restoration, that shall be life from the dead to the world. The plans which mere human wisdom forms, or the taking of a limited part even of the Divine plan, which we may over estimate, enter not into the extent and depth of the evil, which men think they can thus remedy. Not only a restored Jerusalem, but every thing else that God has ordained, and God has predicted to come to pass, will be found to be required in accomplishing the new heavens and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. If, then, you would most effectually promote the best and highest and most enduring good of your fellow-men, you must enter into the apostle's feelings, My heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they may be saved: you must rise to something of your Saviour's mind, For Zion's sake I will not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth. Oh that we could bring our beloved country to enter more into this scriptural plan for securing national prosperity! In order to promote such principles, we planned these lectures. Our brethren readily united with us. We bless God for the interest which they have already called forth among our fellow-Christians, and we have good hope that this may spread through the Church of Christ, returning tenfold spiritual blessings to ourselves, and at length influence our national proceedings, and obtain for us the protection and blessing of the God of Israel, the only true God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. LECTURE IX. THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL, TO BE ANTI- BY THE REV. A. DALLAS, CHAPLAIN TO THE BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, AND RECTOR OF WONSTON, HANTS. DEUTERONOMY IV. 30-38. "When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, even in the latter days, if thou turn to the Lord thy God, and shalt be obedient unto his voice, (For the Lord thy God is a merciful God,) he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers, which he sware unto them. For ask now of the days that are past, which were before thee, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from the one side of heaven unto the other, whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard like it. Did ever people 1 hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live? Or hath God assayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? Unto thee it was showed, that thou mightest know that the Lord he is God; there is none else besides him. Out of heaven he made thee to hear his voice, that he might instruct thee: and upon earth he showed thee his great fire; and thou heardest his words out of the midst of the fire. And because he loved thy fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them, and brought thee out in his sight with his mighty power out of Egypt; To drive out nations from before thee greater and mightier than thou art, to bring thee in, to give thee their land for an inheritance, as it is this day." It is a wonderful power bestowed on sinful creatures such as we are, my brethren, by which they are enabled to know something of the mind of God; and when we reflect on the extraordinary privilege which has been given to one peculiar people, that from them should spring the flesh by which the Son of God took the manhood to himself, then it can hardly be other than a matter of deep interest, that we should be able to exercise that power, in turning the pages of the book of God, to read and know his mind concerning that favoured people. The interest which Christians have hitherto felt in this matter, has been, indeed, very different from that which they ought to feel. But, praised be God, the time is come, as we may hope, when he is pleased to awaken a more proportioned feeling of interest concerning it in the hearts of his own spiritual people, his Church; and we find, that those who have learned to love Christ, are learning to feel for and love his kindred according to the flesh. My brethren, it is the awakening of this interest, and the influence of this love, that have called us together at the present season, during which we have been considering the covenant which God made with Abraham, and afterwards renewed with David; and the manner in which he gathered his people out of their captivity in Babylon; and then how he has scattered them again amongst all countries, to the north, and the south, and the east, and to the west and after having thus traced out what history records as facts past, one step further has been taken, and to the facts past |