And thanks be to God that he is putting this spirit into his churches. It was to me a source of peculiar joy to find that our sister established church in this country had, as a church, sent forth a deputation of devoted men to seek the good of Israel. May the fullest blessing rest on this truly scriptural work of Christian love.

DISCOURSE IV.

THE MIND OF CHRIST GIVEN TO HIS PEOPLE.

[PREACHED IN TRINITY EPISCOPAL CHAPEL, EDINBURGH, May 19, 1839, AND IN CARLISLE, AUG. 23, 1840.]

ISAIAH LXVII. 6, 7.

I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night. Ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence, and give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.

THE prophecy whence these words are taken is one of peculiar interest. It contains the first opening of the gospel message by our Lord himself in the synagogue of Nazareth. It gives the fullest statement of his gracious mission, the clearest intimation of his heart and mind in visiting his own people, and in the general preaching of the gospel. He was anointed to preach good tidings unto the meek, he was sent to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord; to commence, carry on, and perfect a work which issues in the glory of Israel, and the blessedness of the whole earth.

We may see, then, the importance of this prophecy at all times, and especially now, when the dawn of its glorious fulfilment seems dimly in the distance to appear.

would direct your attention to three truths suggested by this text.

I. Messiah's enlarging expressions of zeal for Jerusalem.

II. The gracious promise announced.

III. The urgent duty to which we are called.

I. MESSIAH'S GROWING EXPRESSIONS OF ZEAL FOR JERUSALEM.

The 61st and 62d chapters are one continued address from our Lord Christ. He is the speaker throughout. He appropriated to himself the first verses of the 61st chapter, saying in the synagogue, when the eyes of all were fastened on him, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears; and all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth.”

But Israel rejected their Lord and Redeemer; he came unto his own, and his own received him not. Our Saviour foresaw the bitter fruits following this rejection, and wept over Jerusalem. How affecting from time to time his expressions! O that thou hadst known, even in this thy day, the things belonging to thy peace. Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, till the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. In the midst of the grace of the gospel, the righteousness also of God was awfully exhibited. Their sin being filled up, the wrath of God came upon them to the uttermost, till, according to the prediction of Isaiah, the city was wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land was utterly desolate, and men were removed far away.

Thus the day of vengeance was associated with the acceptable year; a day, as it respects the Jewish nation, that has lasted 1800 years, and is not yet terminated.

What was the design of this? The apostle asks, Have they stumbled, that they should fall? God forbid, but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, to provoke them to jealousy. There is mercy yet in store for them.

The Redeemer's eye of love, eagerly desiring their good, shoots beyond their fall to the time of recovery, and rejoices in the comfort they should then receive. With him a thousand years are as one day, and he sees in the distance (v. 6, 7.) the building of the old wastes and the raising up of former desolations, and the double honour for shame, and the everlasting joy for confusion: the exaltation shall be as high as the humiliation has been deep.

The length of delay indeed, which raises difficulties in our minds, is only a confirmation of the truth of the promise; for it was from the first in the mind of the Redeemer. If their rejection had not been long, how could the Lord have fulfilled those words; they shall build the old wastes, the desolations of many generations. The lapse of years only confirms the depth of his counsel and the truth of his word. In the midst of this joyful prospect of good to Zion, the Lord sees the wrong done to the Jews, and utters this sharp reproof. I the Lord love judgment, and hate robbery for burnt offering, and I will direct their work in truth, and make an everlasting covenant with them. For centuries upon centuries, Christians, under the assumption of superior spiritual discernment, and the pretext of more spiritual views, have been robbing the Jews of all right and interest in these promises expressly made to them. Though St. Paul has explicitly applied them, in the 11th of Romans, to the literal Israel; from age to age Christians have

been exclusively applying them only to themselves, and thinking that they have given by this a great evidence of their spirituality, and rendered the word of God much more perfect, and done an acceptable service to the Lord. All Christians have indeed, through faith in Jesus, a title to the spiritual blessings; but they have become high-minded, forgetting the solemn warning of the apostle, boast not against the branches, for if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.

The very wresting of these promises becomes, then, a motive with Jehovah for their fulfilment. His promised mercies are the highest portion of a people. God hates the stinting of his mercies, and the setting of narrow bounds to his love. The Gentiles having disbelieved his love to Israel, shall therefore see that love in its fulness. Their seed shall be known among the Gentiles, and their offspring among the people; all that see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed.

In the two next verses, the 10th and 11th, we have a farther stage of the prophecy. The glory of his people approaching, Christ utters the exulting song, I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God, for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation; he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness. I apply this to Christ himself. They shall hang upon him all the glory of his Father's house, the offspring and issue. Isaiah xxii. 24. He shall build the temple of the Lord and he shall bear the glory. Zech. vi. 13. He it is then that exults in the prospect of that joy and glory which will accrue to him in the happiness of his people.

From this triumphant, joyful prospect of faith, our Lord proceeds to fervent intercession. For Zion's sake I will not hold my peace; for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burn