Now nothing is more easy than to demonstrate the allegations just quoted to be impious and malignant slander. It is no doubt true that, of itself, a privileged religious seclusion, such as the Jews enjoyed, is apt, through man's depravity, to generate a haughty contempt of others; and it may not be denied that, in the later ages of their state, this spirit rose in the Jews to a fearful extreme. But it is due to the Jewish Scriptures to remark, that there is no injunction of the law which commands it-no observance of their religion which can be pretended to give it countenance; and that much is there enjoined and commanded to counterwork this evil tendency, and to preserve them humble, and make them kind and beneficent. As if to beat down all spiritual pride, they were continually reminded of their humble origin,* and of their frequent rebellions against the Lord;t and were taught, at the same time, to refer all their blessings to their God: saying, "Not unto us, not unto us, but unto thy name, O Lord, give glory." And while all spiritual pride was thus kept down, those unsocial feelings which are so ready to spring from it were with equal rigour repressed and forbidden. The separation which they were required to maintain from the men of other nations was as a guard of safety, thrown around the chosen race, to defend them from the contamination of the surrounding corruptions. Though thus intended to preserve the purity, and perpetuate the privileges of God's people, it was by no means designed to confine but rather to diffuse them. In the very terms of the covenant of promise, of which they were the depositaries and guardians, it was intimated that, in the fulfilment of their trust, "all nations of the earth should be blessed." Their law, besides teaching them to look on all men as their brethren, provided, with a benignity which is absolutely alone in all the legislation of antiquity, for the defence of the stranger within their gates. Although it was forbidden them to form alliance with any of the heaDeut. ix. 4. 7. 24.

* Deut. xxvi. 4-10.

thens in their worship, yet in the early times, whosoever among the nations, far or near, would renounce his idols and cleave to the God of Israel was made welcome into the bosom of the Jewish state. And as connecting their own prosperity with the salvation of the world, they were taught to pray for the universal diffusion of his grace and mercy, saying, "God be merciful to us and bless us, and cause his face to shine upon us, that thy way may be known on the earth, and thy saving health among all nations."

In these statutes and prayers, who but may discern the same spirit of universal good-will-designed by God, and inculcated on his covenant people-which breathes in the Law and from the spirit of Christ? His love, indeed, as illustrated in the ancient economy, appears in conjunction with a strict and jealous holiness. It is not otherwise now. His command still is to his spiritual people, "Come out and be separate, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and I will be a Father to you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." Ungodly men no doubt resist obedience to this injunction as the dictate of spiritual pride or of malignant and unsocial affections. But the spirit of the Gospel is humility and charity. While, as Christians, we are forbidden to be conformed to the world, we are enjoined, as we have opportunity, to do good to all in it. We are not now, indeed, separated from the world, as the Jews from the gentiles, by any line of local separation; but rather, like the Levites in Israel, are scattered over the world, which is now the redeemed inheritance of Jehovah, as a royal Priesthood, every where to maintain God's worship, and diffuse his blessings.

IV. Let us in the last place, contemplate the character of God, reflected from the history of the Jews, as fulfilling his word of promise and of prophecy. You remember that, from the beginning, God gave promise to Abraham that he would make of him a great nation; and you know, that though the promise was long delayed; though the child of promise was

not born until Abraham was as good as dead; though, for two hundred and seventy years after, his seed were not multiplied more than seventy souls; and though for four hundred years more, they were borne down and diminished by the oppressions of their Egyptian task-masters; yet, at last, they multiplied as God had said, even as the stars of heaven. In like manner, they received the promise that Messiah should spring from the seed of Abraham, which was first confined to the line of Jacob, then to the tribe of Judah, then to the root of Jesse, and the family of David. And though the family was exposed to many reverses, and at three several periods, in the days of Jehoram, and of Athaliah, and of Hezekiah, seemed on the very verge of extinction; yet was it preserved in unbroken line to the days of Joseph and Mary, when Messiah came; not indeed, as the worldly Jews expected, arrayed in the attractions of earthly power and dominion; but, as prophecy had foretold, a root out of a dry ground, bearing the sins of his people, dying to redeem them out of the hands of their spiritual enemies, rising again from the dead in proof of his complete victory, and being exalted to the right hand of God as King in Zion, where now he reigns as a Prince and a Saviour to give repentance unto Israel, and remission of sins.

