beginning, made them male and female, and said, (Gen. ii. 24,) For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be one flesh?" What can express a more indissoluble union than this, as it is recorded by Moses himself? And yet, for "the hardness of your hearts," or because the woman who should be disliked would be subject to cruel treatment, divorces were permitted. But could not the same power which gave the permission, revoke it at his pleasure?

I have no occasion to reply on the same principle to any other of Mr. Levi's charges of contradiction, because they arose among yourselves, and were such additions to the institutions of Moses, as are most expressly forbidden in the passage quoted above.

Mr. Levi urges the command of Jeremiah, xvii. 21: "Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the sabbath-day ;" whereas Jesus commanded some of the sick persons, whom he healed on that day, to take up their beds, and carry them home; probably to shew that they were perfectly, though suddenly, restored to their vigour. But the meaning of Jeremiah was to forbid habitual labour "on the sabbath-day," which it appears that the people then made use of; carrying burdens out of their houses, and through the gates of the city, as on other days; whereas all that Jesus did was to correct a superstitious punctilio in the observance of it. The man who carried his bed to his own house, was not labouring to earn his livelihood. Besides, in that age at least, your own people allowed more labour than Jesus here authorized, as to lead their cattle to water, and relieve them if they fell into pits, &c., though it might require great labour; and they defended themselves when they were attacked "on the sabbath-day." But if what Jesus ordered had been a change in the law, surely he who could heal the sick by speaking a word, shewed that he was authorized to do it.

Mr. Levi also charges it as a contradiction to Moses, that Jesus did not pronounce sentence of death on the woman taken in adultery.* But in bringing this woman to Jesus, your ancestors only meant to ensnare him. If he had passed sentence of death on her, (which it was no more his business, than it was of those who brought her to him,) they would very justly have accused him to the Roman governor, as one who had assumed temporal power. Besides, Jesus did not say that the woman ought not to have been stoned; but,

* Letter, p. 26. (P.)

acting in his proper character, as a prophet, he bid her go away, and sin no more.

The last instance that I shall mention is one with respect to which Mr. Levi is still more evidently mistaken. "He said, (John v. 37,) 'The Father himself who hath sent me, hath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard his voice at any time:"" Mr. Levi should have added, "nor seen his shape,' and then he could not have made the remark which follows: "Pray, Sir, what do you think of this expression, which is so contrary to what both Jews and Christians believe, viz. that God spake to the Jewish nation face to face, as recorded by Moses?" But what Jesus said related to the very persons whom he was addressing, none of whom had heard God speak from Mount Sinai, and certainly had not seen any form or shape there, as Moses himself repeatedly declared. But, perhaps, Jesus spake interrogatively, Have ye not heard his voice, and seen his shape? alluding to the voice from heaven, and the descent of the Holy Spirit like a dove, which some of his auditors might have heard and seen.

Such are the contradictions which Mr. Levi has charged on the founder of the Christian religion. Do you now judge whether they will authorize you to pronounce him to be a false prophet.

LETTER V.

Of the Sufferings of the Jewish Nation.

As an argument of your nation having offended God beyond any thing that is recorded in the books of the Old Testament, I requested you to attend to the extreme severity of your present sufferings, and the long continuance of your banishment from your own country; and I said that a captivity of seventy years was deemed a sufficient punishment for all your transgressions preceding that event.

66

Mr. Levi replies, that the Babylonish Captivity was not a punishment for all the sins of the preceding period. They were carried away to Babylon," he says, " for the sin of not keeping the sabbath of the land, agreeable to what Moses foretold. But for their other sins, viz. idolatry, murder, and whoredom, they did not receive any punishment during the Babylonish Captivity, by reason of the shortness of its duration, and therefore this longer captivity was

* Letter, p. 88. (P.)

+ See Vol. XIII. pp. 166, 167.

necessary to finish transgression, that is, idolatry; and to make an accomplishment for sin, that is, whoredom; and to make an atonement for iniquity, that is, murder.” *

Thus does Mr. Levi interpret Daniel's famous prophecy of seventy weeks, of which he gives the following account: "Daniel, judging that the sins of his nation would be done away by the seventy years' captivity at Babylon, the angel informs him, that their sin would not be atoned for by the seventy years. But verily, as to Israel, he would not only wait seventy years, but seven times seventy years; after which their kingdom should be cut off, and their dominion cease, and they return into captivity, to finish an atonement for their transgressions."t

But the language of the prophecy clearly indicates that the termination of this longer period of seven times seventy years would be some joyful event, and not a calamitous one. For it was "to finish transgression, to make an end of siu, to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision," (which Mr. Levi renders, by publicly authenticating it, t)" and to anoint the most holy." Could this be the beginning of

sorrows?

