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DISCOURSE XX.

THE DOOM OF JERUSALEM,

And when he was

LUKE xix. 41, 42.

come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.

We have considered the history of Pharaoh, particu

larly what is meant by God's hardening his heart. We have adverted to the fate of the Israelites who were delivered from Egypt, and afterward perished in the wilderness. We have attended to the conduct and punishment of the latter Jews in the time of Christ; and have explained the meaning of that text which saith, "Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth."

It may be worth our while to consider whether these things concern Christians. If God dealt with Pharaoh and the Jews in such a manner as he never did, and never will deal with others, we have little or nothing to do with them, further than curiosity and amusement are concerned. But, if he intended them as warnings and admonitions to us, as examples of the fatal issue of their conduct, and an exemplification of a fixed rule of his dealing with them and with all mankind, we shall find ourselves most deeply interested in whatever related to them. Under the full persuasion that we are so, I take the liberty to bring before you the particular case of the Jews, and the final sentence which Christ passed upon their capital city, Jerusalem, in the words of the text; hoping that your candor will excuse the repetition of sentiments and circumstances that have been before mentioned, or briefly considered,

It is apparent that God dealt with his old people, the church of the Jews, by the same rule by which he dealt with Pharaoh. And, as he is no respecter of persons, but "will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and hardeneth whom he will;" that is, dispenseth the blessings of his grace and mercy, or executeth his judgments, according to his own good pleasure; rendering to every man according to his deeds, and agreeably to the state he hath formed for himself: What good reason can be given, why he should not deal with Christians as he dealt with Pharaoh and the Jews, if, as Pharaoh and the Jews did, they harden the heart against him, and pass their day of grace in obstinate and final impenitency?

Christians profess to believe, that the Bible contains the history of God's revelation to the world; making known his will, and directing the conduct of men: that it sets forth the history of many things he hath done in the world to particular nations of men, relative to their conduct compared with his will made known to them; so that, seeing the blessings and judgments his hand hath dispensed to others, they may be induced to live in obedience to him who is the author of life, and the giver of every good thing to his creatures: this is their profession; but, unhappily, their practice corresponds but ill with it.

In respect of holy scripture, Christians seem to have fallen into a state very similar to that of the Jews in the time of Christ. The Jews believed that the books of the Old Testament contained the revelation of God's will, and were ready, at all times, to dispute about them and for them; to settle philosophic and speculative opinions by them; to interpret the dark prophecies, and explain the deep mysteries contained in them: and so high did they carry their veneration of them, that, lest they should be corrupted, they numbered and carefully noted the sum of the words and letters in which they were written. But to make them the rule of their life, and regulate their conduct by that will of God which they declared, was a matter with which, a few instances excepted, they had little to do.

The example of Pharaoh, exhibited to us by God's hardening his heart, by the miracles he wrought for his conviction, and by withdrawing from him his holy spirit, because he would not suffer his divine motions and inspirations to take any lasting hold of him; by his pronouncing against him the sentence of reprobation, and giving him up to destruction, the Jews perverted, so as to make it of no efficacy to bring them to repentance, but rather to increase their own pride, and harden their hearts in iniquity.. For,

Who was Pharaoh? who were the Egyptians that perished with him? Vile heathen, and the objects of God's hatred and wrath. But themselves they believed to be the peculiar people of God-the children of Abraham by Sarah, and the sole heirs of all the blessings of the covenant made with him. If God corrected them for their transgressions, his corrections were but the chastisements of a father. He never would punish them as he did wicked heathen, with blindness of mind and hardness of heart; nor issue the sentence of reprobation and destruction against them.

Nor had the judgments of God upon the Israelites whom he brought through the Red Sea, when Pharaoh and his army were drowned, any greater effect on them. They considered not that those Israelites were the covenanted people of God equally with themselves, being the children of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and heirs of all the promises made to them, particularly of the inheritance of Canaan, whither God was then conducting them: that they had, moreover, personally entered into covenant with God at Horeb, and had been eye-witnesses of all the great things he had done for them, in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness: that, on account of their disbelief and distrust of the power of God to put them in possession of Canaan, occasioned by the report which the spies, whom Moses had sent to view the country, made of the size and strength of the inhabitants, "God sware in his wrath," that not one of those who were numbered when they came out of Egypt, Caleb and Joshua excepted, Kk

VOL. II.

should obtain that promise, but should all die in the wil derness; condemning them to forty years wandering in it, till that curse of reprobation should be fulfilled on them. Nor had the goodness of God any effect on them, so as to correct the perversity of their heart. Like Pharaoh, they closed their eyes against his miracles, and regarded not the interpositions of his providence in their favour, till neither miracles nor providential interpositions could do them any good. At Marah they complained of the bitterness of the water, and were relieved from their distress by the goodness of God, who directed Moses to cast the bough of a certain tree into it, and the water became sweet. Shortly after they murmured in the wilderness of Sin, and demanded bread and flesh for their hunger. Again the power of God relieved them by a miraculous supply of quails and manna. It was not long before they repeated their murmurings for water at Rephidim; and so violent were their clamours, that Moses thought himself in danger of being stoned by them. The rock in Horeb, smitten by the rod of Moses, in obedience to the direction of God, supplied them with water to satiety.

Thus they went on during their abode in the wilderness, ever complaining, never satisfied: and though always relieved from distress by the power of God, yet still doubting that power: still doubting whether God was with them, though they saw daily manifestations of his presence, and had beheld his glory visibly displayed on mount Sinaiwishing they had died by the hand of God, with full stomachs, in Egypt; rather than to be left to famish in the wilderness.

God saw the irreclaimable hardness and baseness of their tempers, and he sware in his wrath that they should not enter into Canaan. Their professions of penitence and submission were ineffectual. Their doom was past, and it was literally fulfilled: they all died wandering in the wilderness.

Surprising as it may appear, these instances of the unbelief and rebellion of the Israelites, and of the judgments of God on them, in consequence thereof, never seem to

have ceased while they continued a nation; nor in their present dispersed state through the world do they appear to be cured of them. In the time of Christ, they went on in the same way with their forefathers, acting from the same temper and disposition of heart, till the wrath of God broke on them, in the final destruction of their civil and religious polity, by the power of the Romans.

Of that terrible and fatal disaster, the goodness of God had given them long and repeated notice. The old prophets had foretold the event, and called them to repentance, as the only method to escape the vengeance of God : but their predictions they regarded not. The holy Baptist, who, in the power, and spirit, and with the mortification of Elias, came to prepare the way of the Lord, by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, preached to them the doctrine and baptism of repentance. He declared that the axe was about to be laid to the root of the trees, and that every tree growing in the garden of God, the church of the Jews, which brought not forth good fruit, should be hewn down, and cast into the fire that God, the great husbandman of the earth, the especial owner and proprietor of that people, had taken his winnowing fan in his hand, and would effectually clear and cleanse his threshing-floor, by separating the chaff from the wheat; the latter he would gather into his granary, but would burn up the former with fire which none could quench. Repent," therefore, said he, that ye may escape the judgment of God impending over the wicked; "for the kingdom of heaven is at hand;" the promised reign of Messiah is now commencing.-They believed not John, but reviled him as a madman possessed of the devil.

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The last proffer of mercy was the preaching of Messiah. All meek and lowly, "he came unto his own" people, these hard-hearted and impenitent Jews: they "received him not." He called them to repentance: they would not repent. He proclaimed the kingdom of God: they refused to enter into it. He declared himself to be sent of God, to open the eyes of the blind, to heal the broken

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