attention when it stands alone. It is more curious to light upon intimations that, in the sixteenth century, the theology of Switzerland inclined to the same view which had been put forward by Cæsarius. But this state of opinion did not last. Benedictus Aretius, a very eminent ecclesiastic of Berne, who died in A.D. 1574, gave in his adhesion to the general interpretation of the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romansa circumstance noted by Estius in his commentary, with evident pleasure and satisfaction.' Had the life of Estius been prolonged, he might have found that Protestants were more than willing to agree with him in this respect. Vitringa even treats with some roughness those who ventured to dissent from a belief so apparently well founded. Of two distinguished men whom he thus condemns, viz. Hammond and Lightfoot, it may be observed that the former is not consistent with himself, for he follows the usual mode of understanding Romans xi.; while the latter reasons from abstract considerations, of no great force in themselves, and in a question of this nature absolutely valueless. For surely to say, as Lightfoot does, that the Jews of our Lord's time sinned against such light as shall never appear to their eyes again,'' is a pure assumption-an assumption, moreover, which, even if proved, would not meet the requirements of the case. Who, but One above, can judge whether any nation or any human being may deserve a fresh probation, or the contrary? If such were the common line of argument on that side, we can hardly wonder at Vitringa's language: Atqui 'dari et esse tantum bonum in promissis Ecclesiæ, quis inficias eat post clarissimam Apostoli doctrinam? Certè quicunque 'tentaverint hactenus, inter quos Lightfootus et Hammondus, 'infeliciter sunt exsecuti.'3 6 6 We proceed to state the arguments (in our judgment much more forcible) in favour of eventual conversion. It may be that some particular passages of Holy Scripture which have been alleged upon this side will appear, to an impartial critic, as unavailing as those which have been already alluded to upon the negative view of the question. In patristic and medieval 1 This circumstance is so little suspected, that it seems worth while to quote the passage. Quod adeo clarum apparet ex serie sermonis apostoli, ut etiam sectariorum quidam non infimi nominis theologus, Benedictus Aretius, evidentiâ hujus loci convictus, apertissimè fateatur ac doceat in suo commentario generalem futuram Judæorum in fine mundi conversionem, ita ut major pars eorum tunc viventium agnitura sit Christum suum. Quam rem etiam subjunctâ ad Deum oratione prosequitur.'-Estius in D. Pauli Epist. (tom. i. p. 173.) Ed. Duaci, A. D. 1614. own quaint divine, Thomas Fuller, concludes his, 'Pisgah-view of Palestine,' with a like prayer. Our 2 Sermon at St. Mary's, Cambridge, Works, vol. ii. p. 1123, Ed. London, A. D. 1684. In another place (vol. i. p. 375), he speaks more guardedly upon the subject. 3 Vitringa in Jesaiam, cap. xi. v. 11, (tom. i. p. 442, Ed. Herborna, A. D. 1715.) 6 writings we find the Jewish nation regarded as the great collective Cain, who had shed the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel.' And even as the blood of Abel cried unto God from the ground, and he became 'a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and as the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him ;' so these, too, who had slain their brother, the true Abel, were to wander forlorn over the globe-marked, set aside, rejected from the presence of the Lord.' The language of the fifty-ninth Psalm was, as we shall see, continually applied to them.' But not in its threats alone: the words which, in our Bible version, say that they return at evening' (in the Vulgate, convertentur ad vesperam) were ever borne in mind, and referred to as a ground of hope for that unhappy race before the coming of the final night. Now those who care little for types and analogies may pass by the similitude of Cain, and may argue, not without some show of reason, that the quotation from the Psalmist is violently severed from its context. But there is all imaginable difference between the use of figures and allusions to complete, to enforce, and to illustrate, and the employment of the same things as self-sufficing proofs and a primary basis of argument. And here the appeal lay first to those inspired declarations which look clear and evident. To cite two only out of a crowd of such testimonies: Afterward shall the children of Israel return ' and seek the Lord their God and David their king; and shall 'fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days.' 