especially. How long has the blood of that Just One been crying, and they who shed it will not yet ac knowledge, as the brethren of Joseph were made to do in the day of their calamity, that they are verily guilty concerning their brother *. As the crime of the Jews bears so near an affinity to that of Cain, the stubborn sullenness, and inveterate hardness of heart, which it has produced in them, seem to be, in an extraor dinary manner, portrayed in his character; and his answer to his Maker, when demanding his brother at his hands, has all the marks of Jewish insolence and contumacy strongly

Gen. xlii. 21,

impressed upon it. The Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not; am I my brother's keeper? Again: who can help thus applying to them the expostulation of God with the murderer-What have ye done? the voice of your brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. And hath not the very sentence inflicted on Cain been executed upon them likewise in every particular? They are cursed from the earth which opened her mouth to receive their brother's blood from their hand. The ground, that once rich and fertile ground, no longer yields to them its strength, but is become a barren and desolate wilderness, sympathizing, as it were, with their ungodly hearts,

which are barren of every good thought, word, and work, and bring forth no fruits of repentance and faith. Upon them, as upon the mountains of Gilboa, there has been no rain, neither dew from above. The heaven over their heads, according to the prediction of Moses, has been brass, and the earth under them iron*. Thorns only and thistles, infidelity and blasphemy, covetousness and extortion, have appeared as yet. Seventeen hundred years have passed, since they were driven out from the presence of Jehovah, and the light of his countenance; dispersed, like chaff, to the four winds; fugitives and va

* Deut. xxviii. 23.

gabonds upon the earth, without priest, or temple, city, or habitation; every attempt to settle them has been blasted; and yet, an indelible mark is set upon them by the hand of the Almighty, that none should extirpate them. So wonderfully punished, so wonderfully preserved for punishment; and we hope, at last, for mercy; since, if they abide not still in unbelief, God is able to graff them in again *. While, therefore, we pray, as we all ought to do frequently and devoutly, for the coming of that blessed and festal hour, when returning Israel shall acknowledge Jehovah their Re

*Rom. xi, 23.

D

deemer, and look on him whom they have pierced *; let us not fail, in the mean season, to behold, in these striking examples of the divine vengeance, the sad and forlorn estate of that soul, from which the faith and the love of Christ are departed. Driven out from the presence of Jehovah, and deprived of the cheering and enlivening beams of the sun of righteousness, it is doomed to be wretched and disconsolate, in the body, for a few days, upon the earth; soon to pass from thence into the undiscerned regions of darkness and despair; far removed from the paradise of God, the gates of which are

*Zech. xii. 10.