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days, and grievously "they did fall by the edge of the sword."

Worn out and weakened, at length, by the excess of their misery, and the slaughter of the destroying angel, the enemies of Jerusalem prevailed, and she was given over into the will and power of strangers. It was their wish, and one would have thought it might have been in their power, after they had taken her, to have spared her beauty and her splendor, and to have preserved her buildings and her temple untouched and uninjured, as a monument to posterity of the greatness and the might of those by whom she had been vanquished. But a stronger hand than theirs-the hand of God, and the word of him who ruleth in the kingdoms of men according to his own will and not theirs, were against her. Her towers, her walls, her palaces, the beautiful gate of her temple and her holy place were all thrown down and laid even with the ground. Even the very foundations of the city and the temple were dug up, and the ploughshare passed over the glory of that house which the wisdom of Solomon had built, and the wisdom of Jesus adorned. That holy tabernacle, before which the Redeemer worshipped and the Redeemer taught, we know not now with certainty where it was; for in deed and in truth they have not left in

her "one stone upon another" to tell the traveller the exact spot upon which the beauty of these goodly buildings stood. Each conjectures for himself and satisfies nobody. Man then laboured to avert, as I have said, a destruction so signal and sad, but he laboured in vain, because he laboured against the sure word of prophecy. It came to pass, as the Lord had spoken, and because the city of David knew not the hour of her visitation, that "behold her house is left unto her desolate."

Thus fully, thus literally, thus awfully, were accomplished the predictions of our Saviour upon the city over which he wept; and much there is in what we have already considered, to bow down the pride of the most stubborn heart in humble reverence before the authority of the Gospel. But we have not finished the theme of triumph. We have still to examine what is to us the most wonderful and irresistible part of the prophecythat part I mean whose accomplishment is taking place in our own days, and though still fulfilling, is still unfulfilled. 66 Thy children," says Jesus, "shall not only fall by the edge of the sword, but they shall also be led away captive into all nations" and have dominion in the land of Israel no more, until the kingdoms of the world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his

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Christ; "Jerusalem shall be trodden under foot of the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled," saith the Lord. Is it so? Here is a positive and perpetual fact proposed to mankind as a test and sign by which every one may judge of the truth of the Gospel by which he lives. is long since the ruin of Jerusalem, and many years and ages have passed away since they laid her even with the ground, and her children within her; and the unbeliever, who loveth darkness rather than light, may, perhaps, doubt or deny the evidence we have hitherto produced. He may talk of the possibility of the prophecy being framed after the event-or he may throw out any other of those numerous insinuations in which scepticism so largely deals. But here is a living witness to confound his plausibilities, and prove that whenever and by whomsoever written, it is, in truth, a prophecy. Jerusalem is and has been trodden under foot of the Gentiles ever since the day of her desolation, and, as yet, the time of the Gentiles has not been fulfilled. Roman Gentiles annihilated the city and policy of the Jews, and Christian or Mahometan Gentiles succeeded to their inheritance. This is not chance, this is not accident, but providence. The ruler of the Roman world* did once, in the madness of pre

* The attempt and failure of the Emperor Julian to rebuild Jerusalem and its temple, are well known, and have been treated in a masterly manner by Warburton.

sumption, endeavour to contravene this decree, and did set up his counsel and might against the denunciation of the Ruler of the kingdom of heaven; but his counsel and his might were brought to nought. With all the power of the Roman world at his command, he did fail; and whether we attribute his failure to a miraculous or an ordinary cause, the fact still remains the same. Even to this very moment, Gentiles, neither of the race nor the religion of Judah, are the masters of Jerusalem, and her faded splendor and her ruined walls too plainly speak how cruelly and disdainfully they have trodden her under their feet. Jerusalem is in her adversity; but wasted as she is, she yet bears, in her lost estate, an everlasting testimony to the Gospel of our God; and her children also bear witness with her. Go where you will, and in every nation under heaven, in the east and in the west, in the north and in the south, in the snowy mountain and in the sandy desert, in every city and almost in every village, you will behold the face of some exiled Israelite, fulfilling, in his destiny, the prophecy of the Lord. There is something peculiarly remarkable and apparently providential in this universal dispersion of the people of God. They are to be found in all nations, and in all nations they are found despised and rejected of men, without a home and without

a country; without the rights or the protection of other citizens. Still there are some places in which they are less hated and oppressed than in others; and under the mild and paternal government of our native land they have nothing to fear and less to suffer than in any other country in the world. Why then do they not gradually quit those lands of their oppressors to seek for safety in this rock of comparative refuge and peace. It is the common dictate of human nature to flee from distress and seek comfort and security wherever they may be found, no matter in what country or in what clime. Why then does not the Jew avoid the fury of a German populace, the barbarity of the chieftains of Africa, and the grinding exactions of Turkish avarice, by raising the tabernacle of his rest under the influence of the freedom and protection of Britain's laws? Or why, if in all countries he is condemned to suffer-why does he not turn his steps towards the land of his fathers after which he sighs, and endeavour to console his sorrows by living and dying in that Judea, and beside that Jordan, which he loves? Such would be the natural conduct of common men. But the Jew acts not thus. Oppressed and persecuted, he still continues to live where he has lived, and grows and multiplies in adversity without the thought of change. Neither tribulation, nor anguish, nor

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