certain news of the ten tribes Salmanazar carried away; and it is not known where they are, though the whole world be sufficiently known. To begin with the East. We know, that there are abundance of Jews in the kingdom of Persia, though they have but little liberty. The Turkish empire is their chief retreat, not only because they have been settled there a long time, but because a great many of those that were banished out of Spain retired thither. There are more of them at Constantinople and Salonichi, than in any other place. They reckon above fourscore thousand in these two cities, and about a million in the Grand Seignior's empire. A great number of pilgrims come from all corners of the world to Jerusalem, and considerable sums are sent thither to sustain the poor, and keep up the academies. There are a great many of them in Germany in the emperor's dominions; but they are more numerous in Poland, Lithuania, and Russia: here we have academies and disciples by thousands, who study our civil and canon laws, because we are allowed the privilege of judging the civil and criminal cases, that happen in the nation. There are not so many Jews in the Protestant states which separate from the Roman church; but yet they treat them with a great deal of charity and indulgence in the low countries; at Rotterdam, Amsterdam, and Hamburg, because these merchandising cities are open to foreigners. All the Italian princes receive the Jews, countenance them, protect them, and inviolably maintain their privileges without altering them; and I believe there are not less than 25,000 in this country. Fez, and Morocco, and the other neighboring cities, which are not subject to the Turk, contain the greater numbers, because they are not remote from Spain or Portugal, from whence they may retire thither. There are other places upon the coast of Africa, which are also peopled with Jews; but, as we know but little of them, it is hard to fix the number989 98 Simon Luzzati Discorzo circa il stato degli Hebrei, c. 18. The quotation above is immediately taken from the English translation of Basnage's History of the Jews, p. 744. $ The Jews, says bishop Law, are universally believed to be more numerous in the whole at present, than they have ever been in their most flourishing estate, in their own land"," 100 'Some appearances,' says Dr. Worthington, indicate a working towards their conversion and restoration. Dr. Jackson observes, "that the continuation of their former plagues seemeth much interrupted," and "the plagues themselves much mitigated, in this last age, since the gospel hath been again revealed, as if their misery were almost expired, and the day of their redemption drawing nigh.” On the other hand, they do not shew that extreme malice towards Christians, nor Christians that hatred of them, which they formerly exercised towards each other. The good usage, which, in these latter ages, they have met with from Christians, hath undoubtedly abated their prejudices, and conciliated their minds to them; and a continuance of the same justice and lenity may, with God's blessing, contribute greatly to prepare them for, and by degrees bring about, their conversion 101 9 Though these observations of Dr. Worthington are upon the whole correct: we are not, I conceive, authorised in speaking of the good usage,' which the followers of Moses have experienced from the disciples of Christ during these latter ages.' The treatment of the former, either from governments or from individuals, has not, till very lately, been in any degree mild or liberal. Even of those whose prejudices have been softened by literature, not a few have been disposed to keep the posterity of Abraham, still loaded with shackles, and still discouraged by depression. In the last chapter of the last volume of his Demonstration of the Messias, bishop Kidder has interspersed some abservations relative to the means of converting the Jews; but, of 99 Law's Theory of Religion, 3d ed. p. 164. 102 This volume was published in the year 1700. the methods which he specifies, some are very ill adapted to accomplish the intended effect. He recommends, that the Jews should be compelled occasionally to attend at places of Christian worship, and to hear the sermons preached there; that they should be obliged to engage in conferences with Christian divines; that they should not have the liberty to use what prayers they please' in their synagogues; that the government should force the richer Jews to maintain their poorer brethren, as they have been used to do, though they should reject Judaism and embrace Christianity; and that the Jews should continue to be excluded from places of honor and power, and from enjoying the freedom of the press. Accordingly having observed, that rabbi Aben Amram complained greatly, that the Jews possessed not the liberty of the press;' he is careful to clear himself from the most distant imputation of being an advocate, for their using so horrid an engine as the press: a far more mischievous discovery, in the eyes of civil tyrants and interested prelates, than that of gun-powder, or any the most destructive invention, which the boldest flight of the human imagination can conceive. Far be it from me,' says the bishop, for pleading for any such liberty as that.' And he afterwards adds, that it is undoubtedly a very great favor in Christian kings and states to permit the Jews to live in their several kingdoms and countries without disturbance;' and that nothing can be more adviseable than to keep them low 103.' Dr. Hartley, in addition to the arguments from prophecy which he has alleged to prove, that the Jews will return to Palestine, notices some concurring evidences, which the existing circumstances of that people suggest. After observing in the first place, that they are yet a distinct people from all the nations amongst which they reside; he says,Secondly, they are to be found in all the countries of the known world. And this agrees with many remarkable passages of the scriptures, which treat both of their dis 103 Vol. III. p. 455-487. persion and of their return. Thirdly, they have no inherit Their establishment in Judea, it may be added, will be of the more easy accomplishment, because the detestable government of the Turks has, in a degree almost incredible, depopulated Judea, Syria, and the fertile countries which are contiguous, and therefore there will be ample territo ries for them to inhabit and to cultivate. The total population of Syria,' says Volney, may be estimated at 2,305,000 souls.' But let us suppose it two millions and a half, and since Syria contains about 5250 square leagues, at the rate of 150 in length and 35 in breadth, we shall have upon an average 476 inhabitants for every square league. So feeble a population in so excellent a country may well excite our astonishment, but this will be still encreased, if we compare the present number of inhabitants, with that of ancient times. From the accounts we have of Judea in the time of Titus, and which are to be esteemed tolerably accurate, that country must have contained four millions of inhabitants.—If we go still farther back into antiquity, we shall find the same populousness among the Philistines, the Phoenicians, and in the kingdoms of Samaria and Damascus. It is true, that some writers, reasoning from what they see in Europe, have called in question these facts; several of which, indeed, appeared to be disputable; but the comparisons on which they build are not on that account the less erroneous; first, because the lands of Asia in general are more fertile than those of Europe; secondly, because a part of these lands are capable of being cultivated, and in fact are cultivated, without lying fallow or requiring manure; thirdly, because the Orientals consume one half less for their subsistence than the inhabitants of the Western world, in general: for all which reasons it appears, that a territory of less extent may contain double and treble the population. These authors exclaim against the armies of two and three hundred thousand men, furnished by states, which in Europe would not produce above twenty or thirty thousand; but it is not considered, that the constitutions of ancient nations were wholly different from ours; that these nations were purely cultivators; that there was less inequality, and less idleness than among us; that every cultivator was a soldier; that in war the army frequently consisted of the whole nation.-Without appealing to the positive testimony of history, there are innumerable monuments, which depose in favor of the' great population of high antiquity. Such are the prodigious quantity of ruins dispersed over the plains, and even in the mountains, at this day deserted. On the most remote parts of Carmel are found wild vines and olive trees, which must have been conveyed thither by the hand of man; and, in the Lebanon of the Druzes and Maronites, the rocks, now abandoned to fir-trees and brambles, present us in a thousand places with terraces, which prove they were anciently better cul |