has never been so forsaken, corroborates our former arguments, condemns the evasive system of figurative interpretation, and identifies the party addressed by the prophet, to wit, the long forsaken and hated, but in the end, restored and glorious nation of the twelve tribes of Israel.-"I will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations. Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks; and the sons of the alien shall be your plowmen and vine-dressers. But ye shall be named the priests of the Lord; men shall call you the ministers of our God: ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves."

This prophecy last quoted, describes the nature of the Jewish national glory, when their king shall be king over all the earth. One king, and his name one. It will not consist in such elements of superiority, as now constitute the glory of nations. Military and naval prowess, literary fame, commercial prosperity, splendid attainments in the arts and sciences for the enjoyment and embellishment of social life, enlightened and liberal policy, improving revenues-in a word, internal resources, and external power-domestic arrangements, which leave all other nations far behind us; and foreign influence, to dictate laws to the world; making advantageous treaties to the aggrandisement of our empire, and the extension of our commerce; or magnanimously making disadvantageous treaties,

to the glory of our generosity. These, and such as these, are now the themes of national triumph; in these consists the pre-eminence of national glory. But the pre-eminence of the restored Jewish nation, will consist in a superiority of a wholly dif ferent nature from this.

The national glory of this dispensation is inseparable from unrighteousness. National honours are now the grand prizes of successful ambition; national emoluments, of successful traffic. Whether combination or opposition be traced in the various wheels of the machine, it is SELF that supplies the moving power interest and vanity compose the main-springs. Principle is outraged, friendships violated, truth disregarded, consistency scoffed at: envy, hatred, and malice, are inspired into the rival pretenders to the prizes, and pride into their triumphant possessors. Deceit and fraud, dishonesty and dishonour, are in the way; loftiness and tyranny, luxury and self-indulgence, are at the end. This is but too susceptible of proof, if such proof were our present object. Indeed, it is not denied, all disguise is thrown off; and the man who would now talk of disinterested patriotism, in any other way than with a sneer at the hypocrisy of the pretension, would be considered as more eligible for exportation to Utopia, than for a seat in our sensible senate-house.

The restored Jewish nation, on the contrary, shall be, what our world has never yet seen, nor

66

shall see, till Israel presents the glorious consummation-A RIGHTEOUS NATION! "In that day, shall this song be sung in the land of Judah... Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation, which keepeth the truth, may enter in.” Thy people also shall be all righteous: they shall inherit the land for ever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified. A little one shall become a thousand; and a small one a strong nation: I the Lord will hasten it in his time. I will put my law into their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, saying, Know the Lord for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them. And I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me for ever, for the good of them, and of their children after them: I will not turn away from them to do them good, but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean; from all your filthiness, and from all your idols will I cleanse you; a new heart also will I give you and I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them I will also save you from all uncleanyour nesses.. . . . . The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies, neither shall a deceitful

tongue be found in their mouth. . . . . .

In that

day there shall be upon the bells of the horses HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD.”a

Again, the national glory of this dispensation is inseparably connected with war, and the wretchedness and misery consequent thereupon. It opens various pretexts for aggression to ambitious monarchs it supplies various themes for irritating eloquence to rival statesmen. Quarrels of pride ensue. Monarchs and statesmen do not fight alone, but drag in their train the thousand kindling spirits of their subjects, ardent to redress the nation's wrongs, to vindicate the nation's glory. Hence the voice of mourning in their lands, the widow's tear, the orphan's cry! delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi.

The restored Jewish nation, on the contrary, shall be a peaceful nation; and, under their dominion, there shall be universal and permanent peace in all the earth. "Look upon Zion, the city of our solemnities: thine eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation, a tabernacle that shall not be taken down; not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be removed, neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken but there the glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant

a

Isa. xxvi. 1, 2; lx. 21, 22; lxi. 3. Jer. xxxi. 33; xxxii. 39, 40. Ezek. xxxvi. 24-29. Zeph. iii. 13. Zech. xiv.

20, 21.

ship pass thereby. For the Lord is our Judge, the Lord is our Lawgiver, the Lord is our King; he will save us. In his days, shall the righteous flourish, and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth. And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. But they

shall sit, every man under his vine, and under his fig-tree; and none shall make them afraid for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it. In that day, saith the Lord, will I assemble her that halteth, and I will gather her that is driven out, and her that I have afflicted: and I will make her that halted a remnant, and her that was cast far off, a strong nation: and the Lord shall reign over them in Mount Zion, from henceforth even for And thou, O tower of the flock, the stronghold of the daughter of Zion, unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion; the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem." The child that was born unto us of the seed of Abraham: the Son that was given unto us of a virgin of the house and lineage of David: the Saviour, on whose unseen arm a chosen people have been long leaning for support, in the midst of temptation, and persecution, and scorn, shall then have the visible

ever.

b

b Isa. xxxiii. 20-24. Ps. lxxii. 7. Micah iv. 1-8.