to its vast moment and unspeakable importance. The silver is mine and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts. He that is faithful in the least is faithful also in the greatest; and if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches, the riches of God's eternal kingdom?

DISCOURSE V.

THE PREPARATION OF THE WAY OF THE PEOPLE.

[PREACHED IN ST. CLEMENT DANES, LONDON, MAY 8, 1834, BEFORE THE LONDON SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIANITY AMONG THE JEWS.]

ISAIAH LXII. 10-12.

Go through, go through the gates; prepare ye the way of the people: cast up, cast up the highway; gather out the stones: lift up a standard for the people. Behold, the Lord hath proclaimed unto the end of the world, Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh: behold his reward is with him, and his work before him.

And they shall call them, the holy people, the redeemed of the Lord: and thou shalt be called, sought out, a city not forsaken.

So intimately is the conversion of the Jews connected with all the future glories of the church of Christ, and with the happiness of every nation upon earth, that I feel the Society for promoting that blessed object, while it confers a privilege, calls also to a most responsible duty, in requesting me to preach its annual sermon. Engaged for many years in the work

of promoting missions to the Gentiles, my mind was but little directed towards the Jews; but, having since been enabled to give more consideration to them, and the divine testimony concerning them, I have increasingly seen how plainly, in these awfully momentous times, our God requires his people to care for Israel, and how great is the blessedness of helping forward their salvation.

4.)

A due consideration of the context will shew, that the prophecy from which my text is taken concerns the Jewish nation, and that it is yet unfulfilled. In the first and second verses, Zion and Jerusalem are distinguished from the Gentiles. It is said, the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory: a charge is then laid upon those who are the Lord's remembrancers, to give him no rest till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth. In the eighth and ninth verses follows the solemn oath of Him who swears and will not repent. (Psalm cx. The Lord hath sworn by his right hand, and by the arm of his strength; surely I will no more give thy corn to be meat for thine enemies; and the sons of the stranger shall not drink thy wine for which thou hast laboured; but they that have gathered it shall eat it, and praise the Lord; and they that have brought it together shall drink it in the courts of my holiness. Without denying allusion to events that have taken place since the prophecy was delivered, it is still clear that this express and divine oath which immediately precedes our text, has never yet been fully accomplished; neither on the return from Babylon, nor on the first propagation of the gospel, nor on any other event to the present day; it remains yet to be fulfilled in the recovery and restoration of the Jews. And equally plain also is it, that the predicted triumphs of the Saviour over all his enemies, described in the following chapter, are yet unaccomplished.

*

* Justin Martyr, in his dialogue with Trypho, applies this prediction

Hence we assuredly gather, that our text relates to blessings yet to be imparted, and duties yet to be discharged towards our Jewish brethren. It is the voice of our divine Redeemer; Jesus is the speaker, and he speaks here to us, and, as we shall shew, to us in this age and day of his church. In the first verse of the chapter he appears as the constant Advocate and Intercessor of his ancient people; and in our text, he charges upon all his followers the duty of preparing them to be a people ready for his coming.

May our God help me now to lay this duty distinctly and powerfully before you, that you may rise up with one feeling, as the heart of one man, determined in the divine strength to fulfil the holy directions of God our Saviour. We will consider,

I. The glorious event to be proclaimed.

II. The blessed result of that event to the Jews.
III. The practical duties to which we are called.

I. THE GLORIOUS EVENT TO BE PROCLAIMEDBehold, the Lord hath proclaimed unto the end of the world, say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh; behold his reward is with him, and his work before him.

When that divine Spirit who inspired the sacred writers would attract special attention to any subject, he prefixes behold, to the truth revealed. We have here the word behold, thrice repeated, as if to intimate more strongly the peculiarly important character of the truth, and the too general disregard of it by the church. It is when the wise as well as the foolish virgins are slumbering, that the cry is made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh. Matt. xxv. 5.

Let this special care of the Holy Spirit, then,

to the future blessedness of believing Jews and Gentiles in their inheritance on God's holy mountain. See his Dialogue with Trypho, s. 26, p. 124, Benedictine Edition: or the translation in the "Christian Fathers" of the author.

awaken in our minds earnest attention to the subject now brought before us.

We will consider the nature of the event, its accompanying effects, and its required proclamation.

1. THE NATURE OF THE EVENT-Behold, thy salvation cometh.

The word rendered thy salvation, is, by the ancient versions* and the best modern interpreters,+ rendered thy Saviour; and from the words, His reward is with him, it is clear that this is the intended meaning of the prophet. We have a similar prediction, Isaiah xl. 10. Behold the Lord will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him. Behold his reward is with him, and his work before him. The event proclaimed is the future coming of our Saviour; as in Zech. ix. 9, in almost similar terms, we have his first coming predicted; Behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation.

The glowing promises of our text, and the prophecies connected with it, were most manifestly never fulfilled at his first coming. We must admit this in our controversies with the Jews; their strongest argument against the Messiahship of Jesus is, that he has not fulfilled the predictions of glory connected with his coming; an argument which we cannot effectually answer by attempting to spiritualize such predictions; for thus we explain away the divine words of the Holy Ghost, and leave them without meaning; but we must distinguish between his first coming as a man of sorrows, and his second coming in the glory of his Father, in order to realize all the blessings which he has so plainly promised in his word.

The second coming of Christ as the deliverer of Israel, and in visible glory, is then the event here foretold; an event yet before the church, as St. Paul

* Syriac, Arabic, Septuagint, Chaldee, Vulgate. † Dathe, Vitringa, Lowth, Boothroyd, Henderson.