shall be exalted to heaven, or exceedingly honored for their wisdom, piety, and labors. From ministers so peculiarly endowed with the spirit of faith and love, we may expect a success in the propagation of the gospel, correspondent to the prophesies concerning the latter day's glory of the church. The work at first will, of course, be arduous and slow, but having once obtained, the "handful of corn" will multiply to an abundant harvest, Psalm lxxii.

VIII. The missionaries will not have proceeded far with their work among the heathens, before God will afford his church extraordinary consolation and aid by the call and conversion of the Jews. All their hopes are founded upon prophesy, and from prophesy alone will they receive conviction. Whenever they have a prospect, that the Gentile world will receive the faith of Christ, they will perceive that providence is about to establish the Christian expositions of those prophesies, and to refute the expositions of their rabbins. To evidence, so divine and strong, they cannot but acquiesce, and shame to be the last to do homage to their king. Hitherto this work has been obstructed by the immorality of the Christian world. But being wearied, on the one hand, with their misguided expectations of a temporal Messiah, and perceiving, on the other, the success of the gospel among the heathen, their ancient prejudices will vanish. The veil, which is upon their hearts, when Moses and the prophets are read, shall be taken away. They will see their scriptures full of this important truth, that the Messiah was to be "cut off, and his soul made an of fering for sin, before he was to see his seed, to prolong his days, and before the pleasure of the Lord was to prosper in his hand," Isa. liii.

The dispersion of the Jews, and their preservation, as a distinct people, exhibit a grand and instructive scheme of providence. According to the prediction of Moses, they are scattered on the face of the whole earth, from under one end of heaven to the other,

f. xxviii. 64. They have rejected the prophet of

whom he spake, and therefore the Lord hath cut them off from the land which he gave to their fathers. They demonstrate, among all nations, the sad consequences of making light of the gospel, and rejecting the Messiah. But the judgments of God have mercy for the object. The tedious winter shall be succeeded by a reviving spring. When "the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled," they shall return to their own land, and the Gentiles shall become his own people. "If they abide not still in unbelief, God is able to graft them in again. Blindness, in part, is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved in the day of the Lord," Rom. xi. 25, 26.

From the manner in which God has preserved his ancient people, we cannot but think, he designs them to contribute their share in the establishment of his kingdom of righteousness. Resident or wandering among all commercial nations, and perfectly acquainted with their habits, religions, and languages, they want but "the residue of the Spirit," to constitute them an army of missionaries. Their situation is peculiarly happy for promoting the conversion of many nations on the shores of Asia and Africa. When that is the case," Ethiopia," the country of black people, shall soon stretch out her hands unto God," Psal. Ixviii. 31. Of this we may be confident, that whenever it shall please the Almighty to pour out his Spirit upon his servants and hand-maidens, the Jews, their sermons will not be luke-warm, but animating and powerful, like those of St. Paul. The whole Christian church will be revived by the work, and filled with acclamations of joy and thanksgiving. "If the casting away of Israel were the reconciling of the world" by the conversion of the Gentiles, "what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead?" Rom. xi. 15.

IX. Whenever the Jews shall return to the Lord, the Lord will return to them, and restore them to their own country, which he hath sworn to give them for

an everlasting possession. It is apparent from the sixteenth chapter of the Revelation, that during the later period of the papal empire, God shall pour out the seven vials of his wrath upon the wicked. Five of these, it is presumed by our best writers, have already been poured out. The sixth is to fall on the Euphrates; that is, on the Mahometan empire; and it will probably open the way for the Jews to return to their land. Be that as it may, when the time is come, it will be easy with God to raise up some Cyrus to patronize their return.

The conversion of the heathen, and the call of the Jews, are associated together by several of the sacred writers. "In that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people: to it shall the Gentiles seek, and his rest shall be glorious. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the isles of the sea. And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth," Isa. xi. 10, 11, 12. The people being visited in their dispersion with the blessing of the gospel, shall joyfully return to their own land, and accomplish all those glorious things which are spoken of the city of God. They shall collect their vast treasures of gold, silver, and merchandize, and shall return, accompanied with artificers, to build the city and temple of the Lord, Isa. Ix. 10. They shall worship him with sacrifices, peace-offerings, and thanksgivings, as described by Ezekiel the prophet, xl. to xlviii. Some shall return by land, and floods of difficulties shall flow back to give them passage. Others shall return by sea: the ships of Tarshish shall bring God's sons from afar, and his ughters from the ends of the earth. 66 They shall and come to Zion with singing, and everlast

ing joy shall be upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away," Isa. xxxv. 8. See also Isai. ii. 2, 3, 4. xxxii. xvi. 14, 15, 16.

These glorious predictions are totally inapplicable to the return of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity, because it was not connected with the conversion of the Gentiles, and they did not return from the ends of the earth. The people were not all righteous: for the most part they were extremely wicked. Their peace was not uninterrupted, and their city and temple were in no sense an eternal excellency. Indeed, they had very little peace; and last of all, the Romans destroyed both their city and temple. All these interesting events remain as yet unaccomplished; or else the long established rules of interpreting the prophesies must be wholly given up.

The difficulties of the work are assuredly very great, but not too great for omnipotence. Having begun a divine work in the earth, he will not leave it half finished but carry it on to the day of Christ. The age

of righteousness shall surely succeed the ages of wickedness. His work shall be revived, and his gospel propagated with a power which shall bid defiance to the sneers of infidelity, and the wide influence of hoary idolatry. "Every valley shall be exalted, every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the crooked places shall be made straight, and the rough places plain; and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it," Isa. xl. 4, 5. "All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord, and all the kindred of the nations shall worship before thee. For the kingdom is the Lord's, and he is the governor in all the earth," Psalm xxii. 27, 28. The crea

tion itself, made subject to the vanity of idols, shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God, Rom. viii. 21. Surely those engaged in the divine work cannot want support for their faith.

But reason also, detached from revelation, affords now a brighter prospect than it afforded at any former period, that the religion of Jesus shall become the religion of the world. It is so benevolent in principle, so simple and sublime in its worship, so glorious in its expectation, and so well adapted to the present state of man, as to harmonize every moral difficulty, to captivate every candid inquirer, and to confound every system of error and idolatry. Indeed, if we except the apostate ages of the church, nothing as yet could ever resist effectively its beauty and force. It brought destruction on the Jews, by their wilful blindness; it captivated the enlightened Greeks; it softened the ferocious Romans; and converted the barbarous nations who once inhabited the north of Europe. Among the polished Chinese, it carried all before it, until the idolaters opposed its progress by the sword. Hence, from past experience, and from the success of present feeble essays, little doubt can be entertained, if a well conducted mission was established in every pagan nation, the time would fast approach when "the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our God, and of his Christ."

X. But let us rejoice with trembling; for in that eventful day, God will awfully punish the unbelieving world. There is scarcely a text, which speaks of the kingdom of Christ, but it either expresses, or implies, something concerning the destruction of the wicked. When he shall take the heathen for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession, he will destroy his enemies, as a potter's vessel is broken with a rod of iron, Psalm ii. nation that will not serve thee shall be destroyed; yea, it shall be utterly wasted away," Isa. lx. 12. "In those days shall be affliction, such as was not since the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be any more. Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your heart be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and with the

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~ of this life, and so that day come upon you una