4 us, under such singular and enormous wrongs. If WHEN we meditate on the wonders of creation, we are amazed and awed at its author; the immense globes of light, and the incalculable. celerity of their movements, are subjects that astonish the mind; the space in which millions of stars are bespangled, where millions of world's move in their vortices, cannot be computed by human understanding. Great and Almighty Creator! to thy Omnipotent power alone all these bodies owe their existence. the stupendous magnitude of the universe, if its immensity and diversity confounds our reflections, what art thou, O God! and what man can comprehend thee? If the heavens and their hosts are so brilliant and grand, that the eye is dazzled by their splendor, what art thou, O God! whose glory so transcends these feeble images of thy greatness? What is the infinite extent of thy wisdom and power, that can encompass and govern them all? I tremble, at thy tremendous power; I sicken, at my insignificancy and prostrate before thee; humbly hope hope for a state, when I may be able to bear the effulgence of thy Schechinah. LEVI'S selection of the Prophecies is candid and judicious, they are the identical predictions that have been misconstrued and perverted; he has given them the literal and true interpretation and refuted the false and disengenuous comments on them; he has so successfully combated the cavils on them, as to bereave our antagonists of all further ground of controversy. Faith and constancy must henceforth be substituted for stubbornness, that epithet of reproach so long imputed to us; and perverseness be now ascribed to those who persist in error after conviction. Your faithful and respectful friend, January 17, 1817. J. KING. Introduction. THE verification of the Prophecies has con vinced those who have considered them, of the divine origin of the Jewish Religion; and many men of note have become converts to its creed. There are frequent recent instances of such conversions, but in ancient times they were much more numerous: proselites in other religions may have interested motives for their apostacy, but, in a religion so precise and austere, there is little sensual attraction: It must be pure faith, and a conviction of its truth, that induces a conversion to the Jewish religion; it is difficult to observe its tenets; it has many ceremónials, and requires constant devotion; so many worldly sacrifices must be made by its votaries, that would rather C rather deter than invite proselytes; they are oppressed by all nations, but their suffering is the remainder of the punishment of their captivity and a confirmation of the prediction; what has already happened is a pledge for the further accomplishment of the prophecy. WITHOUT persuasion, and from a spontaneous disposition, Rittangel, professor of the oriental languages at Koenisburg in the seventeenth century, embraced the Mosaic Law; Antony, Minister at Geneva, was burnt for abjuring Christianity in favor of Judaism, he is held in high veneration for prefering so terrible a death to recantation. We have a narrative of a dispute between Rabbi Zechiel and the Dominican Fryar Paul, called Cyriac, a conference in the year 1263, in the presence of Don Jaquez, King of Arragon, and the Queen his wife; it is a memorable conference; the two champions were versed in Hebrew and antiquity; the Talmud, Targum, and the archives of the Sanhedrin were on the table, the contested passages were translated into Spanish ; |