LETTERS FROM THE REV. JOSEPH WOLFF;

PUBLISHED AT HIS DESIRE.

TO HENRY DRUMMOND, ESQ.

"Tabreez, in Persia, British Embassy, July 30, 1831.

"Dear Patron,-I transmit to you herewith, just before my departure for Bokhara, a letter to the Committee and Jews Society, of which I beg you first to take a copy and publish it, and then deliver my original. We are here surrounded by plague: however, trusting in the Lord, I continue my journey to Bokhara; for which place I want seventy days, with a caravan, to arrive there. You will have received all my journals. I have preached the Gospel in ancient Galatia, that is, Angora, Tokat, Erzeroon, and Trebison; and I preach now every Sunday the Gospel in the British Embassy; and write sometimes calls to the Persian Mullahs, calling on them to repent. I beseech you, for the sake of Jesus Christ, to deliver the enclosed letter in person to the Committee-you and Bayford together—and if they are angry, resign your connection, for the sake of Jesus Christ, with that mystical Babylon in Wardrobe Place.

"Yours truly,

JOSEPH WOLFF."

TO THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIANITY AMONG THE JEWS.

"Tabreez, in Persia, July 30, 1831.

"By Messrs. Drummond and Bayford to be delivered,

To all the Members of the General Committee of the London Society for promoting Christianity among the Jews,

and to all the Members of the same Society.

"Ladies and Gentlemen of the same Society,

"Though no longer in connection with you, I am still concerned for the salvation of your souls, and therefore address to you these lines before I set out with the first caravan for Bokhara.

"Your disregard for prophecy, your disregard for the oracles of those men who spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, and your anxiety to accommodate your preaching according to the feelings of your numerous subscribers, has rendered you sinners against the Holy Ghost; and you have called down by your conduct, in unison with the Church Missionary Society, and also the Bible Society, the curse and wrath of the crucified Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, not only upon yourself, but likewise upon the country of Britain and Ireland. Revolutions shall be on your account in England, Scotland, and Ireland; and the Cholera Morbus shall approach the shores of Great Britain and France on your account; for you despised the prophets by your practice, and by your system of expediency.

"But I know that there are some among you who love the word of the prophets; and on those I call now, in the name of the Lord, to come out of you, in order that they may not become partakers of your spiritual crime, which you commit by having adopted the cursed system of expediency: which system has rendered you Jesuits in the Protestant church; which system induces you to send out Missionaries who are totally unfit for the work; which system has rendered you sycophants of noble lords; which system has induced members of your Society to vote for the emancipation of Papists. 'Repent, or you perish, saith the Lord: for the sake of the blood of Jesus Christ, repent.

JOSEPH WOLFF."

SECOND LETTER TO HENRY DRUMMOND, ESQ.

"Teheran, Sept. 8, 1831.

"Dear Patron,-After having proclaimed the Gospel of Christ for twenty-four days to Jews, Guebres, Mussulmans, and Ali Ilahe, at Teheran, I set out after two days with a caravan of camels to Herat in Afghan at once; and from thence to Bokhara, Balkh, Kholeu, Cabul, Pechawar, Ludiana, Bombay; and back to Malta. I am afraid, however, that I shall be disappointed with regard to my finding the Ten Tribes at Bokhara. The Jews of Bokhara speak the Persian, and came from Persia there. However, I shall preach to them the Gospel; and if I do not find them at Bokhara, I hope to find them at Cabul, or in the mountains around Cabul. My dear Patron, my frequent illnesses in Armenia make it impossible to adopt the plan of travelling entirely without any comfort; and, as my illness has cost me a good deal of money at Angoroo, &c., I am afraid to draw too often on Frere. If you and my friends in England could do something for me, and send some order to Bombay, I should be thankful. Government takes a great interest in the journey to Bokhara: ask Lord whether he would do something for me. would contribute towards assisting me. have sent full journals to Lady Georgiana.

"Yours affectionately,

66 JOSEPH WOLFF."

I

Any one who is disposed to aid Mr. Wolff, either in his travelling expenses or in sending Bibles to Persia, may forward his contribution to the Editor of this Journal. This extraordinary and indefatigable man has now no aid but from the piety of Christians. He has been supplied hitherto by friends at Malta and at Constantinople; but these resources have ceased, and the Lord, and the Lord's servants in this country, are his sole support.-The best Map on which to trace his route, is that of the country between the Himalaya Mountains and the Mediterranean Sea.

THE

MORNING WATCH.

JUNE 1832.

THE TABERNACLE OF GOD WITH MEN; AND THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES.

THE natural man is constantly proving by his actions that he is under the habitual impression that the world, in its present condition, is our home; and that it might become a very comfortable abode, if all men would agree to make the best of it. And the Christian, having once been under the same impression, and being still exposed to its influence, needs a continual exercise of faith to counteract the habitual tendency of his nature towards visible and sensible things; to live under such an abiding sense that "the fashion of this world passeth away," that he "be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of his mind, that he may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.'

