Christ or Meffiah, and your confequent restoration to your own land, fo as never to be removed from it again, according to the promise and covenant of Jehovah, made through his prophets to your anceftors. I cannot more fuitably close the whole of my own labors in your fervice, than by earnestly exhorting, and befeeching you by the mercies of God given to mankind by Jefus Chrift, by that glorious difpenfation of the love and mercy of God erected in and administered by him, your and my Meffiah, to give the preceding fheets a ferious, difpaffionate, unprejudiced, perufal, fuch as proceeds from an impartial love and inveftigation of truth. And may God, by his good provideuce, and direction of his natural events, or fecond caufes, difpofe your mindst to the discovery, and your hearts to the acknowledgement, of this great truth, that the crucified Jefus was your promised Meffiah. The important æra of this discovery and acknowledgement, at leaft by many of you, is, I apprehend, nearer at hand, than is generally imagined by the learned. Q3

There

of

There is a remarkable prophecy of Daniel xii. 7. concerning "a time, times, and "half a time," which, in the language of prophecy, implies a year of years, two years years, and half a year of years, forming in the whole a period of 1260 years," when "he," God "shall have accomplished to "fcatter the power of the holy people," by whom is probably meant the house of Ifrael. This prophetic period, and indeed the event to which it relates, feem to exactly correfpond with thofe contained in John's Apocalypfe, xi. 2. "The holy city fhall

66

they," the Gentiles, "tread under foot

forty and two months" of years; which, on computing the months at thirtydays to a month multiplying 42 by 30, and, according to the rule of prophecy, taking a day for a year, produce the fame period of 1260 years. Now, if we fix the commencement of this period of 1260 years at A. D. 636, when it is generally admitted that the Saracen General Omar, fet up his ftandard at Jerufalem, and confequently the holy city then began to be trodden under foot by

the

the Gentiles; if farther we reckon the years by the Jewish folar year of 360 days to the year, the expiration of it will fall in A. D. 1877, as this year falls fhort of the Gregorian year by five days, and every leap year by fix days. But if we compute by the Jewish lunar year, of 354 days and 6 hours, which is fhort of the Jewish folar year by five days and three quarters, and of the Gregorian reckoning by ten days and three quarters, and every leap year by eleven days and three quarters, it will terminate in A. D. 1857. Laftly, if we reckon the forty and two months of years by the weekly month of 28 days, of 336 days to the year, which the Jewish lunar year exceeds by eighteen days and fix hours, and the Gregorian year by twenty-eight days and three quarters, and in every leap-year by twenty-nine days and three quarters, it will expire in A. D. 1793 or 1794.

But, be that as it may, if I fhould live to be an eye-witness of its expiration, and confequently of the converfion and restoration

of the house of Ifrael to their own land, in whole or in part, and my God should vouchsafe to grant me the bleffing of health at the time, I declare, that it is my intention to be "one of ten men," who, according to a prophecy before cited, "hall take hold "out of all languages of the nations, of "the fkirt of him that is a Jew, faying, I " will go with you; for we have heard that "God is with you." Yea, verily, I mean to accompany you into your own land, where, as I would wish to be confidered as a member of your civil community, as one of your people, when they acknowledge Jefus to be the Meffiah, I doubt not but you will give me a poffeffion in your future divifion of the land. Nay, I repeat what I have before faid, that if a confiderable number of you, my country-men, the British Jews, or of the foreign Jews, fhould, on their converfion, be at a lofs for a leader to conduct you thither, I intend, under God's direction, to undertake that to me moft agreeable office, and

endeavour

endeavour to remove every obstacle which may be thrown in the way of your re

turn.

My heart is deeply impreft with fentiments of benevolence towards you, and with a grateful fenfe of the goodness of your and my Jehovah, the one God and Father of all, in difpofing me, by a train of his natural events, to become his humble inftrument in facilitating the great work of your converfion.

Two of these his fecond caufes particularly concurring to this point were fomewhat remarkable, with the first you are already acquainted, namely, the present made me of the aforefaid valuable treatise by a deceafed friend. This formed the embryo of a defign, which the other, an accidental interview with a Jew and his wife ripened into action, an occurrence which I cannot dispense with relating to you. The Meffiah was the fubject of a converfation, which was conducted with great mutual charity.

Suffice