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and yet more recently from Portugal and Bohemia. They have also every where suffered spoliation from the most reckless and unprincipled extortion. Their children have been forcibly taken from them, and educated by strangers they have been even worse treated by those who call themselves Christians, than by Pagans and Mohammedans. And, although the spirit of the times has superinduced milder treatment, and a brighter day has risen. upon them in their exile, they are still objects of contempt and derision among the nations—still without a country-and even England has refused to naturalize them. Such was the aspect which ancient prophecy bore, even so far back as the days of their great legislator, upon the present state of the Jews.

Why, then, is all this, it may be asked? Prophecy has answered the inquiry, and Jesus has confirmed the answer. Moses assigns generally, as a cause of their dispersion and desolation, their national sins and their personal forgetfulness of God. But he also points out a Prophet to be raised up, the disobedience to whom, Jehovah said he would punish. David represented the combination of Jews and Gentiles against the Messiah as the cause of their ruin. Isaiah pointed out the indignities he should suffer; and Daniel, in numbering the weeks until

he should be cut off, connects with his death the ceasing of the sacrifice, the devastation to be effected by the Romans, and the overthrow of his people "for the overspreading of abominations." The foundation laid in Zion, became a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to the Jews; and the general aspect of prophecy, pointed out by the Apostles, relative to their present state, establishes the fact of their dispersion, as especially connected with their rejection of the Messiah. From the aspect of prophecy upon their present state, we advance another proposition.

SECONDLY, That they are reserved for a future restoration.

That beautiful expression of Ezekiel, “I will be to them as a little sanctuary, in the countries where they shall come," speaks volumes upon this subject. "A little sanctuary," large enough to contain the remnant of Israel,-small enough to suit every man's personal circumstances; this contraction and expansion-amplitude and aptitude-befits the promiser, in his attributes of perfection. The whole The whole passage demands your attention: "Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord God: Although I have cast them far off among the heathen, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall

come.

Therefore say,

Thus saith the Lord God; I will even gather you from the people, and assemble you out of the countries where ye have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel. And they shall come thither, and they shall take away all the detestable things thereof, and all the abominations thereof, from thence. And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you: and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh; that they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God."-Ezek. xi. 16-20. Whatever accomplishment this prediction may already have had, its fulfilment will not be entire until the veil is taken from the eyes, and the stone from the heart of the Jews. And it is yet more evident to what these pledges tend, and when they shall be consummated, by the testimony of Jeremiah: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand, to bring them out of the land of Egypt; (which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord :) But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the

house of Israel: After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The Lord of Hosts is his name. If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever. saith the Lord; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel, for all that they have done, saith the Lord."Jer. xxxi. 31-37. That all this can imply no more than a temporary preservation for the purpose of redemption from a local captivity, such as was that of Babylon, would seem to be an outrage upon common sense, and violence offered to the plainest terms. It must look beyond this, to their preservation for some great and glorious purpose; and we are therefore prepared for the triumphant

Thus

confirmation of this sentiment advanced by the Apostle: "I say then, hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the Scripture saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life? But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.""I say then, 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. Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fulness?"-Rom. xi. 1—5, 11, 12. And the fact meets us daily, as the pledge of the faith of ancient prophecy. The Jews maintain every where their distinction. For this no adequate natural cause can be assigned in their circumstances of dispersion. The tenacity of an unbelief which separates them from the observances of all other people, the cherished opinion that

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