his descendants, was coupled an intimation that their privileges should not for ever be peculiar; a clear intimation that the approaching dispensation was designed for the benefit of mankind through the instrumentality of this one family. "I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee; and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed*." "Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him+." The means by which this blessing to the race was to be administered were not discerned when the promise was given, nor for ages afterwards; but the intimation gave a solemnity to the future, highly salutary, both as it tended to enlarge the views of the expectants and to deepen their interest in their existing institutions. With the lapse of centuries one shade of obscurity after another melted away, and the great national hope assumed a form which became perpetually more definite as your ancestors advanced towards the period of its fulfilment. The cloud of glory on which their expectation rested as they travelled on through the vista of ages unfolded by slow degrees, and revealed the form of one girded with righteousness, sanctified by the spirit of prophecy, one with themselves as truly descended from Abraham and being the servant of God, but greater than themselves, as appointed to establish justice on the earth and to judge many nations. Your prophets were the first to pierce through this bright obscurity and to tell what should be revealed. Your kings were ready to bow the knee to him who reigned in the hopes of every heart. The young measured the space which had yet to be passed over before they who were still unborn should stand around the last and greatest of the prophets; and the aged who expired on the way, pointed onwards to the light which gladdened their dying eyes. There could be no delusion; for the

* Genesis xii. 2-3.

† Ibid. xviii. 18.

voice of the Eternal had spoken the promise in the trance of Abraham and in the thunders of Horeb, whose echoes were prolonged and renewed from age to age. First the expectation was of a blessing; then that this blessing should be given through a servant of God; that this servant of God should be the prince of prophets; that he should be of the offspring of David, a branch of the root of Jesse; that he should complete their dispensation and consummate the work which God wrought upon his peculiar people; and finally, that he should appear at a period to which the tendency of events and the intimations of prophecy pointed so as to establish an agreement in the hopes of almost the whole people.

But while the expectations of the nation were referred to a particular point of time, while all were agreed respecting the lineage of their Messiah and the fullness of his Divine commission, there was no certainty respecting the nature of his kingdom. The hope of your people for many centuries after the captivity was generally of a prince who should establish the nation in glory and peace in their own land; a nation proved to be preeminent in the favour of God by its surpassing power and grandeur. In course of time however, probably about thirteen centuries ago, some of your fathers being unable to reconcile those portions of prophecy which speak of a suffering Messiah with those which promise triumph and peace, conceived the expectation of two Messiahs, who shall succeed each other; the one in a state of humiliation and sorrow, the other in a state of glory and magnificence. This notion, though highly esteemed by many, never became a general or settled belief; but it affords a clear proof that the nature of the Messiah's office was not so clearly defined in prophecy as to justify any previous certainty respecting it; not so clearly as to justify the assumption that in this case alone the expectations of the Hebrew people founded on prophecy must have been absolutely correct previous to the explanation afforded by the fulfilment of the prophecy. The object of these prophecies, as of all others, was not to make the people prophets,

but to fix their attention and prepare them equally for approaching events and for the reception of the all-powerful evidence afforded by the fulfilment of the Divine predictions. It was not more than formerly given to the people at large to see (as the few chosen ones from among them saw) the future in bright and distinct vision: prophecy was still, as before, a dim shadowing forth of things to come, to which it was for God and not for man to give a body, when the fullness of time should be come. In all cases, it was designed that events and their times should be made certainly known by the fulfilment of prophecy, and not by the prophecy itself, which would entirely fail of its object if it could establish any such certainty. Those of your nation, therefore, who entertained a confident expectation that the kingdom of the Messiah would be a magnificent temporal kingdom, went beyond what their former experience of prophecy could warrant, and proved themselves unaware of the doubt which your nation has since acknowledged to exist. The same may be said of any who ventured to decide on the precise point of time when the Messiah was to appear; while the nation was justified in referring their hopes to that century whose approach is well known to have been anxiously watched by the whole people, and in looking for some display of nobler power and greatness than had yet been vouchsafed to the most distinguished messengers of the Supreme.

By an unique manifestation of Providence, by a series of means as remarkable for their wisdom as their singularity, had your nation now been led on to occupy a position in which the eyes of the whole civilized world were fixed upon them, while their own expectation was riveted on the further revelation which was to take place. They saw that all that had been done, however wonderful and however good, was but preparatory to that grand consummation by which their dispensation, which was already relatively perfect, should be made absolutely perfect. In thus believing, they were right: while, respecting other truths evidenced by their position, they were either unobservant or mistaken, for want of the means of surveying

the condition of mankind at large. To us, who can make this survey in the light which subsequent events have cast back upon that age, it is given to discern more respecting the objects of the Mosaic dispensation and its actual influence upon the human race than could be perceived by the recipients of the revelation, even at the advanced period to which they had now arrived.

We have seen that, as all nations originally enjoyed an equality under the general providence of God, so it is designed that all should be ultimately blessed in the results of his special providence towards your nation. The distinction between Israelites and Gentiles was arbitrary and temporary, involving mighty blessings to those who were called to distinction, but having for its ultimate purpose the communication of yet higher benefits to mankind at large. The discipline to which your nation was subjected gave them a firm hold on the grand fundamental doctrine of the Divine Unity, and the equally important conception of a Divine Moral Government; and it was evident to all who observed their fortunes, that by means of these convictions they were led on from the state of ignorance and barbarism, whence they issued to a speedy superiority to all the world in civilization, in temporal advantages and spiritual attainments. While themselves learning, they became teachers to others, proving by the proportion of their fortunes to their deserts that their heavenly Ruler was one, and that he ruled their hearts as well as their state. Some few heathens so highly estimated the preeminence of your nation as voluntarily to subject themselves to the Mosaic Law. Others who declined some of its requisitions, acknowledged its essential doctrines, and worshiped the One God. Many more who made no profession of a pure faith, yet partook of its advantages in the purification of mind and manners, which spread far though faintly from this centre into surrounding countries; and countless multitudes watched with curiosity for what should next befall this peculiar people, who were known to be awaiting a mighty national change. The great harvest of blessings to the race remained, however, to be reaped in after ages, when

the seed which had been so long sown and so gradually matured should yield its fruit without partiality into the hand of every man. The fortunes of your nation were not so instructive while alternating before the eyes of men, or even while pondered in the ominous pause which succeeded to the cessation of prophecy after the captivity, as they have been since; mankind having been slow in recognising and partaking of the spiritual blessings which were originally too vast to be appreciated even by those who possessed them.

The deficiencies which remained were certainly in some degree perceived by them, since they expected a further revelation as a completion of that which they had already accepted. These deficiencies have also been discerned by those of your teachers in any age who have shown that the general direction of your religious worship was against the idolatries which overspread the world when the law was given. By proving this by invincible argument, Maimonides has likewise proved that these religious institutions were not designed for or capable of effecting the improvement of human nature so far as to enable it to attain the supreme good, and that the effect of the law was not to make perfect, but to prepare for the highest means of perfection.

The preparation being made, the completion must soon be given, or the consequences to the spiritual state of the expectants must be disastrous; as they are in every case where a sudden check is given to a gradually accelerated improvement, where a blank pause baffles the activity of the strengthened faculties: and the consequences are the more disastrous, the grander is the consummation looked for, and the more reasonable and active the expectation. These ill effects are analogous to those which arise in children, whose minds have been stirred up and furnished with the elements of knowledge, but are hindered from making further progress. When they have exhausted their materials, they will employ their intellectual activity in trifling with accessories for want of essentials to work upon; they will pursue shadows, reason upon images as facts, and become