Lord their God." (Isa. lxv. 21, 22; Amos ix: 13-15; see also Hosea ii, 21-23; Jer. xxxi. 12-14.)

There is no certainty or definiteness in language, if these Scriptures do not delineate a state of things to be enjoyed upon the visible surface of this earth, much changed and renovated no doubt, by men still dwelling in tabernacles of clay, and compassed about with the framework of a material nature, in its phys ical elements, at least substantially the same as at present. But though constituted thus, it shall be a state of things of inexpressible splendour and blissfor Jerusalem shall be created a rejoicing, and her people a joy. There the voice of weeping shall no more be heard, nor the voice of crying. There shall be a city whose walls are salvation, and whose gates are praise the joy of the whole earth, the city of the great king. There a temple shall be reared, to which the glory of Lebanon and the most precious things of the earth shall be again brought, and which, as "the place of Jehovah's throne, the place of the soles of his feet," shall be hallowed by manifestations of the Divine presence exceedingly more glorious than were seen in that first temple, which, of old, covered the heights of Zion. And as Jerusalem shall thus be called the throne of Jehovah, the glory of all lands, so shall her people stand the first in dignity and office in the kingdom of Christ-there pre-eminently shall be the priests and ministers of the Lord, the seat of spiritual power, the centre of a blessed light and influence that shall radiate thence to the most distant regions of the earth;-participating in their glory, blessed in their blessing, all nations shall flow unto them, they shall bow themselves down at the soles of their feet; their seed shall be known among the gentiles; all that see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed, (Isa. iv. lx. lxi. lxv.; Psal. xlviii. &c.)

Such is a brief outline of the coming history of the seed of Israel, and the glorious consummation in which it is to issue. A thousand queries might be started on points of inferior moment, both at different

parts of the line by which we have proceeded, and now at its termination-but these we do not feel it needful, and scarcely proper to discuss. It is only on the more prominent and important features of their history that we have reason to expect satisfaction in the word of prophecy-on the great events which are to befall them, not on the infinite variety of means by which these may be effected, or the collateral circumstances with which they may be attended; and if we keep our eye fixed upon those prominent and distinguishing lineaments of their history, we shall not need to be ignorant either of the hopes, which we are warranted to cherish, or the corresponding duties, which we are called to discharge.

We cannot but remark, in conclusion, what a mysterious grandeur hangs around the name and family of the Israelite. Surpassing all the families of the earth, in the antiquity of his nation, in the long descent and honour of his lineage; he is destined also to surpass them all in the inheritance which lies before him of a still undeveloped blessing and glory.. As he has gone down to the lowest depths of dis honour and shame, so shall he rise to the noblest heights of favour and enlargement; and though travelling now through the world, a reproach and a hissing, yet on him must the world itself hang in expectation for its promised restitution and final glory.

And when we contemplate them as thus passing from the highest to the lowest, and again from the lowest to the highest place among the world's inhabitants, what a testimony presents itself to our view of the importance and preciousness of the truth of a crucified Redeemer! Why is it that they have been made to fall into a degradation and contempt so singularly deep, and that their history for so long a period has been "written with mourning, and lamentation, and wo?" It is because they crucified the Lord of glory, and repented not of their crime. But they shall repent. The time shall be, and is hastening on apace, when they shall look to him whom they have pierced, and mourn for him as one mourneth for his

only son"-when the veil being lifted from their hearts, they shall turn as one man to the Lord, and then, lo! their reproach is forthwith taken away, their shame is buried in everlasting oblivion, and because they are united to him who is the King of Zion, and have the heirship of that land where he sojourned, and lived, and died, they shall be made the head among the nations, and invested with paramount glory. Centuries of sweeping desolation must pass over their land, and they themselves be made a spectacle of ignominy and reproach, to witness the reality and the worth of a Saviour rejected. And to witness the reality and the worth of a Saviour, no longer rejected, but cordially received, the highest nobility shall be given to them, and their land, which is Immanuel's land, be replenished with the utmost fertility and loveliness of terrestrial nature.

But while we read the striking testimony, which is furnished by the varied and wonderful history of Israel to the infinite importance of the truth as it is in Christ, let us not conclude without deriving from it a word of admonition and rebuke to ourselves. There is a retribution in providence, sometimes very slow and silent in its course, but not the less sure in its developement, attendant upon any line of procedure, which runs counter to the obligations of holy principle-even though it be a line of procedure which serves for the execution of a threatened judgment of God. When the king of Babylon came against Jerusalem, and routed its armies, and burned its houses with fire, and carried its inhabitants away into captivity, he only executed the judgment written against it for the wickedness of its people-but because "his heart thought not so," because he did it all in the waywardness and pride of a towering ambition, his doings were made to return with fearful recompenses of evil upon himself, and both his family and his kingdom became in their turn signal monuments of desolation and ruin. So, it is no more than the fulfilment of much-provoked and long-threatened vengeance, that the Jews have been so long treated with

unmingled severity and hatred, have been so little sought after for good, even by the church of Christ, so cruelly, we may rather say, consigned to the spiritual blindness and deplorable alienation from all blessing, which their rejection of the Messiah has entailed upon them from the hand of God. But while these things have come upon them in righteous judgment for their sin, who will stand up to vindicate the church of Christ for putting forth her hand to inflict it? Nay who can tell how much she has curtailed her own inheritance of blessing-contributed to the weakening of her own arm, and the swelling of that - flood of evils, which, for many a long day has been laying waste her condition, by the manner she has carried herself toward those to whom she was at first indebted for salvation, and to whom she must be yet more indebted before she can reach her full inheritance of glory? The day of judgment alone will disclose how much the church, by pursuing such a course, has been forsaking her own mercy and lessening her dowry of divine grace and blessing; but assuredly it now becomes her as a church, and each individual among her members, to look back with shame upon the humiliating history of the past, and be stirred up to redeem the time, by manifesting a more Christianlike and brotherly interest in the spiritual welfare of the seed of Abraham, and to strive so much the more earnestly that so many centuries have already gone of careless and sinful neglect, in seeking, as helpers together with God to gather the dispersed of Judah, and restore again the outcasts of Israel. Remember, O Lord, thy covenant-plead the cause that is thine own.

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LECTURE XII.

IMMEDIATE DUTIES OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN RELATION TO ISRAEL. ANSWER TO OBJECTIONS.

BY THE REV. JOHN G. LORIMER,

MINISTER OF ST. DAVID'S PARISH, GLASGOW.

And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.-LUKE xix. 41, 42.

Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.-ROMANS X. 1.

THOUGH I have no doubt, that my friends and brethren who have preceded me in this course have, at the close of their respective lectures, pointed out the practical bearings; yet the grand application of the whole has been assigned to me; and at the risk of repeating thoughts, which may have been already more than once suggested, I shall now, in dependence on the Divine Spirit, proceed to consider what are the immediate duties of the Christian Church in regard to Israel, and endeavour to remove any dif ficulties or objections which may stand in the way of the faithful discharge of these duties. Generally interesting, as I know the course has proved, and for this, we desire to be thankful to the God of Abraham and his seed, the grand question is, what have we Christians to do in the matter? The origin and history-the present condition, and the future, prospects of the Jews, are not mere themes of historical research, or literary interest, or curious speculation: they point to a great practical application-to present duty. Without this, they would lose much of