Jews had once been in poffeffion of this knowledge, but had loft it in the time of our Saviour, why did not he, who rectified other abuses, rectify this, the most important of them all.

If an expectation of a Meffiah had been prevalent among the Gentiles, we should certainly perceive fome traces of it in their writings. It might have been expected, both on account of the interesting nature, and the obscurity of the fubject, that there would have been different opinions about it, that it would have been a common topic in their philofophical schools, and that their historians would have given fome account of the origin of fuch an expectation.

The fixth eclogue of Virgil may be alledged as a proof of fuch an expectation. But I do not imagine that any person now thinks that Virgil himself ever expected fuch a perfonage as he defcribes. The use that a poet might make of a vague report of a prophecy (brought probably from the east, and ultimately from the Jewish fcriptures) but seriously believed by no perfon

D 4

1

that we know of, merely to embellish a poem, is one thing; but the actual and univerfal expectation of fuch a perfon, is ano

ther

SECTION IV.

Of the Jewish Angel METATRON, &c.

IN

the third of Een Mordecai's Letters, written by the late Rev. Mr. Taylor of Portsmouth, p. 72. I find the following extraordinary paragraph: Among the no"tions of the more modern Jews, we must "also observe, that the Cabbalifts believed "El Shaddai to be the fame person as the angel Metatron, whom they fuppofed to "be the inftructor of Mofes, and the Meffiah, i. e. as Dr. Allix expreffes it, He was, according to the chriftian phrase, the logos before his incarnation, or, according to the jewish phrase, the foul of "the Meffiah, whom they look upon as fomething between God and the angels,

" whom

"whom nothing feparates from God." Allix, p. 456 *.

.

Bishop Pearson, in proving, by several "arguments, that Chrift is called Jehovah, fays, the Jews themselves acknowledge "that Jehovah fhall be clearly known in the

days of the Meffiah, and not only fo,but "that it is the name which doth properly

belong to him, for the proof of which he quotes the book Sepher Ikkarim, ii. 8. "The fcripture calleth the name of the Meffias Jehovah our righteousness, and Midrash "Tillim, on Pf. xxi. God calleth the Meffias

*Here Mr. Taylor inferts the following note in French, but I fhall give it in English: Calmet, on the word Metatron, fays, "The Hebrews give this name to the firft of "the angels, him who conducted them in the wilderness, "and of whom it is faid, in Mofes, I fhall fend my angel to

go before you. He acted towards the Ifraelites the part "of the officer whom the Romans called Metator. He "marked out the encampments, traced the form of them, "the dimenfions, extent, &c. He is thought to be the "archangel Michael, who was at the head of the people "in the wilderness, that it was he who wreftled with Ja"cob, who is called the face of God, in Exod. xxxiv. 14. and who is the mediator between God and man; that "he writes down good actions, and keeps a register of "them."

by

by his own name, and his name is Jehovah,

as it is, Ex. xv. 3. The Lord is a man of "war, Jehovah is his name. And it is writ"ten of the Meffias, Jer. xxiii. 6. And this "is the name which they fhall call him, Jeho"vab our righteousness. Thus Echa Rab

The

biti, Lam. i. 6. What is the name of the "Meffias? Rabba faid, Jehovah is his name, as it is faid, Jer. xxiii. 6. "fame he reports of Rabbi Levi; and the Bishop concludes, that the Rabbins then "did acknowledge, that the name Jehovah "did belong to the Meffias."

Confulting Dr. Allix's own work on the fubject, I find the following reference to authorities for what he advances: " See "Reuchlin, L. i. De Cabala, p. 651. where "he proves Metatron to be the Meffiah "from their writings; or, in fhort, take "the confeffion of Manaffeh Ben Ifrael,

Q. 6. In Gen. f. 2." The former of these authors I have not, and in the latter I find no fuch paffage as Dr. Allix quotes. But as there is abundant evidence that the Jews in general, and

in

in all ages, from the time of our Saviour to the prefent, confidered their Meffiah as a mere man, and a proper defcendant of David, I own that I am difpofed to examine, with fome rigour, any pretended evidence to the contrary; though the speculative opinions of fome of the Cabbalifts among them is a thing of little confequence, when they can be proved to be different from those that were entertained by the nation in general.

What Calmet fays concerning the angel Metatron in Ben Mordecai's note, has no relation to the Meffiah; so that the most that I should be difpofed to infer from what the Jewish Cabbalifts may have faid on the subject would be, that this Metraton was fomething fimilar to what Philo represents the logos as being, namely an efflux of the divinity, but no being, or perfon, permanently distinguished from him. And it is highly improbable, that any Jew should have supposed that their Meffiah, a man defcended from David, would have no proper human foul, befides this Metatron, or logos, fupplying the place of it; though they might fuppofe the Meffiah