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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-
CIPATED FROM THE UNCHANGEABLE
NATIONALITY OF THE JEWS, AND
GOD'S MIRACULOUS DEALINGS
TOWARDS THEM.

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

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 chose their seed after

thy fathers, therefore he 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.”

Ir 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

have been added some of the facts to come; we have, in following out the subject in these lectures, taken just one step into futurity, and anticipated the restoration of that people from this great and terrible dispersion.

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Upon this first glance at unfulfilled prophecy, it appears as if we were stepping into the regions of imagination; the images seem new, so surprising, so startling, to those who have been accustomed only to read of the facts past; and it will be well that we should pause to look at the ground upon which we stand, that we may judge whether we are justified by sound scriptural argument, in the exercise of that reason which God has given us, to go so far forward, and to expect that such a course of events as that unfolded to us in the Word of God is really to fill the future pages of history. And, therefore, it is my portion of this interesting subject to occupy your attention for a short time in considering the argument which may be drawn from the Scripture to establish the certain expectation, that the nation of the Jews shall exist in all time; inquiring whether we are justified in anticipating these wonderful results, from anything which we discover in the Word of God concerning them. And in taking this scriptural range of argument,

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