And, to name only one more, the Jews received the general promise and threatening, the one set over against the other, that they should be prospered, or punished, visited with mercy, or with judgment, according as they should keep or transgress the covenant of their God. The Law and the Prophets concurred in uttering the same promises of temporal blessing, and the same threatening of temporal curse; and you have already seen how closely their history accords with the intimations of God's word, and that they flourished, or decayed, were established in their own land, or were carried away captives into strange lands, according as they were faithful to, or revolters

* Deut. xxviii.

from their God. The times of David and Solomon and Josiah and Hezekiah, when king and people did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, were conspicuously the times of their highest honour and prosperity; and the times of Ahab, when Elijah deemed that he was left alone-of Zedekiah, when Jeremiah wept over the broken covenant and destroying judgments-of Jesus, when, with one voice, rulers and people rejected him, who was the promised seed, the end of the Law, and the glory and salvation of Israel these, the times of the nation's deepest guiltiness, were also the times of the nation's sorest calamity. Then they were oppressed with drought and famine and again, with invasion and captivity; and last of all, with the overthrow of their nation, and their rejection as a people.

You cannot have failed to observe, that in the recorded prediction of these judgments, a reservation was made in their severity, and a promise of returning mercy distinctly intimated. "Yet will I not make a full end," saith the Lord by his prophet. And hitherto he hath not made a full end. After the lapse of eighteen centuries, the Jews continue to exist a distinct and peculiar people, increasing, sinning, suffering, in wondrous accordance with all which, before the foundation of their state, Moses forewarned them should follow upon its overthrow; and in the remarkable fulfilment of the threatened desolations of Zion, may we not read the certain pledge of the timely accomplishment of her predicted or promised restoration? A recent writer* on the Jewish people relates a Rabbinical story, which affectingly embodies this argument. As two Rabbies stood on the ruins of Jerusalem, they saw a fox walk across the site of the house of God, which lay desolate. At the sight, one of them began to weep, but the other did laugh. "Why weepest thou?" said the one. "I weep to see the place of God's sanctuary become the haunt of wild beasts. But why laughest thou?" "I laugh," said he, "because in this I see fulfilled the word of

* Dr. M'Caul, Dublin.

threatened desolation, that the foxes should walk over the mountain of Zion;* and from the execution of the judgment, I rely on the performance of the promise, that the Lord shall again build up Zion." God himself has taught us the same argument, saying, by his prophet, "Behold, I will gather them out of all countries, whither I have driven them in mine anger, and in my fury, and in great wrath; and I will bring them again to this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely, and they shall be my people, and I will be their God; and I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from them to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart, and my whole soul. For thus saith the Lord, Like as I have brought all this great evil upon this people, so will I bring upon them all the good that I have promised them." As sure, therefore, as Israel have abode "many days without a king, and without a priest, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim, (household gods;) so surely shall they return and seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and shall fear the Lord and his goodness, in the latter days." In all this, we behold the righteous and faithful God, who keepeth truth, whose counsel shall stand, who will perform all his word, whether of judgment or of mercy, which he has spoken; and who, working marvellously for his name, will preserve his covenant unbroken with his people. We may observe the same glorious attributes of his character, as are now displayed by him toward his spiritual people-the inviolable faithfulness of his oath and promise-are engaged to ensure the immutability of his counsel in regard to the new and better covenant. And his preservation of his ancient people, amid all the changes of their history, is the type and pledge, that not one word of all that he has spoken to the heirs of this new covenant, whether Jew or gentile, shall fail; and that although, for their falls and backslidings, they shall incur his * Lam. v. 18. † Jerem. xxxii. 37-42. Hosea iii. 3, 4.