wilfully overlooked the equally clear * predictions of the same Messiah's humiliation and sufferings, and the express declarations, that the new † dispensation should not be confined to one chosen people, like the old, but should embrace without distinction all nations, who, according to the original promise of God to the great Patriarch Abraham, were to "be blessed in his seed." But the true interpretation and application of the prophecies is not obscured, or the proof of divine foreknowledge and co-operation in the establishment of the Gospel arising from them, subverted, by the errors or the obstinacy of the Jews. The prophecies are open to our inspection as well as theirs; and when, by combining the temporal humiliation with the spiritual dominion of the Messiah, both which the Gospel attests, we perceive all the predictions respecting him accomplished, however appa→ rently opposite; the proof thence resulting is the more decisive, as it was more difficult for mere human sagacity to anticipate, or mere human agency to produce, so extraordinary a coinci dence. The rejection of the Gospel by the Jews is indeed so far from weakening, that it greatly confirms the proof from prophecy, by establishing the authenticity and uncorruptedness of these great records of divine truth, of which the Jews are unsuspected, because hostile vouchers. Had their nation universally or generally embraced the Gospel at its first publication, the sceptic might, with some plausibility, allege, that the prophecies might have been fabricated or altered, to fit them to the events; the coNTRARY IS NOW CERTAIN. And so great is the importance of this circumstance (as appears to me) to establish the truth of Christianity, that I firmly believe it to be one of the great causes, why the national conversion of the Jews is delayed "until the fulness of the Gentiles shall come in." They are to continue the guardians of the prophetic records till these shall have had their contents examined, and their application ascertained, by every other nation in the world. A little reflection will also evince, that the rejection of Christianity by the Jewish nation, does not subvert, but on the con * Vide particularly Psalm xxii. and Isaiah liii. + Vide the preceding Section of this Lecture. Rom. xi. 25. trary confirms, the certainty of the miracles recorded in the Gos pel history. It not only appears from that history,* but from the admission of the Jews themselves,+ that the cotemporaries of these miracles did not deny their performance, but on the contrary admitted it; though they would not upon their evidence embrace the Gospel, because they conceived this contrary to the Mosaic Law, whose obligation their carnal and ambitious views led them to believe was eternal, and which they conceived no miracles could prove was abrogated. They therefore contented themselves with asserting, that the miracles of Christ and his Apostles must be ascribed to magical influence, diabolical agency, or the mysterious potency of the ineffable name of God, which they conceived our Lord had learned to pronounce. But these opinions of the Jews affect not the reality or greatness of the Gospel miracles: we can judge as clearly as they could possibly do, whether the Scriptures describe the Mosaic Law as of strictly eternal obligation, or on the contrary represent it as designed to introduce a more perfect and universal religion; and our improved reason and philosophic knowledge reject without hesitation the wild and absurd causes to which they imputed works; which the fair and candid reasoners amongst themselves confessed, 66 no man could do, except God was with him.” In truth, the hostility of the Jewish nation to Christianity, from the first, confirms the truth of the Gospel miracles. Had the Jews been universally or even generally converted by them, the sceptic might argue, with some appearance of probability, that the facts had been invented or exaggerated to gratify the national propensity, credited without examination or proof, and all inquiry into them checked, at the only period when inquiry could have detected imposition. On the contrary, we are now certain, that the Gospel miracles were wrought in the presence of enemies, § and thus subjected to the severest scrutiny, and * Matt. ix. 34. xii. 24. Mark iii. 22. Luke xi. 15. and the corresponding passages. + Vide Wagenseil's Tela Ignea Satanæ ; and Lardner's Jewish Testimonies, ch. v. and vii. p. Vide Limborchi Collatio cum Orobio, 3 Script. Judæi, Num. iii. 131. The Author begs leave to refer to a Work published by him in the year 1798, "to prove the Apostles and Evangelists were not Enthusiasts," for a detail of particular circumstances attending the Gospel miracles, chap, i. par ticularly sect. iv. and chap. ii. sect. 1. 1 that they carried with them conviction to multitudes, notwithstanding the fiercest opposition which national prejudice, bigotry and vice could excite, and the strictest research which could be formed by the most vigilant hostility. Undoubtedly the most powerful cause of the rejection of the Gospel by the Jews, was the deplorably vicious and depraved character of the nation at large, so strongly attested by their own historian, and incontrovertibly established by the facts which he relates.