of the Spirit is with Him, and it will be bestowed in answer to believing, earnest, importunate, persevering prayer. Oh then pray-pray without ceasing, that the salvation of Israel may come out of Zion.

If I thought you could need any further stimulus, I would call on you to remember the days of old, when Israel was holiness to the Lord, the first fruits of his increase, at the time when God left all nations, our own fathers among them, to walk in the way of their own hearts. How bright was then the beauty over whose departure for a time-for a long timebut only for a time, we mourn! He showed not such favour to any nation, for they had not known his judgments. Think on all the exalted privileges conferred on them by him who had mercy on them-the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, Think that theirs are the fathers; and greatest of all, that of them, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all blessed for ever. Think of our obligations to them. When we were poor aliens they thought of us, they prayed for us: "We have a little sister, and she hath no breasts; what shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for?" Cant. iii. 8. "God be merciful unto us, and bless us; may he cause his face to shine upon us, Selah. That thy way may be known upon the earth, thy salvation among all (heathen) nations. Let peoples praise thee, O God, let peoples praise thee-all of them. Let communities rejoice and sing glad songs: for thou shalt peoples judge with equity, and communities on earth, thou shalt conduct them, Selah." Psal. lxvii. 1-5. Into their olive tree we have been ingrafted, and partake of the root and fatness: on the skirts of a Jew we hang for life everlasting. Salvation is of the Jews. Think of the benefit still in prospect for ourselves, to whom the receiving of them shall be as life from the dead. And think, above all, on the pleasure of the Lord prospering in Messiah's hand. Oh! what shall be the delight with which her Maker, her husband, shall receive back again his adulterous, his

penitent spouse: when he who is a father to Israel shall welcome home his wandering sons, who were dead and are alive again, who were lost and are found! He will rejoice over Jerusalem with singing; he will rest in his love. And never shall they stray from their home. "He will not turn away from them to do them good; and will put his fear in them, that they shall not depart from him." Jer. xxxii. 40.

"Return, O Lord, return to the ten thousands of Israel." "Hear me, O Adonai, hear me, that this people may know that thou art Adonai God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again."

364

LECTURE X.

GOD'S DEALINGS WITH NATIONS ILLUSTRATED IN THE HISTORY OF HIS DEALINGS WITH THE JEWS.

BY THE REV. JAMES GIBSON, A. M.,
MINISTER OF KINGSTON PARISH, GLASGOW.

Who would not fear thee, O King of nations? for to Thee doth it appertain.-JEREMIAH x. 7.

So far am I from adopting, what with many seems to be received as an undoubted maxim, though couched in different phrase, that religion has nothing to do with the affairs and government of nations, and that the church of Christ is utterly dissociated from all such concerns, that I believe the sentiment to be no less unreasonable than it is impious: and that it is no more a compliment to religion, to imagine it too spiritual and heavenly a thing to be mixed up with the affairs of nations, than is the sentiment of Epicurus honouring to the supreme God-that he is too exalted to concern Himself about the affairs of this earth."The instant," says the celebrated English dissenting minister Foster, in strong irony, "The instant we begin to make the judicial application of its laws to the public conduct of the governing authorities, that instant we debase Christianity to politics; and a pious horror is testified at the profanation. Christianity is to be honoured somewhat after the same manner as the Lama of Thibet. It is to stay in its temple, to have the proprieties of homage duly preserved within its precincts, but to be exempted (in reverence of its sanctity!) from all cognizance of great public affairs, even in the points where they most involve its interests. But Christianity must have leave to decline the

compliment. As to its sacred character, it can venture that, on the strength of its intrinsic quality, and of its own guardianship, while in a censorial capacity, it steps on what will be called political ground. It is not so demure a thing that it cannot, without violating its consecrated character, go into the exercise of this judicial office. And as to its right to do so, either it has a right to take cognizance now of the manner in which the spirit and measures of states and their regulations bear upon the most momentous interests, or it will have no right to be brought forward as the supreme law, for the final award upon those proceedings and those men." And here I cannot help quoting, as the unsophisticated dictate of christianized reason, the saying of the Queen of Raiatea, one of the South Sea Islands, lately converted to Christianity, as related in Williams' Missionary Enterprises, p. 349. "At this time (beginning of 1832) the parliament met; for since they have been brought under the influence of Christianity, the representative form of government has been adopted. On this occasion, and before the members proceeded to business, they sent a message to the queen to know upon what principles they were to act. She returned a copy of the New Testament, saying, 'Let the principles contained in that book be THE FOUNDATION OF ALL YOUR PROCEEDINGS.' May it not be said that this' Queen of the South shall rise up in judgment against many of the men of this generation, and shall condemn them?'

But it is time to inquire, as my subject directs, what light God's dealings with the Jews throw on his dealings with nations generally. The question opens a field no less vast than important. It involves the highest principles and the most extensive conse quences. It would require greatly more time than I have been able to give, or than you could now spare, for its discussion. I shall only be able to give a few general principles, or outlines of the subject; and I must warn you that you are not to expect either exciting or entertaining details that may while away a

passing hour. Were this all, I should consider our time very uselessly, and worse than uselessly, spent. But if I obtain your patient attention, I do not despair of setting before you some deeply important and interesting truths.

As the foundation of all our subsequent remarks, it is necessary to determine whether, and how far, the Old Testament is a rule of faith and manners to usfor it is one of the fearful fruits of the disorganizing principles of the present day, that this is not only called into doubt, but openly denied.

One would imagine, from the very nature and perfections of God, "of whom and through whom and to whom are all things;" who seeth the end from the beginning, and is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, and of whose throne justice and judgment are the habitation; whose knowledge, power, and rule, extend from the archangel to the insect, embracing at one and the same moment, and under one and the same influence and energy, the vast universe; undistracted by multitude, unoverwhelmed by vastness, unremoved by distance in time and space, that the principles of his moral government in one age, or with one people, would be alike applicable to another age and to another people; that the thrones and dominions on earth would be bound to recognize and honour him equally with the principalities and powers in heavenly places-and that, so far from there being any thing so exclusive or so peculiar in the great religious and moral principles of the Jewish theocracy, whatever there might be in its outward types and forms, as to afford no lessons and to involve no principles applicable to other nations or other orders of being, on the contrary, the whole universe is one vast theocracy-God being its origin, support, spring, and end. And therefore Sir Richard Blackmore, on the origin of civil power, nobly says, "That all the different kingdoms of the world are just so many parts or provinces of the Divine monarchy or empire, and bear the same relation to it, that the several cities, provinces, or counties, belong