with gardens; and later accounts in like manner tell of the hill where once stood Samaria,' and that its local features are seen in the threat or Micah.'

Jerusalem was to be trodden down of the Gentiles, till the times of the Gentiles should be fulfilled. Eighteen hundred years after this prediction was uttered by the author of the christian faith, we still can say, the times of the Gentiles are not yet fulfilled, and Jerusalem is to this day trodden down of the Gentiles. In early ages after their dispersion, the most furious attempts of the Jews to recover it proved altogether fruitless. The Roman power which had plucked them from off their own land prevented them from taking root in it again. And when (under Julian, who thought that the emperor of Rome could contend with a word which had been uttered some centuries before, by one who was crucified) the Roman power was united to that of the Jews without any opposing human means, to rebuild their city and temple, and to reinstate them in Judea, the attempt, as a heathen historian and other writers relate, was effectually frustrated, in spite of every effort of the Roman soldiery, by fearful balls of fire bursting from the ground, and burning the workmen, till they ceased to contend with the fiery element. Certain it is, and this could be known to God alone, that the Jews have never yet been reinstated in Judea, and that Jerusalem has ever since been trodden down of the Gentiles. Romans, Grecians, Persians, Saracens, Tartars, Mamelukes,

Turks, and Egyptians, Arabs and Turks again, have, age after age, trodden it down. The Jews alone, to whom the very dust of it is dear, have never obtained possession of it. And the truth of this word alone, spoken by Jesus, whom their forefathers crucified, is an infinitely stronger proof that it is of God, than all that the author of any false religion ever uttered.

Such is now the wide-wasting desolation and misery which is spread over the cities and the land, on which the blessing of God once rested more than on any other; and so many and clear are the marks, that all the curses that were written have come upon it as well as upon the people, to whom, if they had not departed from the living God, it was given for a perpetual inheritance

Think then of the Jews dwelling in peace and safety, each man under his own vine, and under his own fig-tree, and of the Jews scattered among all nations, and pining away in their iniquity in their enemies' land; think also on Judea, each spot a garden, and the little hills rejoicing on every side, and on Judea a desolate wilderness, and all joy departed from it; and learn to know how great is the difference, perhaps unthought of and unfelt before, between the promises and the threatenings of the Lord, or between enjoying his favour, and incurring his wrath. His promises and threatenings, not for time only but for eternity, are now set before us all; and all have now to determine which they will choose. Do earthly objects which attract the eye, ensnare also the heart, and withdraw us

from the love and service of God, or blind the eyes of our understandings that we walk not by faith, and look not to the word of God as it is written unto us? Then surely we may take a warning from Judea in its desolation. And if we consider it perfectly we shall find how the scriptures concerning it were given for our instruction in righteousness. We may at least learn from thence that it is not the cultivation of fields, nor the erection of cities, that should be the chief object of man; that these, however fruitful, rich, and fair, would be all blasted in a moment were the Lord to breathe upon them in his anger; that His favour is the only strong hold; and that to be rich towards God is the only true and imperishable treasure. And seeing that God, who in times past and in divers manners spake unto the people by the prophets, hath spoken unto us by his own Son, how earnestly ought those who have heard, and who may ever read or hear the words, the promises, and the threatenings of Christ and his apostles, always to watch and to pray that they fall not into temptation; that they forfeit not a better inheritance than was that of the possession of the land of Canaan; and that a worse desolation may never come over their spirits than has come, since it was smitten with a curse, upon the land of those to whom Moses and the prophets still speak in vain. And how diligently ought every believer in Jesus to labour in the high and holy vocation assigned him by his Master, and day by day to cultivate, through the abundant

mercy of his God, every christian grace and virtue, till, where the barren wild of nature once was, the vineyard of the Lord be clothed with all the fruits of the Spirit springing up unto immortality and glory, and till there be attained that moral, spiritual, and therefore higher beauty and nobler culture than the cold earth in its fairest forms can show; which no wrath of man ever can deface, which no exterminating angel will ever lay desolate, but which renders the soul, when redeemed, rescuer, and separated from sin, meet to be a partaker of an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away. Of that glorious inheritance, now set before the christian, the land of promise, in the prospect of the Israelites as they passed through the desert, was but a faint emblem: and let the mercies of Jesus, by whose blood the heavenly Canaan was purchased, win your hearts to his love, till that love constrain you so to look to the word of God, and so to live, that the loss of that land by the Jews may never prove a faint emblem of the loss that would otherwise be your own; and that the place, the kingdom within you,' on which, for Jesus' sake, the blessing of God would now rest, and which he seeks that he may dwell there, may never be forsaken of him, and that you may never have a portion with hypocrites and unbelievers, who shall pine away in their iniquities, where there is weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth, in utter desolation, not such as the eye can see, but such as the spirit would for ever feel.

But other countries lie desolate besides that of Judea; and many nations that were the enemies of the Jews have perished, while they, though not left unpunished, have not been cut off.

Of the prophecies respecting Ammon, Moab, and Philistia, a mere enumeration may here suffice; while we urge on the reader, for further information, the careful perusal of a tract lately published on this branch of the subject by the Religious Tract Society, No. 282.

It was prophesied concerning the countries of Ammon, Moab, and Philistia, which are all naturally very fertile, and which abounded in wealth and population long after the christian era-that Ammon was to be a spoil to the heathen, to be destroyed, and to be a perpetual, or long-continued, desolation; that its capital was to become a desolate heap, to be a stable for camels, and a couching place for flocks; and that the Ammonites were to be cut off, to perish, and not to be remembered among the nations: that Moab was to flee away, all its cities to be desolate without any to dwell therein, and no city to escape; that those who dwelt in the cities would leave them and dwell in the rocks, and be like the dove that maketh her nest in the sides of the hole's mouth; and that the cities of Aroer would be for flocks to lie down, none making them afraid; that the valley was to perish, and the plain to be destroyed; that wanderers were to come upon Moab, and cause him to wander; that Moab would be a derision, and its daughters be at the ford of Arnon, as a wandering bird cast out of