the birth of a God in the face of a new star; and how that star should send them particularly to Jerusalem, though I may suppose it pointed them westward.

C. This will be easier to you, when you know, that all over the east there was a tradition, or fixed opinion, that about that time a King of the Jews would be born, who should rule the whole earth. And the appearance of this extraordinary star in the east, was taken by them as a sign that he was then born. And whither should they go to look for the King of the Jews, but to Jerusalem? And when they

came thither they inquired, saying, "Where is he that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him." This made Herod gather the Priests and Scribes together. And they, by searching the Prophets, found that Bethlehem was the place; whereupon the wise men went to Bethlehem; and to convince them that they were right, the star which they had seen in the east appeared to them again, and "went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was." This made them "rejoice with such an exceeding great joy."

D. This would go down in some measure with me, if you could make good your first postulatum, of such a current tradition or opinion in the east; but for this you have given no sort of proof. And all the rest which you have inferred from thence must come to the ground with it, if it be not supported. I confess it would seem as strange to me as the star to the wise men, if God had (we know not how, it is unaccountable to us) sent such a notion into the minds of men, and at that time only, of

such a King to be born, and that he should be a Jew, (the then most contemptible people in the world, subdued and conquered by the Romans,) and that he was to be King of the Jews, and thence to become King of all the earth, and conquer his conquerors. The Romans would have looked with disdain upon such a notion or prophecy as this; it would have made some stir among them, if they had heard of it, or given any credit to it.

C. You argue right; and I will show you what stir it made among them, and I hope you will take their word, as well for this eastern tradition, as for the effects it had among themselves. Nay, they wanted not the same tradition among themselves, and express prophecies of it, in their Sibyls, and otherwise. So that the same expectation of the Messiah was then current over all the earth, with the Gentiles as well as with the Jews.

Tacitus in his History, l. v. c. 13. speaking of the great prodigies that preceded the destruction of Jerusalem, says, that many understood these as the forerunners of that extraordinary Person whom the ancient books of the Priests did foretel should come about that time from Judea, and obtain the universal dominion; his words are: "Many were persuaded that it was contained in the old writings of the Priests, that at that very time the East should prevail, and the Jews should have the dominion." And Suetonius, in the Life of Vespasian, c. i. n. 4. says, "That it was an ancient and constant opinion (or tradition) throughout the whole east, that at that time those who came from Judea should obtain the dominion;" that is, some Jew should be universal

King. Therefore Cicero, who was a commonwealthman, in his second book of Divination, speaking of the books of the Sibyls, who likewise foretold this great King to come, says, "Let us deal with these Priests, and let them bring any thing out of their books, rather than a king, whom neither the Gods nor men will suffer after this at Rome."

But he was mistaken, and had his head cut off for writing against kingly government. And others more considerable than he laid greater stress upon these prophecies, even the whole senate of Rome, as I come to show you.

Whether these Sibyls gathered their prophecies out of the Old Testament, is needless here to examine. I am now only upon that general expectation which was then in the world, of this great and universal King to come about that time.

The same year that Pompey took Jerusalem, one of these oracles of the Sibyls made a great noise, which was, “That nature was about to bring forth a king to the Romans." Which, as Suetonius relates in the Life of Augustus, c. 94. did so terrify the senate, that they made a decree to expose, that is, destroy all the children born that year. "That none born that year should be brought up, but exposed, that is, left in some wood or desert place to perish." But he tells how this dreadful sentence was prevented: "That those senators whose wives were with child, because each was in hopes of having this great king, took care that the decree of the senate should not be put into the ærarium or treasury, without which, by their constitution, the decree could not be put in execution." And Appian, Plu

tarch, Sallust, and Cicero, do all say, that it was this prophecy of the Sibyls which raised the ambition of Corn. Lentulus at that time, hoping that he should be this king of the Romans. Virgil, a few years before the birth of Christ, in his fourth Eclogue, quotes a prophecy of one of these Sibyls, speaking of an extraordinary person to be born about that time, who should introduce a golden age into the world, and restore all things, and should blot out our sins; and calls him,

"Dear offspring of the gods, and great son of Jove."

He describes a new state of things, like the “ heavens," and "new earth," Isa. lxv. 17.

"A great order of ages does begin, wholly new.”

new

And as Isaiah describes the happy state in the 66 new earth," that "the lion and the lamb should feed together, the serpent eat dust, and that they should not hurt or destroy in all the holy mountain," Isa. lxv. 25. Virgil does almost repeat his words:

66 Nec magnos metuent armenta leones.

Occidet et serpens, et fallax herba veneni

Occidet.".

And as God introduces the Messiah with saying, "I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea," Hag. ii. 7. Virgil does in a manner translate it in this Eclogue, introducing the great person then to be born, and the joy which should be in the whole

creation :

"Lo! teeming nature bending with its load,
The earth, the ocean, and the heavens high,
Behold how all rejoice to greet the coming age."

Here the poet describes nature as in labour to

bring forth this great king, as the other prophecy of the Sibyls before-mentioned speaks. And he says, "That the time was then at hand."

"Now a new progeny from heaven descends."

And he applies it to Saloninus, the son of Pollio the consul, then newly born, as if it was to be fulfilled in him. But as there was nothing like it in the event, so these words are too great to be applied to any mortal, or the reign of any king that ever was in the world; or to any other but to the Messiah, the Lord of heaven and earth.

D. But you know the authority of these Sibyls is disputed. Some say the Christians did interpolate them, and added to them in about a hundred years after Christ.

C. It is true, the Christians did often quote them against the heathens, as St. Paul quoted the heathen poets to the Athenians, Acts xvii. 28. And Clem. Alexandrinus, in his Strom. 1. 6. says, that St. Paul quoted the Sibyls likewise in his disputations with the Gentiles. And the Christians were called Sibyllianists, from their quoting the Sibyls so often. But Origen, in his answer to Celsus, 1. 7. challenges him to show any interpolation made by the Christians, and appeals to the heathen copies which were in their own possession, and kept with great care.

But what I have quoted to you out of Virgil was before Christ was born, and therefore clear of all these objections.

D. Then the Jews must have had some hand in them. As likewise in that Eastern tradition you have spoken of.