they have not yet awaked, but have adhered with undiminished bigotry to the gross errors of their fathers, and adopted all their antipathy to the faith of Christ.

God Almighty, reasoning with sinners after the manner of men,* thus stings the unfeeling minds of these blind guides with severe sarcasm, as our Saviour also, in his conferences with them, was wont to do." Bring forth the blind people, that have eyes, and the deaf, that have ears." (Isaiah xliii. 8.) "Hear, ye deaf, and look, ye blind, that ye may see. Wbo is blind, but my servant? Or deaf, as the messenger that I sent? Who is (so) blind, as be that is perfect, and blind as the Lord's servant? Seeing many things, but thou observest. not; opening the ears, but he heareth not." (Isaiah xlii. 18.‡) Yet even this blindness, which hath proved hitherto an unconquerable obstruction to their conversion, is one day to be removed, and the veil which is upon their hearts is to be taken off.

Isaiah is deservedly called the christian or evangelical prophet, because he treats in so large a proportion of his prophecy, of Christ and his kingdom; and relates with singular perspicuity and clearness, although in figurative language, the principal occurrences of christian times, or the last days. Speaking, in chapter xlii. 16, &c. of the great revolutionary commotions, by which the affrighted world is to be shaken, previously to the restoration of Israel, and thereby in the event of things, a way opened for their return, he proceeds thus, Then " I will bring the BLIND by a way that they knew not," (faith in Jesus Christ.) -" I will lead thent in paths" (of peace and comfort, that for many ages)-" they have not known. will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight, these things will I do unto them, AND NOT FORSAKE THEM."

I

The deplorable condition of the jews in their roman captivity or modern state, is itself a great and standing miracle. They have been exhibited to the eyes of all men, in all countries and in every age, as witnesses for God; against atheism and all infidelity on the one hand, and against polytheism and idolatrous corruptions of revealed religion on the other. How strong an evidence their present state affords to the truth of prophecy, has been in a good measure shewn; from the variety of figures and similitudes, and almost clear historical narration, which the prophets have employed, to give a full and adequate idea of so wonderful an occurrence. And this blaze of prophetic light, far from losing of its power by length of time, will still brighten more and more, (as St. Peter observes,*) unto the perfect day of its meridian splendour, when it shall enlighten even the blind jews themselves.

any

natural sleep:-as deprived of the common powers of distinguishing aright the objects presented to them by sight and hearing; which faculties in a certain degree, nevertheless, still remain. Thus persons in a stupor of the intellectual powers, fix the eye upon one object, and yet see nothing at all of it. The fascinating power of prejudice, is finely represented by the next image of the prison house, which I shall select from the same prophet. For it is equally a bondage, whether the shackles of superstition be imposed upon the mind by external tyranny, or whether the chains of voluntary blindness have been of our own fabrication. "They shall be gathered together, as PRISONERS are gathered in the pit,* and shall be shut up in the prison; and after many days shall they be visited. Then the Moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall

* The allusion is made to the wretched condition of cap. tives, who, for greater security, are retained in a dungeon underground, or pit. See Jer. xxxviii. 13.

These figurative expressions seem to imply the superior clearness of all religious truth, and the bright practice of holiness and virtue, which will be the principal characteristics of

reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously." (Isa. xxiv. 22.) In a great many of the prophecies, no sooner is their punishment pronounced, than the promise of their restoration follows close upon it. We have here in epitome the indignation, or their inclosure in the prison, where they must remain many days of years and centuries; and their visitation, or the spiritual reign of Christ in the hearts and affections of his ANCIENTS, resettled in Jerusalem, and honored as the mother church: or source of divine revelation :-" for out of Sion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." (Micah iv. 2.)

the millennium. The Moon represents the Mosaic economy, which shone by a light reflected from Christ, but partially emitted through the cloudy veil of typical ordinances. The Sun is the more perfect system of the gospel, the brighter splen. dour of whose direct beams have still been obscured and darkened by spots on its disk, which in these happy times shall be all destroyed. See Isa. Ix. 19, 20.-Rev. xxi, 23. The same emblems are made use of in Rev. xii. to represent the primitive and pure christian church, under the figure of a woman cloathed with the sun, and having the Moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.