to the Lord to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord to be his servants, every one that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it and taketh hold of my covenant : even them will I bring to my holy mountain and make joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt of ferings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called a house of prayer for all people."

"When so much is said," continues A. " about the conversion of the Jews to Christianity, and nothing is said in the New Testament about their return to Palestine and the supposed distinctions connected with it, it is reasonable to infer that this return and those distinctions form no part of the promised blessings." "What God hath joined together" let not A. for his own sake "put asunder;" for assuredly the return and distinction of Israel are inseparably united. Nor let A. for a moment harbour the thought that the New Testament does not bear testimony to the Old; our Lord having declared that he came not to abolish the law but to fulfil it by his obedience.

In the volume of the book it is written of him "Lo I come to do thy will, O God." Our Lord selects the smallest letter and point in the Hebrew alphabet to show that it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for the minutae of the letter of the Law to be unfulfilled. So far is the New Testament from introducing the new system which prevails, that it refers more than once to the Old. "Ye have a more sure word of prophesy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light which shineth in a dark place, until the day dawns and the day star arise in your hearts."

The pre-eminence which it has pleased God to confer on Israel, ought not to offend those who are their debtors; for if in that electing love the Most High declared

his sovereignty, it will appear that just and righteous is the distinction. For who but they furnished that bountiful table of which all nations are invited to partake without money or price. It appears that divine prescience points to this ill requited munificence, when he says, "surely I will no more give thy corn to be meat for thine enemies; and the sons of the stranger shall not drink thy wine for which thou hast laboured: but they that have gathered it, shall eat it, and praise the Lord: and they that have brought it together shall drink it in the courts of my Holiness."

A., not content with making the New Testament negatively disagree with the Old, intimates that it positively contradicts it; some expressions he says "militate directly against that opinion," viz. of the Jews remaining a separate community. The quotation which he has selected as an especial proof of this is, "other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring and there shall be one fold and one shepherd." If A.'s metaphorizing system allows him to believe these words were pronounced in the literal Jerusalem, where the good shepherd promised to bring his sheep who were then not of that fold, we shall be at no loss to discover the true meaning of his words. Let it be remembered that then the ten tribes of Israel had been absent from that fold for several hundred years, outcast from their own land and people for the sin of idolatry.

To these lost sheep of the house of Israel whom he came to seek and to save, our Lord naturally alludes. To the same promise the prophet refers when he says "they shall be made one nation upon the mountains of Israel, one king shall be king to them all, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more, for they shall all have one shepherd." Well have the

outcasts of Israel and the dispersed of Judah been compared to a flock of sheep whose defence is in their shepherd alone, for how often have the nations fleeced, scattered and slaughtered them without their resisting it. Those gentiles who have befriended Israel in "their cloudy and dark day," are received and included in the flock over which the good shepherd shall preside, and thus shall they be separated from the goats "who have served themselves of them." It is worthy of remark that our Lord's first direct notice of the gentiles is at their judgment, when their friendship or enmity to his brethren becomes the test, by which he judges of their loyalty to him and consequently as was predicted involving their own " blessing," or "curse," which he pronounces. A. greatly mistakes in supposing that the government of God is republican, a notion which his word and works loudly contradict. He equally mistakes in concluding that the apostles were of his opinion, or taught that "under the Christian dispensation those distinctions which formerly existed are done away." The reverse of this is the case; for the apostle, who taught that all are one in Christ where the question of salvation by his blood is concerned, also answers A.'s question, "what advantage has the Jew, &c. ?" by saying rather indignantly, "much every way." And it cannot be doubted that if A. has a household he will have no objection to admit that the man is as much the head of his household now as before the partition wall was broken down. A. pronounces it " decisive that the Jews get the whole amount of their promised blessings when they are brought to an interest in the gospel-on an equal standing with the gentile world." The gospel signifies "good tidings," to the Jew first, and also to the gentile. "Unto you" said the angel "is born in the

city of David, a Saviour, &c." He came "a light to lighten the gentiles," and to be "THE GLORY OF HIS PEOPLE ISRAEL!" It is evident that these good tidings have not as yet been fulfilled to those to whom they were given; and this may explain to what our Lord refered when he said the first shall be last, and the last first. In the divine economy there is no "level;" for while the various orders and degrees of moral and intellectual being, are all shining in their assigned spheres, "each star differs from another in glory."

In the republican form of government to which A. is attached, the feet are at liberty to assert their right of being on a level with the head. But not so in the theocratic to which Israel shall be restored.

