till it terminated in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. In this respect the Jews of later ages are blinder than their forefathers. The Jews previous to the coming of Christ did so far under- stand the prophecies, that they knew of what tribe the Messiah was to be born, and what was to be the place of his nativity : they knew also, that the various prophecies which were cited by our Lord and his Apostles were cited according to their true import: for we do not find them on any one occasion controverting the application of those passages to the promised Messiah. But Jews of later ages, seeing how demonstrably those passages prove the Messiahship of Jesus, have resorted to other interpretations, in order to weaken the force of the arguments with which they are pressed. Even the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, which seems to defy the ingenuity of man to pervert it, is explained away by them as not relating to the Messiah. The idea of a suffering Messiah they cannot bear : and they, who are constrained to confess that such an one is indisputably predicted in the prophecies, say that they shall have two Messiahs, one a suffering, and the other a triumphant, Messiah. As for all the prophecies that determined the time for the Messiah's advent, as to be before the depar- ture of the sceptre from Judah, and during the existence of the second temple, they get over them by saying, that God did indeed intend to send the Messiah at that time ; but that he has deferred it these eighteen hundred years, and still defers it, on account of the wickedness of their nation. And the Messiah whom they expect is to be a mere temporal Prince, who shall subdue all their enemies, and make them in a tem- poral view the head of all nations.
Thus is there an impenetrable veil upon their hearts, as thick as that which was on the hearts of those who crucified the Lord of glory. We are told, that " their rulers at that time, not knowing the voices of the prophets which were read every Sabbath-day, fulfilled them in condemning him"^:" and the same is true of all the Rabbins at the present day. Even the Apostles themselves, after they had been instructed by their Divine Master for above three years, were still so blinded by the prejudices of their nation, that they could not admit the thouglit of a suffering Messiah, even when they were told of it by our Lord himself in the plainest terms ^ : yea, even after his resurrection, they still dreamed of only a temporal Messiah^. From them, through the tender mercy of their Lord, this veil was at length removed^ ; but on their unhappy countrymen it still remains, according to the predictions of the Prophet
^ Acts xiii. 27. e Luke xviii. 31—34.
*■ Luke xxiv. 21. and Acts i. G. e Luke xxiv. 25 — 27, 44 — 46.