systems, very great difficulties. That of matter formed out of nothing is not less incomprehensible. It must be admitted, without flattering' ourselves to account for it; philosophy does not account for every thing. How many incomprehensible things are admitted, even in geometry itself! can you conceive two lines ever approaching to each other, and never meeting?

Geometricians, indeed, will tell us, the properties of the asymptotes are demonstrated to you, so that you cannot but admit them; the creation is not, wherefore then do you admit it? what difficulty do you find to believe, with all antiquity, the eternity of matter? On the other hand, the divine pushes you, and says, that in believing the eternity of matter, you make two principles, God and matter, and fall into the error of Zoroaster and Manes.

The Geometricians shall go without an answer, for they pay no regard to any thing but their lines, their surfaces, and their solids; but to the divine it may be said, how am I a manichee? There is an heap of stones which no architect has made, but with them he has built a vast edifice. Here I do not admit of two architects; only the rough stones have submitted to the operations of power and genius.

Happily, whichever system be espoused, morality is hurt by neither; for what signifies it, whether matter be made or only arranged? God is equally our absolute master. Whether the chaos was only put in order, or whether it was created of nothing, still it behoves us to be virtuous: scarce any of these metaphysical questions have a relation to the conduct of life; disputes are like table-talk, every one forgets after dinner

what

what he has said, and goes away where his interest and inclination lead him.

MESSIAH.

MESSIAH or Meshiah in Hebrew, Christos or Celomenos in Greek, Unctus in Latin, signifies anointed.

We see in the Old Testament that the name of Messiah was often given to idolatrous, or infidel princes. God is said to have sent a prophet to anoint Jehu king of Israel; he signified the sacred unction to Hazael king of Damascus and Syria, those two princes being the Messiahs of the most high to punish the house of Ahab.

In the 45th of Isaiah, the name of Messiah is expressly given to Cyrus. "Thus hath the "Lord said to his anointed (his Messiah) whose right hand I have holden to subdue nations "before him."

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Ezekiel, in the twenty-eighth chapter of his Revelations, gives the appellation of Messiah to the king of Tyrus, whom he also calls Cherubin. Son of man, says the eternal to the prophet, lift up thy voice and utter a lamentation concerning the king of Tyrus; and say unto him, thus saith the Lord, the eternal, thou wast the seal of the likeness of God, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty: thou wast the Lord's garden of Eden; or, according to other versions, Thou wast the Lord's whole delight. Thy garments were of sardonix, topaz, jasper, chrysolite, onyx, beryl, sapphire, carbuncle, emerald, . and gold. What thy tabrets and thy flutes. could do was within thee; they were all ready

on

on the day thou wast created; thou hast a cherubim, a Messiah.

This title of Messiah, or Christ, was given to the kings, prophets, and high-priests among the Hebrews. The Lord and his Messiah are witness, 1 Kings, chap. xii. ver. 3. that is, the Lord and the king whom he hath set up; and elsewhere, touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm. David, who was divinely inspired, in more than one place gives the title of Messiah to Saul his rejected father-in-law, who persecuted him. God forbid, says he frequently, that I should lay my hand on the Lord's anointed, the Messiah of God.

As the name of Messiah, or anointed of the Eternal, has been given to idolatrous kings and reprobate persons, very often has it been used to indicate the true anointed of the Lord, the Messiah, by way of excellence, the Christ, the Son of God; lastly, God himself.

If all the oracles usually applied to the Messiah, were to be compared, it may give rise to some seeming difficulties, and which the Jews. have made use of to justify their hardness of belief and obstinacy, did it admit of an apology? Several eminent divines allow, that the Jews, groaning under an oppressive slavery, and having so many repeated promises from the Eternal, might well long for the coming of a Messiah, who was to deliver them and subdue their enemies; and that they are in some measure excusable for having not immediately perceived Jesus to be this deliverer and conqueror.

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It was agreeable to the plan of eternal wisdom, that the spiritual ideas of the real Messiah should be unknown to the blind multitude; and so far

were

were they unknown, that the Jewish doctors have denied that those passages which we produce, are to be understood of the Messiah. Many affirm that the Messiah is already come in the person of Hezekiah; and this was the famous Hillel's opinion. Others, and these are many, say, that the belief of the coming of a Messiah, so far from being a fundamental article of faith, was only a comfortable hope, no such thing being mentioned in the Decalogue, or in Leviticus.

Several Rabbins tell you, that they do not in the least question the Messiah's being come at the time decreed; that he is not however grow ing old, but remains in the world concealed, and waits till Israel shall have duly celebrated the Sabbath, to reveal himself.

The famous Rabbi, Solomon Jarchy or Raschy, who lived in the beginning of the twelfth century, says, in his Talmudics, that the ancient Hebrews believed the Messiah to have been born on the very day of the final destruction of Jeru salem by the Romans. This answers to the common saying, of sending for the doctor when a man is dead.

The Rabbi Kimchy, who also lived in the twelfth century, preached that the Messiah, whose coming he imagined to be at hand, would drive the Christians out of Judea, which was then in their possession. The Christians, indeed, were dispossessed of the Holy Land; but this was done by Saladin; and had that conqueror taken the Jews under his protection, it is very probable that, in their enthusiasm, they would have made him their Messiah.

The

The sacred authors, and our Lord Jesus him self, often compare the Messiah's reign, and the eternal beatitude, to a wedding and banquet; but these parables have been strangely wrested by the Talmudists. According to them, the Messiah will gather together all his people in the land of Canaan, and give them an entertainment, where the wine will be that which Adam himself made in the earthly Paradise, and which he keeps in vast cellars, dug by angels in the center of the earth.

The first course will be the famous fish called the great Leviathan, which at once swallows a fish, less than itself; yet it is three hundred leagues in length; and the whole mass of waters is supported on this Leviathan. God at first created a male and a female; but, lest they might overturn the earth, or crowd the universe with their offspring, he killed the female and salted it down for the Messiah's banquet.

The Rabbins add, that there will likewise be killed the bull called Behemoth, of such a monstrous size, that every day it eats the herbage of a thousand mountains. This bull's female was slain at the beginning of the world, to prevent the multiplication of such prodigious species, which must have been extremely detrimental to other creatures; but they say, that the Eternal did not salt it, cow's flesh not being so good salted as that of the female Leviathan. So firmly do the Jews believe all these rabbinical chimeras, that it is common among them to swear by their share of the Behemoth.

With such coarse ideas concerning the coming of the Messiah and his reign, is it to be wondered at, that the Jews, both ancient and mo

dern,