Aleph informs us, that the reason why the prophets dwell so much more on the offending points of restoration and national pre-eminence than the apostles, is "because they lived in a darker dispensation,-by which we must infer that the Holy Spirit which spake by both was darker at one period than another. "If," adds he, "any thing of this distinction and pre-eminence had been promised them, why did not Christ grant them as much as the prophets intended, and so remove all needless difficulties to the acceptance of his religion." Strange that A. should, with the scripture in his power, require to be reminded that our Lord during the term of his humiliation, could not give what he had not to bestow; but he promised that when all power and dominion should be given him of the Father, he would "appoint his disciples a kingdom even as his Father had appointed him;" and that they should eat and drink at his table in his kingdom. Had those assurances of pre-eminence which our Lord gave in his parables, removed from the multitude all difficulty to the acceptance of his religion," or in other words prevented that salutary blindness of theirs which afforded an opportunity of access to the gentiles, what would have become of them whose reception is attributed to that defection? But if their rejection of the Lamb of God has been the fortune of the gentiles, what shall the receiving of them by the Lion of the tribe of Judah be? "Life from the dead!" The magnanimity and tenderness of Joseph on the one hand, and the overwhelming surprise and contrition of his brethren on the other, (when he whom they in an evil hour delivered to the Egyptians revealed himself as their saviour and governor,) but faintly intimates the sublimity of that interview which awaits them. Before their illumination by the Spirit, the disciples were unable to bear the whole message of our Lord. Without considering the order of events, &c., they inquired, saying, "Lord wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" Our Lord did not reprove their expectation, which they had received from himself and all the holy prophets since the world began,-but he chid their untimely question. "It is not for you to know the times and the seasons," &c. When, after his resurrection, he joined the sorrowing disciples going to Emmaus, and heard them mingle in their lamentation for the loss of him they loved, the disappointment of their national hope, "having trusted that it was he who should have redeemed Israel," he upbraided them with their ignorance of the scriptures, saying, "O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not Messiah to have suffered these things and then enter into his glory?" which he here identifies with Israel's redemption, which not having yet happened, Messiah has yet to enter into his glory.

A. complacently informs us, (and we know it by woful experience,)

that in the present dispensation

every man may be a priest," and assume the province of teaching others, while themselves have need to be taught the first principle of the oracles of God, which is their immutability; and to this lamentable assumption may be attributed the ever increasing confusion, error, infidelity, and disorder, of Christendom. God forbid that the Jews (as A. wishes) should participate in and increase the confusion of Babel. They would thus experience a separation which the interposing seas and mountains of the whole earth have never effected, consequently their belief instead of becoming, as is promised, a blessing, would prove a double curse. "If," continues A., "preeminence had been promised them, they had a right to claim it, and Christ must have been under obligation to allow it to them, yet he allowed it not, and this shows that it was not promised." The preeminence which our Lord allowed Israel, was no less evident than invariable, and was in no case more striking than in that of the Syrophonecian Greek, whom on that occasion, he considered as the representation of the gentiles. Here A. must be constrained to admit, was evinced an extreme partiality and pre-eminence for his own--but let not A. be offended: rather should he meekly acquiesce in the appointment of God, and instead of grudging the children that bread which they receive from their Heavenly Father, and instead of attempting to pull them down from their seat at his table; let him thankfully take his allotment of the crumbs which they let fall, and like her whose faith and humility our Lord commends let him say, "Truth Lord" and be therewith content,conscious of utter unworthiness for the least of all his mercies. But even this appointment will on due consideration, be found to overflow with righteousness, since from those

who receive more favour, pre-eminent devotion is required. They who believe on him of whom Moses and the prophets did write, (during the term of the blindness of their nation and the probation of the gentiles,) must literally forsake kindred, home, and possessionand as witnesses for scripture truth, and as reprovers of popular error, and hypocritical professors, they must make up their mind to be persecuted by their contemporaries, as their Lord was by his. To them it is said, "whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, cannot be my disciple;" thus they reciprocate their covenant with God by sacrifice. Again to them it is said "Take ye no thought about what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink or wherewithal ye shall be clothed, for after all these things do the gentiles seek; but seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, and these things shall be added unto you." Such men are at a time yet future to seal their testimony to truth and against reigning corruption with their blood -for to the souls under the altar (who are represented as complaining of the delay of retribution to the nations, saying "how long O Holy and true dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on those that dwell on the earth) it was said, that they must wait a little season till their brethren and fellow-servants that should be killed as they were should be fulfilled."

A. thinks as they become real converts to Christianity, they will think more of the heavenly Canaan than on that of earth. What notions A. entertains of a heavenly Canaan not on the earth we are at a loss to conceive, since scripture is silent on the subject of one in heaven. We know that the practice of transferring whatever promises relate to Messiah's kingdom to heaven above, has since the reign of popery been universal, while it has been no less customary to peo1826. No. 10.

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ple that heaven with the highly privileged and orthodox, consigning the ignorant heathen and the blind Jews to everlasting perdition. Now every age and church since the apostolic, having furnished such saints at discretion, (no one sect allowing orthodoxy to another, yet each and all claiming and engrossing it to themselves, we can easily explain how the dragon got into heaven, and why war is there. On his principle, A. must think those Jews who surround the throne far from being "real converts," &c., and still more infatuated than their kinsmen in this lower world: for the burden of their new song of praise is, "Thou hast redeemed us out from all nations, and hast made us unto our God kings and priests, and we shall reign ON THE EARTH." The heaven of the redeemed is where the Redeemer is. Let A. be assured a very different class of characters to those he has been accustomed to raise to heaven shall inherit the renewed earth : "The meek," "the pure in heart," the just," "the peacemakers," "the persecuted for righteousness' sake," shall possess the kingdom of Messiah, and walk in the light of the heavenly Jerusalem, which cometh down out of Heaven, into which the nations of those who are saved bring their glory and honour. Blessed are they who by doing the will of God have a right to partake of the immortality of the tree of Life, and to enter through the gates into the City of the Great King, for without are unbelievers, &c. &c.

If we would know what constitutes the character and blessedness of heaven we must compare scripture with scripture, and then shall we rejoice in believing that Jerusalem, the scene of Messiah's sufferings, shall be the throne of his hard earned glory, where " he shall see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied," and where “ноLINESS TO THE LORD" shall be in