ants, compared with their history and manner of life during a period of nearly four thousand years, would be sufficient. It may, indeed, be pronounced absolutely demonstrative."

4. The next prophecy which I shall notice is that of Isaac concerning his sons. To Jacob he said, "Let people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee: be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother's sons bow down to thee." In the second book of Samuel, it is mentioned, without any allusion to this prophecy, that David put garrisons throughout all Edom, and they of Edom became David's servants."* But Isaac says, also, to Esau, "It shall come to pass, when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck." Now it is related in the same incidental manner as before, in the second book of Kings, after the degeneracy of the kings of Judah, that Edom revolted from the hand of Judah, whose kings were unable any more to bring him into subjection. Thus, in both cases, literally fulfilling the prophecy of Isaac.

5. Passing over the promises made to Jacob, and the fulfilment of the prediction to Abraham, of the 430 years' affliction of his posterity, including their oppression in Egypt, we come to the promises and threatenings delivered by Moses to the children of Israel. A careful comparison of the promises contained in the 26th chapter of Leviticus and the 28th of Deuteronomy, which were made to the Jews, on

* Gen. xxvii, 29. 2 Sam. viii, 14.

† C. Gen. xxvii, 40 w. 2 Kings viii, 20-22.

condition of obedience, with the history of the Jews in the days of Joshua and of the good Judges and Kings, will show a literal fulfilment, so exact that the promise is a fair description of the history; and the same may be said of the threatenings, compared with the subsequent history of the Jews, in the days when they departed from the Lord. But as all have the means of making this comparison for themselves, I shall pass on to compare these prophecies with the history of the Jews, as given by the writers of profane history, together with their present condition.*

It is wonderful to see the exact correspondence of historical facts, both sacred and profane, with these threatenings. But passing over the former, for want of time, let us come down to the later periods of their history. The Romans destroyed their cities and ravaged their country, and the inhabitants who escaped from the famine, the pestilence, and the sword, were forcibly expelled from Judea; and fled as houseless wanderers into all the surrounding regions. But the fugitive and exiled Jews still clung to their native soil; and about sixty years afterwards, so many of them had returned as to be able, under an impostor, who claimed to be the Messiah, to make a vigorous attempt to re-conquer Judea, to cast off the Roman yoke, and rescue themselves and their country from ruin. This war lasted two years; in which, exclusive of many that died of famine, sickness, and

* The reader is requested, before proceeding farther, to read attentively the 26th chapter of Leviticus and the 28th of Deuteronomy

fire, five hundred and eighty thousand Jews are said to have been slain. They were so beset on every side by the Roman soldiers, that very few of them escaped. Fifty of their strong holds were razed to the ground, and their cities sacked and consumed by fire. Judea was laid waste, and left as a desert.

Thus were accomplished the predictions of Isaiah and Jeremiah, who said, "The cities shall be wasted without inhabitant. Every city shall be forsaken, and not a man dwell therein." And in the language of Moses, "They were rooted out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation." A public edict of the Emperor Adrian rendered it a capital crime for a Jew to set foot in Jerusalem; and prohibited him from viewing it even at a distance. Heathens, Christians, and Mohammedans have successively possessed Judea; but the children of Israel have alone been denied the possession of it; and whenever any of them have gone to visit the land of their fathers, they have been more cruelly treated than any where else. Thus has the language of Moses been verified,-"The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high, and thou shalt come down very low."

But Moses proceeds and says, "The Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other." And this prediction was

repeated, in various forms, and greater particularity, by the later prophets. It has been literally fulfilled. It is fulfilling at this present time. They have been dispersed throughout all nations. There is not a country on the face of the earth where the Jews are

unknown. They are found alike in Europe, Asia, America, and Africa. They are citizens of the world, without a country. They abound in Poland, Holland, Russia, and Turkey. In Germany, Spain, Italy, France, and Britain they are more thinly scatterred. In Persia, China, and India, according to the prediction, they are few in number among the heathen. They have trod the snows of Siberia and the sands of the burning desert. From Moscow to Lisbon,-from Japan to Britain,-from Borneo to Archangel,-from Hindostan to Honduras, no inhabitant of any nation upon earth, but a Jew alone, would be known in all the intervening regions. And herein is verified another prophecy of Moses, "And yet, for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly." No other example is known of any nation preserving its identity through such a series of calamities; and the fact that they are yet preserved as a distinct people, is a standing miracle to verify the word of God. "Kings," says one of their historians, "have often employed the severity of their edicts and the hands of the executioner to destroy them,-the seditious multitude have performed massacres more tragical than the princes. They have, from age to age, run through misery and persecution, and torrents of their own blood. But like the bush of Moses, they have burnt without consuming."

The Emperor Constantine, after suppressing an insurrection, raised by some of the Jews, caused their ears to be cut off, and then dispersed them as fugitives into different countries, where they carried these

marks of their suffering and infamy as a terror to their kindred. Justinian abolished their synagogues, prohibited them from entering into caves for their worship, rendered their testimony inadmissible in courts, and deprived them of the natural right of bequeathing their property; and when they resisted such oppression their property was confiscated, and a bloody execution of them followed, so that the historian says, "all the Jews of that country trembled,"-thus employing almost the very words of Moses, "the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind."

In the reign of the tyrant Phocas, a general sedition broke out among them. They were taken captive; many of them maimed; others executed; and all the survivors banished from the city of Rome. Heraclius, unable to satiate his hatred against them, by inflicting a variety of punishments on those who resided within his own diminions, and finally expelling them from his kingdom, stirred up against them a general persecution, from Asia to the farthest extremities of Europe. They fled from country to country, seeking in vain any rest for the sole of their foot. Mohammed, from the very commencement, infused into his followers a hatred of the Jews; and in Mohammedan countries, they have always been persecuted and oppressed. The church of Rome has always treated them as heretics; pronounced excommunication against those who should favor or uphold the Jews against Christians; forbidden Christians to eat or associate with them; prohibited them from holding any offices,-appointed them to be distinguished by a mark, and ordered their children to be