimony from one who was not a Christian, but of a nation most hostile to the Christian faith. The Jew added, “Here I am, and my nation is scattered all over the world." "For what?" inquired the infidel. "For breaking the law which God gave to our fathers! He placed us amidst the nations, as witnesses for the true God, against idols; and instead of attending faithfully to this duty, we forsook him, and sunk into idolatry, and sensuality, and wars; and therefore he cast us off, and scattered us among the nations; and here we are, driven out among all people of the earth. For we must be subservient to the will of God, whether we will or not. For we are now witnesses for God to all nations upon the face of the earth; and the Jews are placed among the nations for that very purpose. Though we do not believe as the Christians do, we ought to be thankful for them. I have written to our principal

Rabbi, to say to him, that we ought to bless God for the Christians; for they are doing what we ought to have done, making known the God of our fathers. For what a state the world would be in I cannot believe what the

without religion!

Christians do; for we are blind. But if I could believe as they do, I should think myself so happy, that I should be willing for the sake of their hopes, to have my right arm cut off."

The Christian asked, "And did not Moses your lawgiver tell you all this? that your condition would be exactly what you find it to be?" "Yes, certainly," replied the Jew: referring to the farewell sermon of Moses, Deut. xxx. 17, 18; xxxi. 16-19.

1

up

The Barrister, unable to endure this conversation, which waked the remembrance of better days, looked at his watch and exclaimed, It is late, I shall keep up my family at home. He went home, and in two months after died, bereft of the consolations which religion alone can afford.

Surely any infidel who is not absolutely inaceessible to reason might well say, these Jews have almost made me a Christian, and thus they have completely robbed me of my old argument, if the Christian religion is true, why did not the Jews believe it? I now feel as well as see, why. It was to stop the mouths of infidels. But what am I about? I am talking almost like a Christian.

Would God you were not merely almost but altogether like Christians, except in their defects, in which they are not like themselves, or rather not

like their Lord. For remember, we entreat you, that, as the Jews were at first made witnesses for the true God against idolaters, and their seventy years' captivity in Babylon cured them of that sin, so they are now flaming monuments to the world, to warn them of the danger of rejecting Jesus Christ. Eighteen centuries almost they have cried with a voice of thunder, "he that believeth not the Son of God shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him."

Let me then as a friend entreat you to remember that this Jesus, who was of the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, and whom we believe to be over all God blessed for ever, said, when he stood at the bar, to be judged by the rulers of the Jews, "Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. For, behold he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also that pierced him, and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him." Now consider, I entreat you, that it is at least possible that you may find at last that there is such a person, and that he is all that the Scriptures represent him to be. Should this be the case, where are you, after despising and deriding him as an nonentity or an impostor?

You may say, we cannot believe there is any such person. But does not your heart sometimes misgive you? Is there no voice within that, in a solitary moment, whispers, "Perhaps there is such a one, and I may see the consequences of my unbelief?" Is not the evidence sometimes stronger than you

TO THE TRUTH OF DIVINE REVELATION.

8

77

like to find it? Are you not often an unwilling auditor? Do you not turn a deaf ear to what can be said to prove Christ and the scriptures true, while you listen with open ears and an eager mind to every infidel objection? Is there not even a strong spice of enmity to the name and story of Jesus? And can this arise from any thing but an evil bias of heart? For what is there in the character, life, and death of Jesus that can justify dislike? Is there not all that should make you say, "What a lovely fiction! Oh that it were but true! As a human being and a lover of my species, what would I give, if I could but think that in my nature there existed one who presents such a combination of the lovely with the grand! What a happy delusion it must be that makes a man believe this is not merely the beau ideal, but a living reality, and this is my saviour and my friend! What a golden dream it must be to expect to spend eternity in the society and enjoyment of such a person."

If, instead of this, you spurn the idea, and scarcely refrain from sneers and reproaches, and blasphemy on the Saviour's name, can this be a mere error of the judgment? Must not the fault lie in the heart? And will not Jesus, if he be found really to be what the Scriptures represent him, treat your infidelity as a crime, and you as a personal enemy?

Can it avail you to allege in your excuse the faults of his pretended friends? Is not every thing in them which provokes your wrath a manifest of

H 2

78

THE JEWS LIVING WITNESSES

fence to him, a gross violation of his commands, and the very opposite of his own example? Are you not then condemned out of your own mouth and in your own conscience, when you pour your reproaches on him, for the sake of what is as unlike to him as darkness to light, or hell to heaven? Are you not conscious that your party, which you suppose to be right, often acts so as to make you blush for them, and would you not exclaim against the gross injustice of condemning you for their faults? Are you not bound, in honour and in reason, to separate the Saviour himself from all other beings whatever, and to examine his own claims upon your belief and attachment, saying, "Jesus Christ either is, or is not what the Scriptures say of him : whether others believe and obey him or not, I will examine his claims impartially, and treat him according to the evidence, as if there were no others in existence but him and me."

While you are conscious that your own temper and conduct are every thing that is the reverse of the candour and justice which he has a right to demand, may you not justly tremble at the thought of beholding his face, if you should see him coming at last to judge you and all the world, and may you not reasonably expect to join the cry of those who shall say, ye rocks cover us and ye hills fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb."

66

Christians, you stand between the infidels and the