If by the most holy, we understand the holy prophet, or prince, whom we suppose to be mentioned afterwards, under the character of Messiah the prince, these four hundred and ninety years will terminate at the time of his being appointed to his office. This I think we are authorized to infer from the manner in which the angel immediately proceeds to explain himself: "Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the prince, shall be seven weeks and three score and two weeks;" that is, sixty-nine weeks. One week still remains to make up the seventy; but of this the angel gives an account at the close of the prophecy. It was that week in the midst of which the sacrifice and oblation were to cease, which was to be the beginning of farther calamities. But he does not say that these farther calamities would be a punishment inflicted for sins committed before the Babylonish Captivity.

Mr. Levi says, that the word nn, which we render determined, means cut off. But admitting this, it is far from following that this was to be a cutting off, or a sepa

• Letter, pp. 45, 49. (P.) + Ibid. p. 40. (P.) § Dan, ix. 25. See Vol. XII. p. $32, Note *.

Ibid. p. 55. (P.) Letter, p. 43. (P.)

ration, of the people from the holy city. For it was the period of time that was cut off, and not the people. It is therefore far more natural to suppose, that it means cutting off, marking, or determining a period of time, as in our translation.

I would farther observe, that Mr. Levi's account of your present sufferings is neither agreeable to reason, nor to the Scriptures. It is no where said, either before the captivity, or afterwards, that it was intended as a punishment for not observing the sabbath in particular, but for sin in general. It is only said that, during that captivity, the land would keep its sabbaths, which it had not been allowed to do before. 2 Chron. xxxvi. 21: "To fulfil the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths; for as long as she lay desolate, she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years." But this is far from amounting to a proof that this captivity was for no other

purpose.

If we consider the conduct of your ancestors after their return from Babylon, we shall perceive no appearance of their supposing that they had been punished there for their neglect of the sabbath only, while greater crimes remained to be expiated by heavier judgments at a distant period. The confession they make is of sin in general, and not of neglecting the sabbath in particular. Nay, the neglect of the sabbath is not mentioned at all. Neh. ix. 33-35: "Thou art just in all that thou hast brought upon us; for thou hast done right, and we have done wickedly. Neither have our kings, our princes, our priests, nor our fathers, kept thy law, nor hearkened unto thy commandments and thy testimonies, wherewith thou didst testify against them. For they have not served thee in their kingdom, and in thy great goodness which thou gavest them, and in the large and fat land which thou gavest before them; neither turned they from their wicked works." Here is no mention of the nonobservance of the sabbath in particular; which might have been expected, if it had been understood by the people that that had been the offence for which only they had suffered.

Besides, in how capricious and unworthy a manner does Mr. Levi represent the God of your fathers, the righteous judge of all the earth, as acting; in punishing for one particular sin by a heavy calamity, and after shewing all the marks of forgiveness and reconciliation, reserving his greatest

*See Vol. XI. p. 512.

vengeance for another season, not to commence till six hundred years afterwards! How contrary is this to his own most solemn declaration by Moses, (Exod. xx. 5,) that he would visit the sins of the fathers upon the children "unto the third and fourth generation" only, "of them that hate" him!

On the plan of Mr. Levi, even your next restoration to your country will be no proof that God has forgiven your nation all the sins they committed before the Babylonish Captivity, to say nothing of those committed since. According to him, you may now be suffering for their idolatry, while another dispersion may be appointed for their murders, and another for their whoredoms, in all of which you who suffer had no concern, &c. The very mention of the idea is sufficient to explode it.

Mr. Levi, as if not quite satisfied with this account of your present sufferings, assigns another reason for them, viz. that, besides answering the purpose of punishment, they likewise answer that of instruction, not to yourselves, but the rest of the world. "As a captivity of four hundred years," he says, "was necessary for the nation of the Jews only to arrive at the true knowledge of God, it must consequently be necessary for this captivity to be much longer, as being the means of bringing all the nations of the earth to the true faith, agreeable to what the prophet Isaiah says: 'And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it.'"*

On this I must observe, that neither is it any where said that the design of the bondage in Egypt was to teach the Israelites the knowledge of the true God, nor that your present dispersion is designed to instruct the world in that knowledge. Nay, so far was the Egyptian bondage from teaching your ancestors this important knowledge, that, though they were the worshippers of the true God when they went into Egypt, they were idolaters when they came out of it. It was their deliverance from the yoke of the Egyptians, not their subjection to it, that was the means of instructing them, and other nations too, as Moses abundantly testifies.

In like manner, it will be your restoration to your own country, and not your present banishment from it, that will be the means of convincing all the world of the truth of

* Letter, p. 52. (P.)