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pose that the idols and images should cease out of Egypt? What? Shall we conjecture this of those who were so strangely prone to worship any thing but God? Serpents, unicorns, cattle, reptiles, no matter what it was, they kneeled before it.

It was a strange prediction to speak of causing images or idols to cease in a land where continued baseness is to prevail; because we spontaneously couple together in our minds ignorance, images, filth, idols, and sensuality.

Images have long ceased there. Their idols have long since been destroyed. The Christian, (in name only,) who lives there, and the Turk who rules there, equally disdain to kneel before wood or stone, living animals, or painted statues!

3dly. It was strikingly probable, from all former history, and from all historic analogy, that Egypt would, at some time, have a native ruler, even should that ruler hold a borrowed or deputed authority. May not one of her own sons sit a prince upon that throne, although he may be a tributary prince? May not her native lords govern there, no matter how exorbitant the tribute?

There has never been a prince of the land of Egypt. Their rulers have been sent to them. Strangers have sent their slaves to be governors of the land of Egypt!

It has not been her own sons, who in the pride of self-exaltation, have drained the treasures of Egypt. It has always been by the hands of strangers that she has been wasted.

Application.-If we inquire of the unbelievers who live now, (not merely of the uncultivated, but of the most

noted for talents and professional eminence,) whether they have not been surprised on reflecting that these things were said of one nation only; and that out of all the nations of the earth, of one only they have happened to be true, and that for so many generations, we find that they have never meditated on such points! Of these, and of similar facts, almost countless in extent, they know nothing, and they do not inquire. Yet either openly or in heart, they are scoffers! Men are slow and backward to inform themselves of any thing on the side of truth, (in matters of religion,) but slight and superficial objections: weak but plausible theories against the Bible, they learn speedily, they understand instantly, and they remember always. It is supposed, on good evidence, that no son of Adam ever was known to forget an ingenious, and seemingly correct argument against Christianity, (once heard,) so long as he retained his mind.

The conclusion is, that men love darkness rather than light.

CHAPTER XII.

THE SUBJECT CONTINUED.

We might here cease to point at Bible facts, hoping that even the few we have noticed might serve as samples from the mass; but we feel inclined to give another instance, to show that these facts abound all through the New Testament, as well as the Old.

The Saviour's Prediction.- -“And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let them which are

in the midst of it, depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto; for these be the days of vengeance. ****** And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles shall be fulfilled." Luke, 21:20-24.

Observe, first-The time the Redeemer fixed and left on record for his followers and children to depart from that devoted city, was the time when it must seem to them they could not get out of her. How were they to escape after the invaders had surrounded them? The church in Jerusalem had increased sometimes as fast as several thousand in a day. How were these families to depart, when Jerusalem was compassed with armies? The sign named by the Saviour as the token of their flight was of itself an impassable barrier in the way of their travel. The incident which dictated their hasty journey must necessarily hedge up their way. If the reader wishes a particular recital of many striking incidents let him turn to the cotemporary historian, (Josephus,) who was himself an actor in the military occurrences of the time. This much admired and much respected writer does not seem to have known or to have remembered that the Saviour had said any thing of the Roman eagle standing where it ought not, or of Jerusa. lem being compassed with armies. When this siege did occur, he relates the circumstances truthfully, although it is evident he did not know that they were appointed of heaven. The banner which the soldiers worshipped, and which the prophet called the abomination which maketh desolate, waved before the temple gates. Josephus relates accurately the movements of the Ro. man general (Cestius) on that occasion. He informs us, that when he might have taken the city speedily, and

with comparative ease, thus terminating the war at once, he led his army away. He retired "without any just occasion in the world." Josephus seems to want words to express his surprise at the conduct of this commander. Perhaps Cestius scarcely knew himself why he thus acted so much to the astonishment of beholders; but had we been there, knowing what we now know, we could have told all spectators and historians, the reason why he withdrew. God's people were in that city. His little flock (little in comparison with the multitude of the ungodly,) never noticed by the haughty of this world unless to deride or calumniate, are never forgotten by him. They were to seek safety in the mountains; they were to have an opportunity to retire. To afford this, the Roman legions must be taken to a proper distance. They were thus conducted, and the followers of the Saviour with their families did retire. The young reader is here again reminded that we are not giving merely the Christian account of these things. He may gather these facts from the pens of ancient and modern unbelievers, if he prefers their testimony. When those who had vociferated "Crucify him, crucify him, his blood be upon us and our children," were crucified themselves, with their children, around the walls of their blazing city, nailed many on the same cross, until there was no more space on which to plant a cross, and no more wood of which to make one; when famine, gnawing unparalled famine, was doing a work along those crowded streets, the bare recital of which would cause the stupid, the callous, or the cruel, to faint with sickening horror, there were no Christians there! They had gone to Pella. They had watched for the Redeemer's token, and obeyed the signal. Those words spoken by the Man of Calvary, un

heeded by the world then, unnoticed by after generations, and that scoffers of the present age scarcely know are in the Bible, were the means of their salvation. Let the reader bear these incidents in mind, until we come to the application.

Observation second.-"And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles shall be fulfilled."

An inspired apostle, (Paul,) at the command of the Holy Ghost, had given the church to understand (shall we say fortunately or unfortunately) that this fulness of the Gentiles was to synchronise with the conversion of the Jews at a glorious period in the latter days. The prophet Daniel, in the prediction quoted by our Lord, lets us know that the desolations of Jerusalem were to continue until the end of the struggle between Christ and antichrist. The Saviour himself, in other discourses, lets us know that these long desolations would not terminate until the latter days. What an opportunity to defeat the declarations of the Messiah, and to show that Jerusalem should not be trodden down of the Gentiles through after ages. The Israelites have been rich enough to build a score of temples, during any period of their widest dispersion, or of their deepest, heaviest oppression. Notwithstanding the reiterated massacres, the constant apostacies or lapses into heathenism, the uninterrupted commingling with their oppressors, &c. &c., there has been no portion from any one of the eighteen centuries now gone by, during which there might not have been counted two millions or three, (a number sufficient to populate the hills and vales of Canaan,) and zealous enough to venture almost any thing, or to endure almost every thing, for the Zion of their

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