In no one thing is this shewn more strongly than in the pains we bestow on the construction of convenient and durable abodes: a care of the first necessity now, but a necessity superinduced by the fall, and no part of the original constitution of things. To teach the children of Israel by experimental proof what was the original constitution of things, God, when he brought them out of Egypt, made his cloud their protecting covering by day and by night; he fed them also with manna, and gave them water from the rock to drink; and while he led them for forty years in the wilderness, their clothes waxed not old upon them, nor did their shoe wax old upon their foot. To commemorate this, and through it the primeval state, the Feast of Tabernacles was appointed; in which, by the materials of the booths, and the mode in which they were constructed, was taught to succeeding generations how entirely their fathers were cast upon the providence of God, as Adam had been constituted at first. And as it was thus demonstrated, that even in this fallen condition of things "man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God," much more might the

blessedness of man's dependence upon God be inferred before the fall of Adam, when man himself, and the creation of which he was the lord, were all "very good." And to teach every believer, whether Jew or Gentile, that the purpose of God is not defeated by the malice of Satan and by the fall of man, the Scriptures contain many clear predictions that the earth shall again, in the last days, become like the garden of the Lord, that all ferocity shall be removed both from man and beast in the future paradise of God, and that man shall be renewed after the image of Him that created him in righteousness and true holiness. "In that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel.... And the Lord will create upon every dwelling-place of mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night: for upon all the glory shall be a defence. And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the day-time from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain" (Isai. iv. 2-6).

At the feast of tabernacles, and with this extensive reference both to the primal and final paradise, we believe the viii th Psalm to have been dictated: when, reposing under the verdant canopy of which alone the booths might be constructed, the Psalmist through the foliage contemplated the starry heavens; and feeling his present condition, as miserable fallen man (Enosh, ver. 4), yet knowing the lordship and dignity for which man was created, and for which he is still destined in the purpose of God -a purpose which the fall has only delayed, and not annulledhe, knowing this, breaks out into a rapturous strain of inspiration, "O Jehovah our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens." The Holy Spirit declares (Heb. ii. 6, 8), that the final issues contemplated in the dictation of this Psalm wait till God bringeth again the Firstbegotten into the world (Heb. i. 6); wait for the accomplishment of Psalm xlv. (ver. 8); are fulfilled in the world to come there spoken of (Heb. ii. 5), in the sabbatism that remaineth for the people of God (Heb. iv. 9). Thus clearly was David taught by the Spirit to look beyond the present condition of things to the coming dispensation; when the harmony between God and man, between man and the creation, which sin has so long interrupted, shall be again restored; when man shall have the dominion, and be the image of God; and the knowledge of the Lord fill the world, and his name become excellent in all the earth; "in that day there shall be one Lord, and his name one." (Zech. xiv.)

Those prophecies which treat of the final consummation of blessedness to the earth and its inhabitants in the age to come,

speak of it in terms derived from the creation, to indicate that it shall be a revival of God's first work, which was perfect, and needed no improvement by after-thought; that it is the one purpose determined and fixed from the beginning, then fully brought out into manifestation, and unalterable and unassailable for ever. The millennial age, for which we are now looking, is constantly set before us as a new creation; the place of final blessedness, as the paradise of God; sustenance through eternity, as the tree of life and the river of the water of life; and perfect security of abode, as the tabernacle of God with men, God himself dwelling with them, they his people and he their God.

When the Eternal Word became flesh and tabernacled among men, it was to glorify God on earth, to finish the work given him to do in flesh; and after the temporary abode of a few years, and the fulfilment of all the prophecies concerning his sufferings; after being despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; he laid down his life for the sins of the world, exclaiming, "It is finished." Christ the Son of God had in our nature, as very man, glorified his heavenly Father, by shewing perfect obedience and holiness, doing not his own will, but the will of him that sent him; and this done, he appeals to his Father, saying, "Now, O Father, glorify me with thine ownself with the glory which I had with thee before the world was" (John xvii. 9). This eternal glory of the Godhead the manhood also received when Christ ascended into heaven in this glory he there shall abide, seated on his Father's throne, "till the times of the restitution of all things, spoken of by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began." But when these times shall arrive, the heaven shall open, Christ shall come again "in his own glory, and in the glory of his Father, and of the holy angels;" his people shall be with him, to behold his glory which the Father hath given him: they shall be changed into the same image, from glory to glory: they shall sit with Christ on his throne, exercising that rule and dominion for which man was originally destined in the purpose of God. our passage from this present state of humiliation to future glory, we must follow in that path in which the great Captain of our salvation hath gone before. To furnish us with strength for holding on our way, Christ, at his ascension, sent down the Holy Spirit, to dwell in his people and abide with them for ever; to prepare them, while still in the earthly house of this tabernacle, for the time when it shall be dissolved, when all who are lively stones in God's temple shall be incorporated in the building of God, into an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens; and when mortality shall be swallowed up of life (2 Cor. v. 1, 4).

In the fulness of time, which seems now nearly come, all