'I would ' not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved." The opinions of commentators upon these and kindred promises we defer for the moment, and leave the sacred words to speak for themselves. 2 There are many to whom it would seem accordant with the analogy of the divine announcements respecting the future, that the spoken prophecy should be accompanied with an acted prophecy or type. If Cain, the first murderer; Canaan, accursed of his father; Hagar, cast out for her mocking; Miriam, shut out from the camp; be all as images of the unbelieving people,3 is there none among the saints of the elder covenant 1 S. Aug. Enarr. in Psalm. lviii. (our lix.) Ibid. in Psalm. xl. (xli.) S. Bernard, Epist. 363. See, too, Mr. Trench's note on these words of a hymn by Adam of S. Victor (Sacred Latin Poetry, p. 146) : : Quia regem peremerunt, Rei regnum perdiderunt: Vitringa on Isaiah 1. 1, 2, (tom. ii. p. 704.) upon whom we may cast our eyes as the pledge of better things to come? Yes, there is one such figure-a type, as it seems to us, of peculiar beauty and significance. There is a patriarch in whose career great writers of all ages-a Chrysostom, a Pearson, a Pascal-have delighted to trace the history of their Lord. Sold to the Midianites, slandered and condemned, though innocent; in prison between two offenders, of whom one is pardoned and one condemned; freed in the third year after two years of captivity; exalted to the right hand of Pharaoh, his wrongs the means of preserving life to others; in these and in other details men have long been brought to see the portraiture of the betrayed, the crucified, the risen and ascended Lord. It has not been, perhaps, so frequently observed, that it was through the homage paid to Joseph by the heathen that his guilty brethren were brought to bow before him, and that he again made himself known to them.' And shall not the ever-widening circle of pagan acknowledgment of Him whom his brethren after the flesh betrayed, bring them likewise in the fulness of time to kneel to him with prayer and praise; and the order of Simeon's prophetic words be literally preserved, the Lord's Christ' being first a 'light to lighten the Gentiles,' and then, in a fuller sense than ever, the glory of his people Israel?' The confident feeling of the fathers will be shown by the passages to be hereafter cited in connexion with the second branch of our inquiry. It is true, that no strength of conviction on this head would justify men in counting upon this event as a sure warning of the judgment-day; for (as a great theologian, Dean Jackson' reminds us) it might please the Almighty that such conversion should be sudden, and leave no interval for preparation on the part of those who witnessed it. But taking into account the prima facie meaning of holy writ-the sanction given to such understanding of its meaning by the wise and good in all ages of the Church of Christ, the absence of weighty counter arguments or any names of high authority-it is no exaggeration to assert that there is not a point of belief concerning the future, without the boundaries of the Creeds, which has stronger claims upon the acceptance of a Christian man. We now turn to the second portion of our subject-the temporal prospects of the Jewish race. There exists, as has been said, a school of interpretation which teaches that the Jews shall again become a nation, and enjoy the blessings of 1 It is mentioned by Jones of Nayland, in his well-known little Book of Nature; and in the notes to a recent translation of Genesis by the Rev. J. Jervis. We do not know who first called attention to the point. 2 Comment. on the Creed, (vol. i. p. 153, Ed. Lond, ▲. D. 1673.) freedom and prosperity in the Holy Land. Whether their conversion to Christianity shall be contemporaneous with this event, or prior, or subsequent to it, is a point on which there may, naturally enough, be differences of opinion; but the prevalent view among the interpreters referred to we believe to be, that the restoration to Palestine will precede, and the conversion follow very speedily. Now if these events, in their leading features at least, be written in the Word of God, it is enough, once and for all cadit quæstio. No abstract considerations, no apparent difficulties in the sight of man, can be accounted of the slightest weight in this; as in all things we ought to be fully persuaded that what He has promised He is able also to perform.' But if there be any room for doubt as regards the right understanding of His promises and certainly religious