ment, the dispositions of the Israelites to the present day, or for three thousand two hundred years, seeing that he was astonished and amazed, on his descent from Sinai, at the change in their sentiments and in their conduct in the space of forty days? