I. In support of these positions, I appeal, in the first place, directly, to the language of the predictions, in its natural and obvious meaning. The subject is fully stated in our text, and the verses immediately connected with it. The dispersion and misery of the people after the destruction of their city, (that is, as I think, and shall endeavour to prove in its place, their present dispersion,) being largely predicted up to verse 39, it is written at verse 40, If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass that they have trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary to me, (here is their acknowledgment of their national guilt:) and that I also have walked contrary to them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies: (here is their recognition of God's hand in their dispersion :) if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity— (here is their submission of heart, acquiescing in, instead of resisting their punishment)—then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember, and I will remember THE LAND:- -(here is the promise put conditionally, depending for its fulfilment upon this state of penitence being produced in the nation.) The desolation of the land is reiterated in the next verse, (43) and then (44, 45) the promise is put absolutely; that which before was introduced, as waiting for

the performance of a condition, being now enumerated among the unconditional certainties, which the Lord God of Israel will surely bring to pass. When they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for I am the Lord thy God. But I WILL for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt, in the sight of the heathen, that I might be their God. I am the Lord.

The penitence of the nation, while yet dispersed, is declared in the conditional form, in Deuteronomy iv. 27-31. If from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God. ... if thou turn to the Lord

thy God.

&c. also chapter xxx. 1, 2, 3. The same is predicted absolutely by Ezekiel, chap. vi. The desolation being described in the early verses, it is written at verse 8, "Yet will I leave a remnant, that ye may have some that shall escape the sword among the nations, when ye shall be scattered through the countries; and they

that escape of you shall remember me among the

;

nations whither they shall be carried captives. and they shall loathe themselves for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations and they shall know that I am the Lord, and that I have not said in vain that I would do this evil unto them." Also by the prophet Hosea, thus saith the Lord, "I will be unto Ephraim as a lion,

and as a young lion to the house of Judah; I, even I, will tear and go away: I will take away, and none shall rescue him; I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face in their affliction they will seek me in the morning. Come, and let us return unto the Lord, for he hath torn, and he will heal us: he hath smitten, and he will bind us up." (v. 14, 15; and vi. 1.)

All this language is in itself very clear and simple. Had it been the intention of the Holy Spirit to inform us by the prophets, that the Jews would be brought into a state of penitence, while still dispersed among the nations; that is, that they would confess their sins, and the sins of their fathers before the Lord their God; loathe themselves for their iniquity, discern the immediate hand of Jehovah in their dispersion, and seek unto him for deliverance; and that upon their doing so, He would remember his promise to their fathers, and restore them to the possessions of their fathers: -had it been the intention of the great Inspirer of the prophets thus to write, what more express language can we conceive to be used for the purpose, than that which has now been quoted? Suppose that the event should thus take place, that the Jews in every quarter of the world should (as in many places they already do) acknowledge and bewail the sins of their nation, and cry mightily unto their God for deliverance, not merely in the formal lan

guage of their Liturgy, borrowed from the writings of their fathers, but in the deep sincerity of their hearts also; and that when this cry became general among them, the miraculous interference of their God and their fathers' God were manifested in their behalf, and Palestine again put into their possession; and suppose an accurate historian subsequently to write a narrative of the events; what more unequivocal language could he use, than the language of these prophecies turned into the past tense?

But, is not the language of prophecy figurative? -Yes, frequently. Let us then examine, what are the figures conveyed by these expressions, they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers; they shall loathe themselves; they shall remember me, and seek my face. If it be alleged, that these and similar words predict those convictions of sin, which the people of God, whether Jew or Gentile, should feel in all lands previous and introductory to their conversion, then let us inquire further, what are the figures contained in the preceding expressions of the same prophecies, "I will bring the land into desolation, and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it; and I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you; and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste." (Lev. xxvi. 32, 33.) "Ye shall be plucked out of the land; the Lord shall scatter thee among all people.”

(Deut. xxviii. 63, 64.) "I will be unto Ephraim as a lion, and as a young lion to the house of Judah; I, even I, will tear." (Hos. v. 14.) The people of God among the Gentiles, are still in the habitations of their friends, in the possessions of their fathers their lands have never been brought to desolation : they have never been plucked from their homes, nor torn as by the fury of a lion. Surely, when it was promised to Abraham in his old age that he should have a son, it would not have been so violent an interpretation of the language of that promise, to have said, that the children of his confidential household steward were accounted as his children; and that therefore, he was to look to the family of Eliezer of Damascus for his heir, as it is to make the language of the prophecies now before us, to signify the convictions of Gentile sinners, or individual Jews, as distinguished from the nation. In the case of Abraham, we know by the event, that any interpretation which evaded, in the slightest degree, the literal meaning of the words, would have been erroneous; and in the case now before us, we ask, if these preceding expressions of the prophecy, scattered, plucked off the land, torn, be applicable exclusively to the Jewish nation, and to that nation, in the literal meaning of the words; upon what principle is it, that an arbitrary disruption of the context can be made, and the subsequent expressions of penitence denied a similar application? Either, therefore, first, plucked off the land must be