branch, the inquiry into the grounds of the previous faith of the Samaritans, appears, in this view of it, to be of vast extent and comprehension: for, to give the question a complete discussion, and to conduct the inquiry in what might seem the most natural order, it would be necessary to consider, first, the general grounds of the expectation which so generally prevailed; and afterward, to inquire from what particular sources the Samaritans drew these just views of the Messiah's business which they have been found to entertain. The investigation of the first question would carry us into deep disquisitions of theological antiquities.

It is not much my practice to shrink from difficulties; nor can I bring myself to believe that common people are so incompetent as they are generally supposed to be to comprehend whatever the preacher will be at the trouble to explain. Under the contrary persuasion, I scruple not to serve you with stronger meats than are generally thought fit for popular digestion. I should consult my own ease more, and your advantage less, if I could acquiesce in the general opinion. For our present subject. The condition of the Samaritans in the article of religious information, was, in consequence of their connexion with the Jews, so different from that of any other people, that we may reasonably separate the two questions concerning their particular faith and the general expectation of the rest of mankind, and consider them as distinct subjects; for the views of the Samaritans might have been just what they were, although the Gentiles had been left (which never was their case) in total darkness. For the present, therefore, I shall postpone the general question concerning the grounds of the general expectation of the Gentiles (which I purpose, however, with God's gracious assistance, at some future season to resume; but for the present, I shall postpone it), and, confining myself to the particular case of the Samaritans, I shall endeavour to ascertain the particular sources from which they drew their information that the Messiah

was to come for the general advantage of mankind, and that he was to come in the character of a public teacher of the true religion. In the first circumstance, their expectations differed from those of the Jews, and, in the second, from those of the whole Gentile world. Now, since these notions, which were peculiar to themselves, could not be formed on any vague traditions which were current among any other people, and since they have been remarkably justified by the event of things, it is most reasonable to suppose that they were drawn immediately from the word of God-from prophecies of the Old Testament, which the Samaritans interpreted with more discernment than the Jews, because they were free from the prejudices which the Jews entertained in favour of their own nation,perhaps for this reason, that, being secretly conscious of their spurious original, however they might boast their descent from Abraham, they were unwilling to admit those exclusive claims of his family for which the Jews so zealously contended, and on which their fatal prejudices were founded. But if the notions of the Samaritans were drawn immediately from the Old Testament, it is evident they are to be sought in those parts of it which the Samaritans admitted. The Samaritans admitted no part of the sacred writings of the Jews but the five books of Moses. In the books of Moses, therefore, we are to look for such prophecies of the Messiah as might be a sufficient foundation of the faith of the Samaritans of that pure faith which was free from the errors of the Jews, and far more particular than the general expectation of the Gentiles. In the books of Moses we must look for prophecies of the Messiah, declaring the general extent of the deliverance he was to accomplish, and describing him in the character of a religious teacher: and these prophecies must be clear and explicit,-not conveyed in dark images and ambiguous allusions, but in terms that might be open to popular apprehension before their accomplishment; for if no such prophecies should be found in the books of Moses,

the faith of the Samaritans will be a fact for which it will be impossible to account.

For prophecies describing the Messiah as the general benefactor of mankind, it is no difficult task to find them in the books of Moses. The greater difficulty, perhaps, would be to find any prophecy of him, of that high antiquity, in which the extent of the blessings that should be the consequence of his appearance is not expressly signified. This circumstance is clearly implied in the earliest revelations; and it is remarkable that it is always mentioned in the most explicit terms, in the promises made to the ancestors of the Jewish nation. A general restoration of mankind from the ruin of the fall was plainly implied in the original curse upon the serpent; for what would have been the great victory of the woman's seed, if the greater part of Eve's posterity were doomed to continue in the power of the common enemy?-if, for one family to be brought by Christ within the possibility of salvation, two hundred and ninety-seven millions were to remain the neglected victims of the devil's malice ?---which, upon a very moderate computation, was the case, if Jacob's was the single family that was to have an interest in Christ's redemption. After the flood, when Jehovah was described as the God of Shem, it was declared that Japhet was to find a shelter in Shem's tabernacle. Nor can I perceive that the curse denounced on Canaan's degenerate posterity amounted to an absolute exclusion of his descendants from the knowledge and worship of Shem's God: the contrary, I think, is mercifully implied in the terms of the curse, though I confess very darkly. When it was first intimated to Abraham that the Messiah was to arise among his descendants, it was at the same time declared that the blessing was to reach to all the families of the earth; and this declaration was constantly repeated upon every renewal of the glorious promise to Isaac and to Jacob: so that the whole tenor of patriarchal prophecy attests the universal extent of the Messiah's blessings; and