and learned men have greatly doubted the correctness of this interpretation of them-it may then be perfectly lawful to enter upon any reverent course of reflection which may tend to throw light upon the probable meaning of these prophecies. (a.) That there is no necessary connexion in the nature of things between the acceptance of Christianity and a particular habitation upon earth, will, of course, be universally admitted. We are not, as the Syrians of old, believers in gods of the hills and gods of the valleys: we do not seek, with the woman of Samaria, a mount Gerizim whereon to worship. The religion of the true Prophet knows no Mecca; His Gospel, though beginning at Jerusalem,' never summons the believers to the local Zion. On the contrary, it is the very glory of that society, which is built upon Him as its corner-stone, that it utterly repudiates such distinctions, that it is essentially universal, Catholic; that it strives to become all things to all men ;' that 'there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free; but Christ is all and in all.' But however fully these truths may be granted, we would fain ask whether they are thoroughly borne in remembrance and always duly weighed in their bearings upon the case before us? Do they harmonise best with a literal or with a spiritual fulfilment of the hopes held out to Judaism? (b.) In close connexion with these ideas stands the received interpretation of the vision vouchsafed to Nebuchadnezzar. If the holy Daniel interpreted it, as most men think, to mean the four great empires of ancient heathendom, Assyria and Persia, Greece and Rome, and if the image representing them vanished away before the stone cut out without hands,' may not this be a hint, not, indeed, that the Almighty does not as ever rule in the kingdom of men, and give it to whomsoever He will; but that we as Christians are to be less concerned with the fate and fall of kingdoms, since that great one has been set up which shall never be destroyed, but stand for ever? May not sympathy for that outcast race be in danger of recalling our thoughts from the spiritual to the earthly, from the manna to the fleshpots, if we insist on associating the idea of territorial possessions and national eminence to their hoped-for reception of those better blessings which are not for time, but for eternity? 1 6 (c.) Again, it is well known that this view of the promises is the one adopted by the Jews. Hanc opinionem origine Judaicam esse inter omnes constat,' says a learned German of a kindred theory. Can this circumstance be esteemed a recommendation? That people, so singularly infelicitous in divining the real meaning of the voices of their prophets, that they fulfilled them and perceived not what they did; that people, to whom the birth in Bethlehem and the slaughter of the innocents, the miracles, and the triumphal entry, the death with the malefactors, and the burial by Joseph, brought no thought of what had been foretold by Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and Zachariah; that people, who have oftentimes accepted as the Christ the most wretched impostors, like Barchochebas, while when Moses is read the vail is upon their heart;' is it to them that we are to look for suggestions respecting the true sense of the seers of old? They pray indeed in all their services that they may regain the land of their forefathers, and such a prayer may well accord with the spirit of the elder covenant. For the righteous to be blessed in the city and blessed in the field,' was then a part of the dispensation of the Almighty; to die without passing the Jordan was a grievous chastisement to their great Lawgiver. But are these blessings of like value in that newer kingdom, wherein the Cross precedes the Crown, alike for the Head and for the Members? Is the possession of the earthly Canaan, to a Christian eye, so very vast a prize, so worthy a fulfilment of the royal promises of Him who is the King of kings? Glorious, and full of poetry in its highest sense, as was the position of Moses on Mount Pisgah, yet must not its splendours grow dim and fade away before the marvels in which he shared on Mount Tabor? It was natural for him, while on earth, to mourn the loss of Canaan; could he, if it may be said with reverence, now desire it for the people whom he led? (d.) Although we are taught that Israel is the first-born son of God, yet it follows from this that other nations are also sons, and so the objects of His fatherly care; and therefore the 1 Otto, note to S. Justin Martyr, Dial. cum Tryph. § 80, (tom. ii. p. 276.) 2 Exodus iv. 22. |