whole period of their dispersion, was distinctly foretold: “I will make a full end of all the nations whither I have driven thee, but I will not make a full end of thee, but correct thee in measure ; yet will I not leave thee wholly unpunished."*

66

Although I have cast them far off among the heathen, 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." +

"For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve; yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth."+

They have been coeval with all the four universal empires-the Assyrian or Babylonian, the Medo-Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman, and yet have outlived them all. They have survived the lapse of time, the overthrow of empires, the invasions of conquest, the vicissitudes to which all earthly things are subject, the fury of persecution, and, I had almost said, the wrath of Almighty God.

We proceed next to inquire, why the Jews have been so providentially preserved; the certainty of their restoration and conversion; and the duty of the Christian Church, in the meantime, towards this interesting and remarkable people.

* Jer. xlvi. 28.

+ Ezek. xi. 16.

Amos ix. 9.

They have been preserved, because God has a special design of mercy towards them; and this design involves the event of their restoration and conversion. The elucidation of the former will be expressly undertaken by others; I shall, therefore, merely adduce the following passages to establish the certainty of their restoration, as this fact, by a singular misconception, is, by some, avowedly denied; and all the predictions relating to this event, supposed to have received their full accomplishment in their restoration from the Babylonian captivity.

The first passage to which I shall refer is in Isaiah xi. 11, 12 :—

"And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.......And the Lord shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea: and with his mighty wind shall he shake his hand over the river, and shall smite it in the seven streams, and make men go over dry-shod. And

there shall be an highway for the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt."

The events here predicted have never yet been accomplished. The Lord has never "set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people;" nor have they ever been previously restored "from the islands of the sea,” and “from the four corners of the earth." "The tongue of the Egyptian sea," or of the Nile, has not been destroyed, nor the river been smitten in its “seven streams." Nor has there been a recurrence of those miraculous interpositions which marked their departure from Egypt; and which both Isaiah, in this passage, and the Prophet Micah, announce to be the accompaniments of their future restoration. "According to the days of thy coming out of the land of Egypt, will I show unto him marvellous things."* These events still remain to be fulfilled, and consequently establish the doctrine of their final restoration.

As it is not, however, my province to show how the denial of this fact militates against some of the most express declarations of the Scriptures; and that the predictions relating to the restoration of the Jews are too enlarged, and universal in their

* Micah vii. 15.

application, to have been fulfilled in the return from the Babylonian captivity, I shall simply refer to Ezek. xxxvi. 24-26, as expressive of a restoration and conversion never yet blended together. The promised union also of the two sticks of Ephraim and Judah, predicted in Ezekiel xxxvii. 22,* (an event which cannot possibly be fulfilled but by the return of the ten tribes, and by that of the two tribes of Benjamin and Judah,) is of itself sufficient to establish the fact of their second restoration, and proves how utterly the attempt to controvert this sense is founded on error, and on a most limited interpretation of the prophecies referring to this subject.

But while the restoration of the Jews is a matter of controversy, or of open denial, with a portion (but we trust a small one) of the Christian public at home; the belief of the fact is universal among the Jews themselves, and its accomplishment supposed to be nigh at hand. This expectation is not peculiar to any particular place or country, but prevails especially in the Levant, in Smyrna, and in Constantinople; in Egypt, in

* "And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all." (Ezek. xxxvii. 22.)

I

Syria, in Palestine, in Poland, and in Germany. It is accompanied by the impression that the period for Messiah's coming is arrived. The year 1840, from the completion of a certain chronological period of time, was announced by their Rabbies as the era for the fulfilment of this event. I have ascertained these facts by personal intercourse and observation, during a late visit to the East. I never remember a more general concurrence of sentiment. The tide of emigration has already commenced. "I am going," said an aged Jew, "to witness the appearing of the Messiah. hope to see him with these eyes. Should I be disappointed in this hope, I shall at least have the consolation of laying my bones in the land of my forefathers." I heard many similar testimonies. Nine hundred Polish Jews solicited permission from the Emperor of Russia to go to Palestine with this view, declaring that should the Messiah not appear, they should, in that case, conclude that he had already come, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, and be prepared to embrace Christianity. Civil restrictions threw impediments in the way of this proposition. There may be, and there unquestionably is, a fallacy in the particular object of expectation, and yet the general impression may indicate a state of mind announcing an approaching crisis. There are already five thousand Jews in Jerusalem; and, inclusive of