But the Jews also commemorate on this day the destruction of the city of Bither, that is, they commemorate the folly of all their greatest rabbies in following an impostor, and believing in him as their Messiah. There Bar Kochav took refuge with those whom he deluded. Rambam says, “All Israel, and the greatest of their wise men, imagined him to be the Messiah,” and we know that the famous Rabbi Akiva was amongst the number. Here, then, we have practical proof that the judgment of those rabbies, who rejected Jesus, was not to be depended upon. If they had succeeded in their efforts, they would have taught all Israel to believe in an impostor; but the providence of God gave them all over to destruction in the very act of following a false prophet. And yet these are the men who have handed down the oral law, and compiled the precepts of rabbinic religion; men, whom the Jews themselves tell us, were the followers of a false prophet and the dupes of an impostor. How can they possibly believe in a system which has such men for its authors; men who seduced thousands and tens of thousands of Israel to plunge themselves into ruin? If Rabbi Akiva, and his colleagues, had not espoused the cause of Bar Kochav, he could never have succeeded in deluding such numbers of Israelites; they, therefore, are answerable for that dreadful calamity. But when the Jews of the present day commemorate the sore affliction, should they not remember also that it is high time to give up that religious system that was the cause of it, and of all the evils that have since followed; or at least seriously and carefully investigate a religion, fidelity to which is compatible with the departure of God’s favour, the destruction of the temple, and a long and awful captivity? No. XXIX. SABBATIC LAWS CONTINUED.