Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

rufalem! Jerufalem! which killeft the prophets, and stonest them who are sent ' unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, as an hen 'doth gather her brood under her wings, • and ye would not? Behold, your houfe is • left unto you defolate: and verily I say unto

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

you ye shall not fee me, until the time

come, when ye shall fay, bleffed is he, who cometh in the name of the Lord.' And again, Luke xix. 41, &c. and when he,' Jefus, ' was come near, he beheld the city, Jerufalem, and wept over it, saying, "If • thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

thy peace, but now they are hid from • thine eyes. For the days fhall come upon • thee, that thine enemies shall caft a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every fide, and fhall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one ftone upon another, • because thou knewest not the time of thy ' vifitation.'

But

But let us turn our eyes from this melancholy prophecy, which was fulfilled in the fiege and overthrow of Jerufalem to its very foundations, about forty years after it was delivered by Jefus the Meffiah, and contemplate that glorious scene of things, and happy change, which will take place in your condition, when you shall caft off your unbelief, and unequivocally acknowledge the crucified Jefus to be your Meffiah; that ftone, whereof the prophet Isaiah xxviii 16. fpeaks, thus faith the Lord God, behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a • tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure • foundation: He that believeth fhall not • make haste,' or be confounded; that ftone, which, the prophetic Pfalmift, Pfalm cxviii. 22. thus defcribes, the ftone which the builders,' your unbelieving ancestors, 'refufed, is become the head of the corner,' that ftone, which proves, according to Isaiah viii. 14. a ftone of ftumbling, and a rock

of offence,' as well to you, as to them, fo long as, in the words of the apostle Peter, Peter ii. 8. ye ftumble at the word' of prophecy, being difobedient thereto.'

[ocr errors]

Now

[ocr errors]

Now the great and precious promises, which God has in ftore for you, on your converfion to the faith of Christ, are fo well defcribed in an admirable felection of a variety of paffages from your own prophecies, contained in a little tract, intitled 'A Treatife of the future Restoration of the Jews and Ifraelites to their own land,' that I fhall leffen my labors greatly, by giving you copious extracts from it. It was printed in the year 1747, was given me by a friend in the year 1761, and I believe is now become very fcarce. As the anonymous author of the treatife imputes, in general terms, your present difperfion to the con

[ocr errors]

fequence and effect of the iniquities and • difobedience of your fathers,' alledging, that, on account of their great wickedness they were delivered into the hands of the

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

Romans,' and is wholly filent in respect to their particular fin, in rejecting and crucifying the Meffiah, I apprehend it to have been written by fome learned Jew. However, as we agree in a main point, that God has promised to give you the Meffiah to

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small]
[ocr errors]

dom shall be an everlasting ftingdom of righteoufnefs and peace, and in the last ages be established over the whole earth,' I fhall not fcruple to profit by the labors of this fuppofed unknown worthy Ifraelite. The whole of the treatife is worthy to be reprinted at the joint expence of your wealthy brethren. That I may not swell this work to an immoderate fize, I fhall but feldom cite the prophetic paffages at length, produced by this writer, but refer you to them, omitting a repetition of fimilar pasfages for the fake of brevity, which indeed I have confulted in all my former citations from the Jewish and Christian Scriptures.

[ocr errors]

The only restoration,' to their own land, he observes, any of the Ifraelites have had, was only a partial one, confifting of the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, and that only from Babylon, by Cyrus, which lies eaft of their land: Whereas, this, (the full and final reftoration,) is to be a return of the children of Ifrael, and therefore moft probably of all the twelve

[ocr errors]

tribes, from the north, and from all the ⚫lands,

lands, wherein they are difperfed.' See Jeremiah xvi. 14, 15. The prophecy alfo,' of Ezekiel, xx. 33 to 39. plainly relates to a future period;' for the particulars therein mentioned, fuch as 'the bring

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

ing of the Ifraelites out of the countries • wherein they are scattered in so distinguishing a manner, the pleading with them in the wilderness face to face, in their pasfage up to their land, and the destroying of • all the wicked among them, imply fuch a restoration, and attended with fuch circumftances, as have never yet been known. And that this prophecy relates to all the twelve tribes, appears from what follows, where God declares, he will bring them into the land of Ifrael, and that in his holy mountain, or at Mount Zion, there fhall all the boufe of Ifrael,that is the twelve

6

tribes, ferve him, Ezekiel xx. 40 to 45.

‘But still for a farther proof of the future restoration of all the twelve tribes, let us . proceed to fome other prophecies, and let it be remembered, that, as the Ifraelites, or ten tribes, have had no return, fince

they

« AnteriorContinuar »