correspondent to my assertion, was the appellation given to Jerusalem. Resuming the thread of the history; this alliance, which the Jews had contracted with Egypt, augmented their confidence at a time when every consideration should have abated it; it elated them with the presumptuous notion, of being adequate to frustrate the designs of Nebuchadnezzar, or rather those of God himself, who had declared that he would subjugate all the east to this potentate. He presently retook from Pharaoh Nechoh Carchemish, and the other cities conquered by that prince. He did more; he transferred the war into Egypt, after having associated Nebuchadnezzar his son in the empire; and after various advantages in that kingdom, he entered on the expedition against Judea, recorded in the xxxvith chapter of the second book of Chronicles: he accomplished what Isaiah had foretold to Hezekiah, that the Chaldeans should take his sons, and make them eunuchs in Babylon. He plundered Jerusalem; he put Jehoiakim in chains, and placed his brother Jehoiachin on the throne, who is sometimes called Jeconiah, and sometimes Coniah; and who availed himself of the grace he had received, to rebel against his benefactor. This prince quickly revenged the perfidy; he besieged Jerusalem, which he had always kept blockaded since the death of Jehoiakim, and he led away a very great number of captives into Babylon, among whom was the prophet Ezekiel. Ezekiel was raised up of God to prophecy to the captive Jews, who constantly indulged the reverie of returning to Jerusalem, while Jeremiah prophesied to those who were yet in their country, on whom awaited the same destiny. They laboured unanimously to persuade their countrymen to place no confidence in their connection with Egypt; to make no more unavailing efforts to throw off the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar; and to obey the commands of that prince, or rather the commands of God, who was wishful by his ministry to punish the crimes of all the east. Our prophet was transported into Jerusalem; he there saw those Jews who at the very time while they continued to flatter them with averting the total ruin of Judea, hastened the event, not only by continuing, but by redoubling their cruelties, and their idolatrous worship. At the very crisis while he beheld the infamous conduct of his countrymen in Jerusalem, he heard God himself announce the punishments with which they were about to be overwhelmed; and saying to his ministers of vengeance, Go through the city; strike, let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: Slay utterly old and young, both maids and little children; and women. Defile my house, and fill the courts with the slain. ix. 5, 6, 7. But while God delivered a commission so terrible with regard to the abominable Jews, he cast a consoling regard on others he said to a mysterious person, Go through the midst of the city, and set a mark on the foreheads of the men that sigh, and that cry for the abominations committed in the midst thereof. I am grieved for the honour of our critics, who have followed the vulgate version in a reading which disfigures the text; set the letter than on the foreheads of those that sigh. To how many puerilities has this reading given birth? What mysteries have they not sought in the letter thau? But the vulgate is the only version which has thus read the passage. The word thau in Hebrew implies a sign; to write this letter on the forehead of any one, is to make a mark; and to imprint a mark on the forehead of a man, is, in the style of prophecy, to distinguish him by some special favour. So the seventy, the Arabic, and the Syriac have rendered this expression. You will find the same figures employed by St. John in the Revelation. The words of my text have the same import as the above passage; they may indeed be restricted to the Jews already in captivity; I extend them however to the Jews who groaned for the enormities committed by their countrymen in Jerusalem. The past, the present and the future.time, are sometimes undistinguished in the holy tongue; especially by the prophets, to whom the certainty of the future predicted events, occasioned them to be contemplated, as present, or as already past. Consonant to this style, I have cast them far off among the heathen, may imply, I will cast them far off; I will disperse them among the nations, &c. To both those bodies of Jews, of whom I have spoken, I would say, those already captivated in Babylon when Ezekiel received this vision, and those who were led away after the total ruin of Jerusalem, that however afflictive their situation might appear, God would meliorate it by constant marks of the protection he would afford. Though I may or have cast them far off among the heathen; and among the countries: though I may disperse them among strange nations ; yet I will be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they are come. This is the general scope of the words we have read. Wishful to apply them to the design of this day, we shall proceed to draw a parallel between the state of the Jews in Babylon, and that in which it has pleased God to place the churches whose ruin we have now deplored for forty years. The dispersion of the Jews had three distinguished characters, I. A character of horror; A character of horror; this people were dispersed among the nations; they were compelled to abandon Jerusalem; and to wander in divers countries.-A character of justice; God himself; the God who makes judgment and justice the habitation of his throne. Psalm. lxxxix. 15. was the author of those calamities: I have cast them far off among the heathen; and dispersed them among the countries.-In fine, a character of mercy though I have cast them far off among the heathen, I have been, or as we may read, I will be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they are come. These are the three similarities between the dispersed Jews, and the reformed, to whom these provinces have extended a compassionate arm. I. The dispersion of the Jews, connected with all the calamities which preceded and followed, had a character of horror: let us judge of it by the lamentations of Jeremiah, who attested, as well as predicted the awful scenes. 1. He deplores the carnage which stained Judea with blood: The priests and the prophets have been slain in the sanctuary of the Lord. The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets; my virgins and the young men are fallen by the sword: thou hast slain; thou hast killed, and hast not pitied them in the day of thine anger. Thou hast convened my terrors, as to a solemn day. chap. ii. 20, 21, 22. 2. He deplores the horrors of the famine which induced the living to envy the lot of those that had fallen in war: The children and the sucklings swoon in the streets; they say to their mothers, when expiring in their bosom, where is the corn and the wine?—They that be slain with the sword are happier than they that be slain with hunger. Have not the women eaten the children that they suckled? Naturally pitiful, have they not baked their children to supply them with food? chap. ii. 11, 12, 20. iv. 9, 10. 1 3. He deplores the insults of their enemies: All that pass by clap their hands at thee; they hiss and shake their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, is this the city called the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth? chap. ii. 15. 4. He deplores the insensibility of God himself, who formerly was moved with their calamities, and ever accessible to their prayers: Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud that our prayers should not pass through and when I cry and shout, he rejecteth my supplication. chap. iii. 44, 8. 5. He deplores the favours God had conferred, the recollection of which served but to render their grief the more poignant, and their fall the more insupport |