nounced rejected of God! I would call on you to listen to his tender address to the daughters of Jerusalem, as he was dragged to the mount of crucifixion. I would invite you to hear his dying intercession for his very murderers, whilst engaged in nailing him to the cross, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And I would ask, if every heart should not be softened into sorrow? I would ask, if any apathy ought still to retard us in the work of benevolence, if any conceit of ourselves should chill that ardour of love, which such examples ought to kindle to a flame?

For no one surely will here revive THE MISCHIEVOUS ERROR-for I can call it by no other name to which I have already more than once adverted, that the blindness of the Jews is the judicial infliction of the Almighty, and that therefore emotions of compassion are not suitably urged in such an extreme case? Why then, I would ask in reply, was not such a reason urged by our Apostle when commanded to preach to the Gentiles? Were not the Gentiles given up to a reprobate mind, and thus judicially blinded, though not in the same degree with the unhappy Jew, yet in a somewhat similar manner? Or why, I may again ask, does the whole Christian world rise up as one man in vindication of the wrongs of Africa, inhabited as it is by the descendants of Ham, the inheritors of the male

diction? Or why do the Protestant communities labour for the reformation of the apostate church of Rome, given up, as it is, to a strong delusion to believe a lie? Or why do Christians aim at the recovery of the infatuated followers of Mahomet, enveloped by the judgment of God as by the smoke of the bottomless pit? Why, I ask, do they do all this ; when in these cases the design of God to remove the judgment cannot be more express than in that of the Jews; and when our duties all stand on the same plain ground, the acknowledged truth that secret things belong unto the Lord our God, and that to us belong the things that are revealed? Even if we had no express predictions and promises in favour of the Jews, our duty to compassionate and relieve them would rest on the firm foundation of that charity toward the miserable, to which every Christian is called. But when we are expressly told, that blindness is only happened to them in part, and that finally all Israel shall be saved, surely nothing but the very self-conceit which the apostle combats in my text, could bar up for an instant, that flow of pity and commiseration which should revive and bless the barren and deserted race of Israel.

Such tender sympathy is however the more imperiously required of us, if we consider THE

4 Rev. ix. 2.

INJUSTICE Which has been done the Jews by Christian nations. I need not repeat the histories of their sufferings, to which I briefly adverted in a former part of this discourse. I refer to them here, and to the guilt which Christians have contracted by the part they have borne in them, in order to observe that it is not merely the call of mercy which, invites us to raise the fallen tabernacle of David, but the cry of justice which demands from us some reparation of the wrongs which we have inflicted. Self-complacency and indolence are the last dispositions which become those who, as a body, have for eighteen centuries been loading the wretched Jew with hatred and persecution.

And why need I further urge you to compassion on the ground of the INCOMPARABLE BLESSINGS which the Jews have been the means of diffusing through the world? Why should I remind you, that to them pertained the adoption and the glory and the covenants, and the giving of the law and the service of God and the promises? Why should I remind you that salvation was of the Jews? Why tell you, that through them shone forth to you the very light, which we now call on you to restore; that the very means and capacity of diffusing the grace of the adorable Saviour came from those same Jews, who now wait, as it were, to receive back the boon from your hands?

But I pass over these considerations, nor will I do more than hint at the DEEP INTEREST which, as Gentiles, we have in promoting the conversion of the Jews. If the Jews are to be the riches of the world, the least we can do is to be active in gathering in the treasure. If the fulness of the Gentiles is, as we trust, coming in, who can be backward in advancing the salvation of the chosen people, who are to be the instruments of the consummation of that glorious event? In fact, it is not perhaps too much to say, that the various schemes of mercy now on foot in this country, wait at this moment for the Jews as their auxiliaries. At least we may safely assert, that the universal diffusion of the Gospel, which our Societies for the dispersion of the Bible, and for the encouragement of Missionary exertions have in view, would not only be rapidly and inconceivably promoted by the salvation of the house of Israel, but can never have its entire accomplishment till that salvation has first taken place.

And what can be said more? Shall I say that THE PRESENT CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE TIMES appear greatly to favour the attempt? I think I may do so with perfect truth. Surely every thing around us invites us to proceed. The contempt and hatred for the Jew has long been lessening throughout Christendom. The attention of Christians has been directed to the great

question of their conversion. The rising piety of this country has produced a surprising interest in their welfare. The Jews themselves begin to inquire into the evidences of Christianity. The transactions of the assembly of the Jewish Deputies and Sanhedrim in Paris a few years back, were calculated to call off the Jews from their vain traditions, and to fix their regard on the Mosaic writings. The education of their youth has of late been more attended to. Persons of candour and liberality have appeared in their body. Jews have permitted their children to attend Christian schools, and have themselves become subscribers in various Associations for distributing the Holy Scriptures.

In the mean time, the most able and considerate divines agree in thinking, that the great prophetical period of 1260 years must, on every calculation, be near its close; that is, that the permitted hour of the power of darkness is fast hastening to its termination, and the full conversion of the Jew and Gentile rapidly approaching. I ask then, if these are the circumstances under which Christians should draw back from the duty of compassion to the wretched outcasts of Israel,—a duty which would be incumbent on them, if every one of these favourable circumstances was reversed?

Need I add, then, in order to touch more expressly on the particular Society for which I