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gods whom they knew not, and whom he had not given unto them: 27. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book: 28. And the Lord rooted them out of their land in anger and in wrath and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.

29. The secret things belong unto the Lord our God; but those things, which are revealed, belong unto us and unto our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.

xxx. 1. And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse which I have sat before thee, and thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations whither the Lord thy God hath driven thee, 2. And shalt return unto the Lord thy God, and shalt obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thine heart and with all thy soul; 3. That then the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee. 4. If any of thine be driven out unto the utmost parts of heaven, from thence will the Lord thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee: 5. And the Lord thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it: and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers. 6. And the Lord

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Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.

7. And the Lord thy God will put all these curses upon thine enemies, and on them that hate thee, which persecuted thee.

8. And thou shalt return and obey the voice of the Lord, and do all his commandments which I command thee this day. 9. And the Lord thy God will make thee plenteous in every work of thine hand, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy land, for good for the Lord will again rejoice over thee for good, as he rejoiced over thy Fathers: 10. If thou wilt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law, and if thou turn unto the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all tny soul,

COMMENTARY.

This famous prophecy of Moses has been so fully and so well discussed by Bp. Newton*, that it is almost superfluous for me to offer any obse.vations upon; yet a work like the present would certainly have been incomplete if I had omitted it.

Dissert. VII. VIII.

After

After describing, as it were with the pen of an historian, the various calamities which have since befallen the Jews; the capture of their city by the Romans, a nation whose language was totally different both from their own and from the collateral oriental dialects; the circumstance of the noble woman being reduced to eat the flesh of her own child; the dispersion of the Jews throughout all nations; their becoming a proverb and a by-word; the comparative sterility, to which their once fruitful land is now reduced; the notice taken of that sterility by travellers, and their comments upon it; the long continuance of these calamities: in short, after delineating with wonderful minuteness and accuracy the future miseries of the Jews, even before they had taken possession of the land to which the Lord was then miraculously conducting them, Moses suddenly reverses the scene, and predicts their restoration and conversion. He declares, that, when in the countries of their dispersion they shall call to mind the things which have befallen them, and shall understand the true grounds of those curses which have so long pursued them, then the Lord will turn their captivity, and gather them out of all the nations whither he hid scattered them; that he will bring them back into the land of their fathers; that he will restore to it its former fertility; that he will spiritually circumcise their hearts; and that he will cause both them and their children to love the Lord their

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God with all their heart and with all their soul. Nor does he only predict the restoration and prosperity of Israel. He intimates, that, at the same period, God will put all the curses, which he had once poured upon the Jews, upon the head of their enemies, and upon the head of those that hated and persecuted them. From other parallel prophecies, which treat more largely of the judgments of the Lord at the era of the restoration of the Jews, we cannot doubt that this is an allusion to the overthrow of Antichrist and his confederacy.

It is deeply interesting to view, in connection with the present prediction, the sentiments of the Jews themselves. "Soon after the establishment

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of Christianity," says one of their writers, "the "Jewish nation, dispersed since the second de"struction of its temple, had totally disappeared.

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By the light of the flames which devoured the monuments of its ancient splendour, the conquerors beheld a million of victims dead or expiring on their ruins. The hatred of the ene"mies of that unfortunate nation raged longer "than the fire which had consumed its temple; "active and relentless, it still pursues and op

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presses them in every part of the globe over "which they are scattered. Their persecutors de

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light in their torments too much to seal their "doom by a general decree of proscription, "which would at once put an end to their bur"thensome and painful existence. It seems as if

they

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they were allowed to survive the destruction of "their country, only to see the most odious and "calumnious imputations laid to their charge, to "stand as the constant object of the grossest and

most shocking injustice, as a mark for the insulting finger of scorn, as a sport to the most 26 inveterate hatred; it seems as if their doom was incessantly to suit all the dark and bloody purposes, which can be suggested by human malignity supported by ignorance and fanaticism. "Weighed down by taxes, and forced to contribute more than Christians for the support of society,

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they had hardly any of the rights which it gives. "If a destructive scourge happened to spread "havock among the inhabitants of a country, the "Jews had poisoned the springs; or those men, "cursed by heaven, had, nevertheless, incensed it by their prayers against the nation which they were supposed to hate. Did sovereigns want pecuniary assistance to carry on their wars? The "Jews were compelled to give up those riches in "which they sought some consolation against the

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oppressing sense of their abject condition as a "reward for their sacrifices, they were expelled "from the state which they had supported, and were afterwards recalled to be stript again.

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Compelled to wear exteriorly the badges of their abject state, they were every where exposed to "the insults of the vilest populace. When from his solitary retreat an enthusiastic hermit preached

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