hatred, nor distress, nor even the fear of death itself can drive him away from the soil in which chance has planted the habitation of his misery. Now it is for this singularity in his conduct that we have to account. That the Jew alone should remain uninfluenced by those motives which operate upon the mass of mankind; that the Jew alone should act contrary to our general experience of the rest of the world, to what can we ascribe it, but to the providential dispensation of God? why is it, but that he is immoveably fixed and rooted, as it were, by the never-failing word of prophecy, to the soil on which he dwells? Why is it that he flees not back to the land of his fathers, but because Jesus hath said, that he shall be led captive into "all nations." And why does he not strive for the possession of Jerusalem again, but because the same Jesus hath said, that "Jerusalem shall be trodden under foot of the Gentiles, until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled." Yea, and for the same reason it is, that he that did once strive to restore it to these children of vengeance, did strive in vain.

I here close the comparison between the prophecy of Jesus and the history of Jerusalem and the Jews; and now let us turn to the application and doctrine which it affords.

The tale is melancholy indeed, but it is deeply instructive also. It confirms the validity of the other evidences for Christianity beyond the reach of cavil, and gives to the name and faith of the Christian a firmness and a dignity which none of his adversaries shall be able to cast down. They may talk of conjecturing from reason and the nature of the case, that Jerusalem when conquered, would remain subject to her victors; but the remark is idle and inapplicable. The prediction uses not the language of conjecture and probability, but of assurance and certainty. It says not interrogatively, "and shall she not be trodden under foot of the Gentiles?" Neither does it speak doubtingly, as if she might; but it declares positively that she “shall be trodden under foot of the Gentiles." Again, it limiteth a certain time for her humiliation, saying, “Until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled." This positiveness as to the fact, united with this limitation as to the time, is after the manner, not of a reasoner, but of a prophet; and all the testimony, therefore, which the spirit of prophecy can bear to an individual, it bears to the Author of this prediction. What the precise nature and value of that testimony may be, must be left for consideration in a future discourse. I have found it so pleasing, and perhaps so easy a task, to lengthen out the comparison between the history

of Jerusalem, and the prediction of Jesus that I can only venture, before I conclude, to notice two of the moral inferences to which it leads.

The first of these is, that we learn from it a lesson of the purest and most exalted patriotism. Twice only is it written in the Gospel that Jesus wept. Once was for the death of Lazarus whom he loved, and once for the destruction of the city which hated him; and therein he has taught us the greatness and the depth of that love which we too should bear unto the land of our nativity It is not because our efforts are unrewarded, or our talents unpraised. It is not because we rise not in our professions and reach not the honours and emoluments at which we aim, that we are permitted to shrink from the duty of loving our country or doing it good.-So long as we can be useful to the age and generation and country in which we are born, so long must we labour with fidelity in our appointed station, even though it be through hatred and calumny and scorn. We are not to measure our love to others by their love to us, because even publicans and sinners do the same. I know no political virtue which is more neglected than this. It is the fashion of common patriots to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, only whilst they are walking in the sunshine. of her favour; only whilst they rule her counsels

or are fed by her bounty. When injured they forget her benefits, decry her institutions, and no longer feel an interest in her fate. But Jesus thought and acted otherwise. "I say unto you, Love your enemies; do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you, that ye may be the children of your Father which is in Heaven." These had been the words of Jesus, and by transplanting the graces which he recommended into the works of his life, he shewed that he was indeed the child of his Father which was in heaven. For he did do good to the country that despised him. He did bless them that cursed him, and did pray for the people that evil entreated and persecuted him even unto death. He did love the city that hated himeven in her unkindness he loved her, and mourned, as a patriot, over those coming days of vengeance, which, as a prophet, the page of futurity unfolded to his view. He beheld her beauty, he remembered her iniquity, he foresaw her punishment, and tears of pity and of anguish fell from his eyes, when he did think upon her fate. Yet what had Jerusalem done for Jesus that he should thus feel and express for her the tenderness and affection of a son? He had not where to lay his head; and yet she gave it him not. He was despised and rejected of men; and

yet she

received him not. Nay, even in that very hour in

which he was thus wishing for her conversion,

and weeping for her woes, he might almost have seen, from the Mount of Olives, on which he stood, her rulers corrupting the traitor to betray his Master, and almost have heard the workman putting his hand to the hammer, and the hammer to the nail, to form the cross upon which he was to suffer for mankind. Jerusalem had ever been the enemy of Jesus, and she was now about to become his ruin and his grave; and this he knew; and yet, "when he was come near he beheld the city and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known even thou, in this thy day." Oh, that even thou my persecutor and my murderer hadst known before it be too late, "the things which belong unto thy peace," for then might I have been blessed in seeing thee converted, and saved from the evil hour! He looked upon her wickedness and wretchedness, and he wept for, and warned her of both; and the sadness of his soul may be gathered both from his manner and his language. Thus was the salvation of his country, the desire of the heart, and the prayer of the lips, as it had ever been the labour of the life, of the injured Jesus; and we may search in vain amongst the records of mankind for any equal example of love to the land of our nativity.

But the city of David had closed her eyes that