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"not lift up fword against nation, neither "shall they learn war any more."

LETTER II.

Of the prefent difperfed and calamitous State of the Jewish Nation.

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Rejoice exceedingly in the prospect of the glorious times announced in the prophecy quoted in my last letter, times fo glorious for you, and fo happy for all the world, and I trust that God is now difpofing things in the course of his providence, fo as to haften their approach. But affure yourselves that till fome obftacle, now exifting, be removed by yourselves, those times of honour and profperity to your nation cannot come, The promises of God are fure. "He is a "God of truth and without iniquity, juft "and right is he," Deut. xxxii. 4. And as furely as he threatened to expel you from

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the Land of Canaan for your difobedience, and has executed his threatenings in the moft dreadful manner, fo furely will he fulfil his promise to restore you to it again, when you' return to your obedience. But this is the indifpenfable condition of his favour, Attend to the word of God by Moses.

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Deut. xxx. 1, &c. And it fhall come to pafs, when all these things are come upon thee, the bleffing and the curfe which I

have fet before thee, and thou fhalt call them to mind, among all the nations whither the Lord thy God hath driven thee, • and shalt return unto the Lord thy God, and fhalt obey his voice, according to all that I commanded thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thy heart, and with • all thy foul; that then the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compaffion upon thee, and will return, and gather thee from all the nations, whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee. If any of thine be driven out unto the utmost $ parts of heaven, from thence will the Lord thy God gather thee, and from thence will

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'he fetch thee. And the Lord thy God will

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bring thee unto the land which thy fathers

poffeffed, and thou shalt poffefs it, and he ⚫ will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers. And the Lord thy God will

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• circumcife thine heart, and the heart of thy feed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy foul, that ' thou mayest live.'

Your prefent difperfed and calamitous fituation is certainly a proof that you are at this very time under the divine displeasure. Otherwise his hand would not be fo heavy upon you. Examine then impartially what is the real cause of it, and make it your bufinefs to remove it. The chief caufe of God's displeasure against you in former times, was your falling into idolatry of this you were effectually cured by the Babylonish captivity. But another cause was the obstinacy and incredulity with which your ancestors were charged, when they were called a stiffnecked and rebellious generation, disobedient to the prophets whom God from time to time fent to them.

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It is with reluctance that I bring these things to your remembrance, and only from a principle of fincere good-will to you. How many prophets of God were cruelly treated, and cut off, by your forefathers, as your scriptures teftify? But their descendants repented of this, as we read in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, where you have an excellent pattern of national humiliation for national fins, and an account of the return of God's favour in confequence of it.

Bear with me, I intreat you, if, on this occafion, I remind you of a ferious warning given you by Chrift, which at the fame time shows his prophetic fpirit, and the true cause of your present sufferings. It was delivered in your temple, a few days before his death, Matt. xxi. 23, &c. "There

was a certain houfholder, who planted a "vineyard, and hedged it round about, and

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digged a wine-prefs in it, and built a

tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and "went into a far country. And when the "time of the fruit drew near, he fent his " fervants

"fervants to the husbandmen, that they

might receive the fruits of it. And the "husbandmen took his fervants, and beat 66 one, and killed another, and ftoned an"other. Again, he fent other fervants, more than the firft, and they did unto "them likewife. But laft of all he fent

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unto them his fon, faying, They will "reverence my fon. But when the huf"bandmen faw the fon, they faid among

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themselves, This is the heir, come, let us

"kill him, and let us feize on his inherit66 ance. And they caught him, and cast "him out of the vineyard, and flew him. "When the Lord therefore of the vine

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yard cometh, what will he do unto those "husbandmen ? They" (that is, your Scribes and Pharifees, before whom he delivered this remarkable parable) "fay unto "him, He will miferably destroy those "wicked men, and will let out his vine

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yard to other husbandmen, who shall "render him the fruits in their feasons." --Our Saviour afterwards added (ver. 43) "Therefore the kingdom of God fhall be

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