great, that the pieces of it are scattered all over the world. Wherever a Jew is found, there is a stone of ruined Jerusalem never to be rebuilt. In short, that wretched nation is rent into innumerable parts, and exposed to the contempt and hatred of all.

As the body of a traitor is quartered, and the parts hung up in several places of public view, to siguify the horror of his crimes in the severity of his punishment, God has taken away all the marks of his alliance with them. No distinction of their tribes remain, no observance of their legal ceremonies, no priests, no altars, no sacrifices, no prophets nor miracles; in short, there is no true worship among them, no God but an angry God, revenging their bloody impieties. And which is most worthy of consideration, the Romans that conquered them have lost their empire, and the nations which were subdued by their arms, have recovered their liberty; but the Jews, after sixteen hundred years, are still miserable. Now, is not this judgment of God upon them, a dreadful proof of the extremity of their wickedness in crucifying Jesus Christ, and that consequently he was, as he declared himself to be, the Son of God, and that his office and doctrine were from hea

Never before did the wrath of God break forth in such a fierce manner against a sinful nation. Therefore it is represented under the image of the final doom, when justice, armed with flames, “ shall devour the ungodly," and the whole world become a theatre of terrors. And never was any other nation guilty of such provocation ; for the Son of God descended but once among men to be personally crucified. The singularity of the punishment is a

ven,

a

visible instructive sign of their transcendent crime. Immediately upon their pronouncing the capital sentence against him on earth, their utter ruin was pronounced in heaven. And the execution of the sentence was deferred no longer, but till the elect of that people were brought in, and by the preaching and excellent miracles of the apostles, the resurrection of Christ, and the truth of the Gospel were confirmed, and thereby a beginning and form given to the new Christian church. Now they have written on their foreheads, in very legible characters, the fatal curse which their fathers pronounced concerning Jesus Christ, “ His blood be on us, and our children.” When Moses, with indignation for their idolatry, broke the tables of the law, God reestablished them, but when, for a greater guilt, God himself broke them, there is no possible redintegration.

If it be said, That it is not necessary to attribute this ruin of the Jews to the particular vengeance of God, but only to the instability of human things, wherein such disastrous revolutions sometimes happen.

I answer, that although divine justice was so visible in their astonishing destruction, that Titus himself refused a triumphal crown after his complete victory, declaring that he was but the instrument of God's anger, who was the invisible emperor in that bloody expedition ; yet, to force an acknowledgment of it from all that are not wilfully blind, it was foretold when the Jews were in peace; and their killing the Messiah is specified, as the meritorious cause wherein that terrible effect was included : thus our Saviour, in the parable of the husbandman and vineyard, after they had put to death the master's son, he adds, “ What shall therefore the lord of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the husbandmen, and give the vineyard to others.” And upon his drawing near to the city of “ Jerusalem, he wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace; but now they are hid from

For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.” This was also foretold by Moses, in all the terrible circumstances: “ The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand ; a nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favour to the young: and he shall eat the fruit of thy cattle, and the fruit of thy land, until thou be destroyed: which also shall not leave thee either corn, wine, or oil, or the increase of thy kine, or flocks of thy sheep, until he have destroyed thee. And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all thy land; and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, throughout all thy land, which the Lord thy God hath given thee. And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the Lord

thy God hath given thee, in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee,” Deut. xxviii. Such was the threatening, and the event was correspondent in all the degrees of misery. Which, as it demonstrates the truth of the prophecy, so it may instruct us how fearful a thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God.

3. The converting of the Gentile world to the saving knowledge of God, by the Messiah, was foretold in the Scriptures. The beams of this glorious truth were gradually dispensed to the Israelites, as their weak understandings could sustain it. When the covenant was made with Abraham, God declared, in express terms, “ In thy seed shall all the nations of the world be blessed.” That seed was the Messiah, not the people of the Jews descending from Abraham; for they were so far from a universal blessing to the world, that, on the contrary, they vainly presumed that God, for their sakes, despised the rest of mankind. And, indeed, before the coming of Christ, they were an enclosed garden, the peculiar people of God; and without the compass of Judea, sin reigned absolutely and universally. Now, that promise clearly signifies, that the favour and blessing of God that he conferred upon Abraham, in making known to him his will, and promising to be his God, and of his posterity, should one day be extended to all nations, by calling them to his knowledge and service. To this agrees the prophecy of Jacob: “ The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor the lawgiver from between his feet, till Shiloh come, and to him shall the gathering of the people be," Gen. xlix. 10. that is, the Gentiles shall be converted from their idols to the true God, by the Messiah, whom the Jews acknowledge to be signified by that title.

And Moses introduces God as complaining of the idolatry and ingratitude of the Jews, and declaring, “ They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people; and I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation," Deut. xxxii. 21. The external covenant between God and his people is represented by the union of marriage, to signify the duty they owe to God, the highest honour, the most ardent affections, and the benefits they receive from him. Therefore, when the Jews gave divine adoration, the highest respects of religion, to idols, they provoked God to jealousy; and he threatens he would break his alliance with them, and give his heart and love to those which were not a people; and by the law of counter-passion, they should be provoked to jealousy. It is very visible these expressions signify the calling of the Gentiles. And David, by the same inspiration, in many Psalms, celebrates the kingdom of the Messiah. In Psalm xxii. he is introduced, speaking, “ My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation-all the ends of the world shall remember, and turn unto the Lord-all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee.” And in the lxvii. Psalm, 6 God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause his face to shine upon us. Selah. may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations. Let the people praise thee, O God; let all the people praise thee.” The prophet Isaiah,

That thy way