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pagation of Christianity, closely connected with this scheme of interpretation, and I think strongly corroborative of it, is thus stated by Mr. Faber :— "In the course of a very few years, the religion of Christ had more or less pervaded the whole Roman empire, and had made successful inroads into the contiguous nations, both barbarous and civilized: in the course of little more than three centuries, it became the established theological system of the greatest and the most polished monarchy then subsisting. Succeeding events seemed to threaten, if not its absolute extinction, yet, at least, its contraction within its original, narrow limits. But the result was the very opposite of what, by political sagacity, might reasonably have been anticipated. The religion of the conquering Goths was, in every instance, nationally abandoned; the religion of the conquered Romans was, in every instance, nationally adopted. Some of the northern warriors might be earlier, and some might be later proselytes: but the ultimate, universal concomitant of Gothic national invasion was Gothic national conversion.

"When this great moral revolution was effected, the victories of the Cross seemed, as it were, to be suddenly arrested in their mid career. Much about the time that our Saxon ancestors were exchanging the ferocious idolatry of their fathers for the milder religion of Christ, the Saracens attacked the whole southern line of the Roman empire: and, after the interval of a few centuries, they were

followed by the Scythic Turcomans. Each division of these irresistible conquerors obtained permanent settlements upon the Roman platform: the Saracens in Syria, and Africa, and Spain; the Turks, in the entire territory of the eastern empire. Yet, mark the wide difference of the result. All those earlier invaders, who seized upon the fragments of Roman dominion from the north, embraced the religion of the vanquished; though in direct opposition to a well-known maxim of Paganism, that the success of their votaries was the surest test of the power of the gods. All those later invaders, who planted themselves upon the Roman territory from the south-east and the east, not only rejected the religion of the vanquished, but continued to be pertinaciously animated by a most violent spirit of hostility against it.

"The difference between the two cases is sufficiently striking: but the matter does not rest here. It is not, that other remote nations were rapidly accepting the gospel, while the Saracens and the Turks, with an unhappy singularity, were rejecting it so far from such being the fact, it would be difficult, I believe, to produce any prominent instance of a national conversion to Christianity, subsequent to the period during which the ancestors of the present Europeans received it as their public rule of faith. The Mexicans and the Peruvians, indeed, may have been half exterminated, and half forced into a semblance of our religion;

and in our own days, on better principles and to a purer mode of faith, the petty islands which are washed by the great Pacific Ocean, may have been nationally converted: but what are these, when contrasted with the vast field for missionary exertion, which stretches far into comparatively civilized Asia!

"Individually, some conquests may have been made by the pious and laborious men, who have undertaken the mighty task. But what has been done nationally? What has been done upon a grand scale? What has been effected, which bears any resemblance or proportion to the earlier triumphs of the Cross? Both Romanist, and Protestant, and Greek, are alike compelled to give the same desponding answer—JUST NOTHING. Look at Persia; look at Arabia; look at Boutan and Thibet ; look at Tartary; look at Hindostan; look at China; in one word, cast your eyes over the whole of Southern Asia with its dependent islands; and what do you behold? Nowhere, is the Cross nationally triumphant: every where, an incalculable majority of the people either bows to the idols of Paganism, or is besotted through the delusion of Mohammedanism.

"What I have stated, though it may well serve to produce abundant speculation, is itself a mere naked matter of fact. However we may account for it, and however we may reject it, still nothing can be more clear, than that the progress of the gospel has

now for many ages been completely arrested. Nor must we attribute this notorious circumstance altogether to want of exertion. The depressed oriental church may indeed have been long in a state of constrained torpidity; but neither the Romanist nor the Protestant has discontinued the holy warfare: and yet we all too well know, what very trifling effects have been produced either by the one or by the other. I say not this as undervaluing even the most trifling effects; for, in one point of view, they are infinitely important, and as such, amply repay every exertion: but still, when we look back to the earlier centuries, what are a few thousands of scattered individuals, if compared to the unreclaimed millions which throng the vast continents of Asia and Africa?

"The truth is, that, whatever partial success may attend missionary exertions in regard to individual Pagans or Mohammedans, the Gentiles will never be converted nationally, and upon a large scale, until the Jews shall have been first converted: and the ground of this very important position is, that the converted Jews are destined, in the unsearchable wisdom of God, to be the sole, finally successful missionaries to the Gentile world."

Upon the nature of the blessing thus to be bestowed upon the nations by means of the restored Jews, I observe, that it appears to me, it will be true and proper conversion to God: and not merely, as some persons have urged, a state similar to that

of Adam before the fall-a holy and happy state, indeed, but still not the state of a converted sinner, upheld by the Holy Spirit.

In support of the opinion that it will be a converted (a Christian and not an Adamic) state, I refer, first, to the sixty-seventh Psalm, which is a prayer of the Jewish nation concerning their final restoration, and its consequences on the earth. "God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause his face to shine upon us, that thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations." Here the alleged consequence of the Lord's returning favour to the Jews, is, that his saving health shall then be made known among the nations. And in the seventh verse, it is declared, that God shall bless the Jews, and the consequence shall be," all the ends of the earth shall fear him." These expressions are common for conveying the general idea of conversion; and if it be denied that the nations shall be converted, some reason ought to be shown why the usual meaning of such expressions should be restricted in this place.

I refer, secondly, to Isaiah liii. 11, compared with Isaiah xi. 9. 66 By his knowledge (the knowledge of him) shall my righteous servant justify many." And, "They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." In the former of these

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