which prevails among them, that many of the principal families removed, or were sent into Spain, at the time of the captivity of Babylon." * Though, notwithstanding that God has thus accomplished his word spoken by Moses, "making the plagues of the Jews and of their seed wonderful, even great plagues, and of long continuance +,"" the vail," in the language of St. Paul, "is still upon their hearts :" though they still continue inveterately hostile to Christianity; stumbling, like their forefathers, at a crucified Saviour; persevering in the horrid blasphemies which their learned writers have poured forth against Christ; and hardened themselves against conviction by the boldest and wildest perversions of the prophecies: yet to the devout and reflecting among them, the disappointment of their expectations as to the coming of the Messiah, (a disappointment so severe, that their Rabbies have denounced the most dreadful anathema against all who shall attempt to calculate the time of his manifestation,) and the long continuance of their calamitous dispersion throughout the world, are subjects of extreme embarrassment. When Jesus Christ entered on his public ministry, they were confessedly looking out § with great anxiety for the promised Re The same 66 on Their Butler's Horæ Biblicæ, 8vo. 1799, pp. 85, 86. author observes, that the general character of the Jews, many accounts, entitles them to a high degree of esteem. charities to the poor of their own communion are immense; their care to adjust their differences in civil concerns amicably among themselves is edifying. Banks and bills of exchange, the two greatest supports of commerce, are of their invention. And let ît not be forgotten, that, if on any account they are justly censurable, our unworthy treatment of them may have forced them into the very acts we censure." pp. 260, 261. + Deut. xxviii. 59. 2 Cor. iii. 15. § Thus, when John the Baptist began to preach, "the people deemer; as the time predicted by Daniel for his manifestation was arrived. Jesus Christ they rejected: and no other person has since appeared, in whom their descendents perceive any of the characteristics of the Messiah. To account for this seeming failure of the accomplishment of the prediction has long been, as it still continues, to the Jews a very difficult and perplexing task. Some of their Rabbies allege, in general terms, that the wickedness of their nation prevented the Messiah from being sent at the appointed period. Others, finding themselves unable to reconcile this solution with the truth of the promises of God, affirm that he was actually sent into the world at the time specified by Daniel; but that he forebore, in consequence of the sinful state of the Jews, to make himself known; and that, for similar reasons, though resident upon earth, he has still continued in obscurity. To advance such allegations is in truth to lean upon a broken reed. Was the wickedness of the Jewish nation at the period assigned by Daniel for the manifestation of the Messiah an event unforeseen by the omniscient God, when He declared His purpose by the Prophet? Foreseeing that wickedness, God affirmed that at the specified time the Redeemer should publickly enter upon his office. The Jews, however, are entirely unable to discover what those heinous transgressions are, which have occasioned their disappointment and their miseries. From idolatry, the great and habitual sin of their forefathers, they have been free for above two were in expectation, and all men mused in their hearts whether he were the Christ or not," Luke, iii. 15.; and a deputation of priests and Levites was sent from Jerusalem to put the question to him, John, i. 19—27. Tacitus (Hist. lib. v. c. 13.) and Suetonius (lib. viii. c. 4.) record the general hope of the approach of the predicted Deliverer. thousand years. And for that sin, detestable as it was in the sight of God, a captivity of only seventy years was deemed a sufficient national punishment.—"I would fain learn of thee, out of the testimonies of the law, and the prophets, and other Scriptures, why the Jews are thus smitten in this captivity wherein we are : which may be properly called the perpetual anger of God, because it hath no end. For it is now above a thousand years since we were carried captive by Titus. And yet our fathers, who worshipped idols, killed the prophets, and cast the law behind their back, were punished only with a seventy years' captivity; and then brought home again! But now there is no end of our calamities: nor do the prophets promise any." It was thus that Rabbi Samuel Moroccanus wrote about seven hundred years since to his friend.* The great council of the Jews assembled five hundred and fifty years afterwards in Hungary, to deliberate on that very subject, found it altogether inexplicable. It is at this moment equally inexplicable to the Jews, Nay, every additional year aggravates the difficulty. But the difficulty, insuperable to the Jews, is none to Their own imprecation has been tremendously fulfilled. The blood of Christ has been and is " on them and on their children." us. Such has been the history of the chosen people of God from the calling of their forefather Abraham to the present day; a period of nearly three thousand eight hundred years. Their situation has in all ages been characterised by miracles. Their preservation is at this moment a standing miracle. The hostile tribes of invaders, who successively established themselves in Great Britain, discordant in religion and in manners, * See Bishop Patrick's Commentary on Genesis, xlix. 10. Saxons, Danes, and Normans, are all absorbed and lost in one common mass. The innumerable hosts of Pagan barbarians, who overwhelmed the Christian empire of Rome, speedily coalesced with the natives whom they had subdued, each host in the region where it settled, into one homogeneous assemblage. Faith and practice, laws and customs, even personal appearance and complexion, became similar, in the course of very few centuries, among the victors and the vanquished. Not so with the Jews. Scattered in small parcels throughout many nations; nowhere living under their own laws, and in few places indulged in the free exercise of their religion; urged by general contempt, and even in many Christian countries by shameful oppression, to withdraw themselves from notice by assimilating themselves to the natives among whom they dwell; they have every where multiplied under affliction, and have every where continued to the present hour a distinct and separate people. Why have they thus been exempted from the common fate of nations? They have been exempted, that after having in their dispersion exhibited to the inhabitants of opposite extremities of the earth a stupendous proof of the power and the truth and the justice of God, they may be mercifully restored at the time pre-determined in His counsels to the perpetual possession of their native land. There is scarcely any topic on which prophecy is more copious in the Old Testament, than on the final restoration of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Our Saviour, when he foretells that "Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled," clearly implies that after an appointed time it should revert Luke, xxi. 24. to its original possessors. The New Testament, in perfect harmony with the writings of the old prophets, predicts the future conversion of the Jews to the religion of their crucified Saviour; and the powerful and glorious effect which their conversion, together with the signal wonders with which their re-establishment shall be attended, will produce in opening the eyes of unbelieving nations, and convincing them of the truth of the Christian faith.* There are persons who are heard to ask; "Why is it necessary to suppose that the Jews are to be replaced in Palestine? If converted to the Christian religion, why should not they be at once incorporated with the Christian nations among whom at the time they shall be respectively dwelling?" In reply we might reasonably enquire whether it would be probable that, while all the other Christian nations of the world shall be severally inhabitants and possessors of a country of their own; the Twelve Tribes of Israel, the antient and peculiar people of God, having embraced the faith of their crucified Redeemer, having received "the spirit of grace and of supplications" from above, having looked on Him whom " their fathers pierced," having "mourned for Him as one mourneth for his only son, and been in bitterness for Him as one that is in bitterness for his first-born †," shall alone be destitute of a country; shall alone be without a national home; and beholding the land of their ancestors, the beloved land of promise, occupied in peace and happiness by some more favored nation, shall still remain as in their unconverted state of captivity and dispersion, strangers in every clime, scattered far and wide, dwelling among strangers over the whole surface of the globe. † Zechariah, xii. 10. ⚫ Romans, xi. |