the fulness of the joy, that so it might be the safer.

The severe judgments spoken of in this chapter, declare also another great law of God's providence, that" to whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required." It was because the Israelites were God's redeemed people, because he had borne them on eagles' wings, and brought them to himself; because he had made known to them his will, and promised them the possession of a goodly land, flowing with milk and honey: it was for these very reasons that their punishment was to be so severe, if they at last abused all the mercies which had been shown to them. For theirs was to be no sudden destruction, to come upon them and sweep them away for ever: it was a long and lingering misery, to endure for many generations; like the bush which burned, but was not consumed. We know that Ammon, and Amalek, and Moab, that Assyria and Babylon, have long since utterly perished; the three former, indeed, so long ago, that profane history does not notice them; its beginnings are later than their end. But Israel still exists as a nation, however scattered and degraded : they have gone through for ages a long train of oppressions, visited on them merely because they were Jews. Nay, even yet the end is not: however much their condition is bettered, still, taking them the world through, they have even now much

to bear; their hope is still deferred, and as far as their national prospects are concerned, the morning dawns on them with no comfort, the evening descends upon them and brings no rest.

This is one remarkable part in their history; and there is another which I think deserves notice. It is declared in this twenty-eighth chapter of Deuteronomy, that amongst the other evils which the Israelites should suffer for disobedience, they should endure so long a siege from their enemies, as to suffer the worst extremities of famine. "The tender and delicate woman among you that would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil towards the husband of her bosom, and towards her son, and towards her daughter." Now it is remarkable that this has in fact befallen them twice over. Of the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, we have indeed no particulars given; it is only said, in general terms, that after the city had been besieged for eighteen months, the famine prevailed in it, and there was no bread for the people of the land; so that the king and all the fighting men endeavoured to escape out of the town, as the only resource left them. But of the second siege, by Titus and the Romans, we have the full particulars from Josephus, a Jew, who lived at the time, and had the best authority for the facts which he relates. And he mentions it, as a

horror unheard of amongst Greeks or barbarians, that a mother, named Mary, the daughter of Eleazar, from the country beyond Jordan, was known to have killed her own child for her food, and to have publicly confessed what she had done. Now we know that the horrors of war have been felt by many nations; but such an extremity of suffering occurring twice in the course of its history, and under circumstances so similar, as in the two sieges of Jerusalem, there is hardly another nation, so far as I am aware, that has experienced.

Indeed, the history of the calamities of the last siege of Jerusalem, as they are given by Josephus, are well worthy of our attentive consideration. Not that in general there is any good to be gained by reading stories of horror; but in this case the value of the lesson overpays its painfulness: it is a full comment on our Lord's words, when he turned to the women who were weeping as he was bearing his cross to Mount Calvary, and bade them "not to weep for him, but to weep for themselves and for their children." It explains why they should indeed, in those days, say to the mountains, "fall on us," and to the hills, "cover us;" how, unless those days had been shortened, there could have been indeed no flesh saved. Eleven hundred thousand Jews perished in the course of the siege, by the sword, by pestilence, or by famine. I do not believe that the history of the world contains

any record of such a destruction, within so short a time, and within the walls of a single city. A number of persons equal to the population of London, in the largest sense of the term, and taking in many of the most populous parishes of the neighbourhood, was crowded together within limits far narrower than those of London, and all perished. In fact, the population crowded together in Jerusalem was much greater than this; for besides these eleven hundred thousand, ninetyseven thousand were taken prisoners; and these were reserved, not for the light sufferings commonly undergone by prisoners of war in our days, but for the horrors of the slave-market, and for a life of perpetual bondage.

I said that this dreadful story was well worth our studying; and it is so for this reason. These miseries, greater than any which history mentions, fell upon God's Church, upon His chosen people, His own redeemed; the people with whom He was in covenant, to whom He had revealed His name, while all the rest of the world lay in darkness. It was not upon Amalek, nor upon Babylon, that this extremity of judgment fell, but upon Jerusalem. And what is Amalek now, what is Babylon, and above all, what is Jerusalem? Whatever be the

answer given to the two first

questions, there

can be no doubt as to the last. "We are the cir

cumcision," says St. Paul, when writing to the

E

Greek Christians of Philippi; that is, we Christians, and we alone, are now the true Israel of Scripture, the Israel of God, the seed of Abraham. It is even so, and as we have succeeded to the privileges of Israel, we should do well also to remember the fate of Israel. But I am not speaking of ourselves as a nation; it is not as Englishmen, but as Christians, that we are the Israel of God; and it is not as Englishmen, that is, as citizens of an earthly country, but as Christians, citizens of a kingdom not of this world, a country incorruptible and eternal, that it concerns us to dread the judgments of Israel. God has other and far worse ministers of vengeance than the sword, or the famine, or the pestilence. These can but kill the body, and Christ has especially charged us not to fear those evils which can do us no greater harm than this. But we each of us individually, not in the persons of our children, not as the mere abstract idea which we call a nation,-we all of us here assembled, in our bodies and our own souls, have to fear an undying judgment. To us, each of us, belongs in the strictest sense the warning of the text. For us, each of us,-if we do fail of the grace of God, if Christ has died for us in vain, if being called by His name, we are not walking in His spirit, there is reserved a misery of which indeed the words of the text are no more than a feeble picture. There is a state, in which they who