* And this depravity, it may be said, disproves every thing I have adduced, to shew that Judaism was designed or adapted to prepare for the reception of the Gospel. But let it be remembered, that notwithstanding this allowed depravity of the Jews in general, it has been proved + that amongst them were preserved the principles of true theology and pure morals, which the Gospel adopts, and which were banished from all mankind beside. Let it be remembered, that amongst them and the various descriptions of persons connected with and enlightened by their religion, the Gospel found its first teachers and hearers, its first converts and missionaries; and that the noblest and purest principles of piety adorned these great instruments, employed by God for dispensing his mercies to mankind-instruments which, through every other region of the world, would have been sought in vain. Finally, let us recollect the great probability that the Gospel attracted, and as it were detached from the Jewish nation every thing pure and pious, candid and virtuous; and left behind the dregs and dross alone, the hypocritical Pharisees, the Epicurean Sadducees, the worldly-minded Herodians, the fierce zealots, the depraved and seditious rabble: thus, according to the intimation of its divine Founder, sifting the chaff from the wheat, separating the tares from the good seed, "gathering the one into his barn, and consuming the other "with fire unquenchable."+ In truth, after the Jewish nation had obstinately rejected the * Messiah, rebelled against his authority, and in opposition to his religion maintained that the perpetual observance of the Mosaic *Vide Josephus's History of the Jewish War, particularly Books iv. v. and vi.; or Lardner's judicious view of his testimony to the fulfilment of our Lord's predictions, in his Jewish Testimonies, ch. iii. + Vide supra, Part II. Matt. iii. 12. xiii. 30. ritual was an indispensable condition of divine acceptance, and their own nation exclusively the chosen people of God; it was indispensably necessary to put an end to their national establishment, and destroy that temple with which the observance of their ritual was essentially connected, in order to maintain the universal sovereignty of the Messiah, in opposition to their rebellion, as well as to prevent all possibility of corrupting Christianity by the adoption of their errors, and of their now bur thensome because useless ceremonies. Whoever observes the struggles of the Judaizing Christians thus to encumber the religion of Christ, and the extreme difficulty with which their efforts were resisted, even by direct revelation and Apostolic authority, in the very first and purest era of the church, will easily perceive the necessity of this precaution, to preserve the purity and extend the dominion of the Gospel; and that in this view, "through the fall of the Jews, salvation is come unto the "Gentiles."* * Romans xi. 11. LECTURE VII. THE PAST AND PRESENT STATE OF THE JEWS EXHIBITS THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF PROPHECY. Evidence from Prophecy applicable to Judaism-Prophecy of Moses-As to the prosperity of the Jews-As to the punishments they were to sufferConsidered in their variety—Their sources-Their duration―The face of their country-These predictions antecedent to the events-Clearly applicable to them-Not such as human wisdom or political sagacity would have dictated-Instanced in the three Jewish Feasts-The Sabbatic YearThe remoteness of their destroyers-The circumstances attending the destruction of Jerusalem-In their subsequent dispersion-In their present state and sufferings. THE delivery and fulfilment of prophecy is so important an evidence of a divine authority, and so clear in the Mosaic revelation, that it has been justly considered a defect in this work, that, in exhibiting the internal evidence for the divine origin of the Jewish religion, it did not advert, except very briefly and incidentally, to this species of proof. To supply this defect, it is intended in this and the next Lecture to exhibit a summary view of the leading principles which predict the fortunes of the chosen people of God; to point out their past accomplishment; consider what expectations, as to the future destiny of this singular people, these prophecies excite; and how far the present circumstances of their situation appear to coincide with these expectations; and to indicate a providential arrangement of human affairs, even now visibly advancing to that great consummation, when, to use the language of the sublime and evangelic Isaiah, "it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be estab"lished in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above "the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many peo"ple shall go Come ye, and let us go up to the moun 66 and say, |