in the supply of their daily wants-when hungry, the feeding them with bread from heaven-when thirsty, the giving them water out of the flinty rock to drink : all according with those words of the song of Moses, "he found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness, he led him (or compassed him) about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye;" "he made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields, and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock." So he hath found you in the wilderness, ye people of God, weary with your wanderings through the cares and the pleasures of this desert world, he hath compassed you about as in a garrison, he hath instructed you in that wisdom which is from above, he keeps you as a man instinctively protects the most tender part of his frame, " as the apple of his eye;" he brings you into near communion with himself, he makes you to inhabit the high places of the earth; he feeds you, when your souls are hungry, with the manna of his ordinances, or, when parched by the hot winds of trial, he makes the flinty rock to produce honey and oil, the very sorrow to bring forth consolation; he gives you to drink of that river of joy, the full "streams whereof make glad the city of God."

Mark, then, Israel's history, and read it in your own. In his many deliverances from the Egyptian, the Moabite, the Midianite, the Amorite, the Philistine, the Assyrian, the Babylonian, Israel received proof upon proof of the faithfulness as well as of the tender love and the power of Him who had made "the people his portion." He was afflicted, but Jehovah did comfort him; he was weak, but Jehovah was his strength. How applicable the figure in the text to the care extended both to the literal and the spiritual Israel: "As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them upon her wings: so the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him." You know the habits of the eagle, how tender its care over its young; day by day it brings them food till they are fledged; and when they are ready to take their first flight, how it teaches them with gentle firmness, stirring up the nest that they may take wing, and then fluttereth over them, watching with a mother's eye lest they should be harmed: and as the young bird with feeble effort vainly strikes the air, and descends, the mother bird expands her wings, and swiftly drops beneath it, bearing it in safety to the nest again. So the Lord guided and protected Israel. And so he educates his people now; he leads them

forth; "he stirs up the nest," that they may take wing; disturbing them by his chastening hand in the enjoyment of injurious pleasures, and thus their strength is tried; but when soon it fails, and they tremble towards the ground, he, who was watching from above, is beneath them, and upon the pinions of his power he bears them up again.

Lastly, as the children of Jacob were supported in their wearisome wanderings through the waste howling wilderness, by looking forward to rest in Canaan, so ye children of the spiritual Jacob, is your support in the expectation of "the rest which remaineth for the people of God," to which, unlike them, ye shall all attain; rest, sweet, safe, unbroken, eternal,-rest in God's love-rest in faith rewarded-rest in hope accomplished-rest in everlasting joy.

Thus, in observing the dealings of God with Israel, we may discover his purposes towards ourselves in the various dispensations of his providence. Accordingly, the twofold object of this course of Lectures has been to direct the attention of the spiritual to the literal Israel; first, that the former may take both encouragement and warning from the history of the latter, and also that it may receive the special blessing which God has promised, saying, "I will bless him that blesseth thee."

In the Introductory Lecture the importance of the subject was proved to you, and this was necessary, because doubts have been entertained upon this very point. But surely it must have tended to remove these doubts, when you viewed it in its various bearings, as setting forth in an especial manner the glory of God—as intimately affecting the Church of Christ, which owes SO much to the Jew; and the realization of whose chief and supporting hope is in a measure dependent upon, because it is to be posterior to, the fulfilment of God's promise of restoration to Israel. Your attention was then drawn to the necessity of employing a consistent system of rules in the interpretation of the prophetic Scriptures, because the non-adoption of a consistent system has led to many mistakes. A passage has often been interpreted literally, and its immediate context spiritualized. Great confusion has resulted. The Christian Church has become unsettled in her opinions upon prophecy. The unbeliever has obtained an advantage, and God's ancient people have been deprived of the promises which undoubtedly belong to them.

Having adopted a system of rules, you opened the volume of prophecy at a remarkable passage in which the covenant made with Abraham is referred to. You beheld the germ of Israel's

honour, as far as the promise has received its accomplishment in the past history of that people, and the growth and expansion of the germ up to the time of the anticipated completion of the promise, when "in Abraham's seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

You then passed on to the covenant established with David, which enabled him to look through the vista of ages, and to see his children's children swaying the sceptre of Judah,—“David's Lord and yet his son" holding an undisputed and lasting dominion over a territory "undivided from sea to sea, from the river unto the ends of the earth."

But ere these blessed expectations could be realized you beheld the tattered remnant of the divided kingdom, a train of captives, headed by their monarch, led to Babylon, and the harp of Judah silenced for seventy years. At the close of this period, you traced their return to Jerusalem. But in that emancipation was the promise realized which is recorded in the pages of Isaiah's prophecy, and which, when he proclaimed it, thrilled through the soul of the melancholy Jeremiah, and roused it to an unwonted joy? No; in that event you beheld no resemblance to "the coming up out of the land of Egypt." All the people came up out of Egypt, whereas you saw only a portion returning from Babylon, and though "they dwelt,"