the thing is so very clear, that it is unnecessary to be more particular in the proof of it.

Again, for the time of his appearance. This was marked in Jacob's dying prophecy by a sign which the Samaritans of our Saviour's days could not but discern. The dissolution of a considerable state hath, like all events, its regular and certain causes, which work the ultimate effect by a slow and gradual progress. The catastrophe is ever preceded by public disorders, of which human sagacity easily forecasts the event. To the Samaritans of our Saviour's day, living in the heart of the Jewish territory, it must have been very perceptible that the sceptre was falling from the hand of Judah, when the Jewish polity was actually within half a century of its dissolution;-and when the sceptre should depart from Judah, then, according to the holy patriarch's prediction, the Shiloh was to come.

Of the extent, therefore, of the Messiah's blessings, and of the time of his appearance, the Samaritans might find clear information in the books of Moses. Upon these points the earliest prophecies were so explicit, that no higher qualification could be requisite to comprehend their general meaning, than a freedom of the mind from prejudices in favour of the pretensions of the Jewish nation, -prejudices which the Samaritans, who hated the Jews, were not likely to entertain.

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It may be somewhat more difficult to produce the ticular predictions in which they found the Messiah described as a religious teacher. That predictions to this purpose do exist in the books of Moses, in terms which were clearly understood by the ancient Samaritans, cannot reasonably be doubted; because we find this notion of the Messiah in the previous faith of the Samaritans, of which the books of Moses were the sole foundation. If these prophecies are now not easy to be found, the whole difficulty must arise from the obscurity which time hath brought, through various causes, upon particular passages

of these very ancient writings, which originally were perspicuous.

It were, perhaps, not difficult to prove, that the promise which accompanied the delivery of the law at Sinai-the promise of a prophet to be raised up among the Israelites, who should resemble Moses-had the Messiah for its ultimate object: and from the appeal which is repeatedly made to it by the first preachers of Christianity,-from the terms in which the inquiries of the Pharisees were propounded to the Baptist,-from the sentiments which the Jewish multitude were accustomed to express upon occasion of several of our Saviour's miracles, it is very evident, that, in the age of our Lord and his apostles, the Messiah was universally looked for by the Jewish nation, as the person in whom that promise was to receive its final and particular completion. In the office of a prophet, and more particularly in the resemblance of Moses, the character of a teacher is indeed included; but of a national teacher of the Jews only, not of a universal instructor of mankind. This promise, therefore, could hardly be the foundation of the expectation which the Samaritans entertained of a public teacher who was to rescue the whole world from moral evil, by instructing all men in the true religion: for, in the letter of the prophecy, no such character appears; nor is it probable, that before the merciful scheme of Providence was developed and interpreted by the appearance of our Saviour and the promulgation of the gospel, men would be so quick-sighted in the interpretation of dark figures and distant allusions, as to descry the character of a universal teacher under the image of a prophet of the Israelites. The passages, therefore, on which the Samaritans built their hope, we have yet to seek.

One passage, which, if I take its meaning right, contains an illustrious prophecy to our purpose, occurs in the book of Deuteronomy. It is the beginning of that prophetic song in which Moses, just before his death, describes the