SECTION V. Israel's repentance and mourning, for their sin in rejecting the true Messiah.—God's mercy vindicated from obloquy in their restoration. WHEN we reflect upon the wisdom and power of God, as they are displayed in his works of grace, we are still more at a loss to give a tolerable account of them, than when we contemplate the same attributes, as they are employed in his works of nature. Most wonderful are the facts that we meet with in the spiritual history of the jews. It is a great mystery that so untractable and stiff-necked a people, should have been chosen, before all the families upon earth, to come near to God himself; and have been made use of, contrary to their own intentions, and their prejudices, to be the enlighteners of the world by their va rious dispersions, and thus to make the neces sary preparation for the light of the gospel to flow in upon the gentiles, whom they hated; while they themselves were cast out into outer darkness, and still continue in unbelief!-In the midst of so many contradictions to probability, we are not to be surprised, that so large a portion of the prophetic page has been oc cupied with the future fortunes of this remarkable people; since we find the reconciliation of them is considered, both by the evangelical writers and the prophets, as the principal hinge upon which the great events of the last times will turn, and as the introduction of a long season of happiness to the world, a sabbath of rest to the servants of God.-I proceed to cite some farther evidences, that the reconciliation of the jews will be attended with a literal and actual re-settlement of that people in Palestine; and will not consist merely in a figurative return to the mystical Zion, or the true Church, by their conversion to the faith of Christ. The great circumstantiality of the prophet's in describing this second Exodus, in which, as in the first, none shall be left behind, not even those in a condition unfit for long travel; evinces that it shall be accomplished with the sympathy and assistance of the christian powers, or else, with a succour of such a nature from above, as shall enable them to set all opposition at defiance. "Behold! I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth. And with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child, and her that travaileth with child together, a great company shall return thither. They shall come with WEEPING, and with SUPPLICATIONS will I lead them. I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters." (Their being deprived of the waters of life, in their melancholy captivity, had been the distinguishing feature of it, and its chief misery and disgrace.)—" In a strait way, wherein they shall not stumble: for I am father to Israel, and Ephraim is my first * Isaiah lxvi. 20, born. Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations! and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, he that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him as a shepherd does his flock." (Jer. xxxi. 8.) The holy prophet here lifts up his voice to the people yet unborn,* and to the nations far remote from Judea, that they should attend to the will of God respecting his elect, and do their endeavour to promote the accomplishment of it, in its season. The remainder of this chapter is to the same effect. Verse 18, the prophet shews the becoming sense of Ephraim for his early infidelities, and his deep contrition for the sin of his unbelief in the last times. His confession of the justice of God in his punishment,-and his humble supplication to Christ for grace and power to turn to him, whom he now acknowledges for the Lord his God.-Verse 20, 21, shews God's relenting remembrance of his former favor to Israel, and the returning of his com Psalm lxxviii. 6. T passion upon his repentance :-his call to his dispersed people, to return to their former cities, adding at the same time a deserved reproach to them, for their inattention to the clear prophecies of their Messiah; and particularly that most remarkable one, of his miraculous conception and birth of a virgin mother which instead of being a strong evidence for christianity, has been to the jews a stumbling block additional to the offence of the cross. The prophet Zechariah speaks in similar terms, of the great and general change of sentiments, which will one day be expressed, in the most public manner, by the whole nation of the jews." I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications, and they shall look on ME whom they have pierced." He who spake by the prophets, the Lord Jehovah, the God of Israel, is the same whom the jews in the blind |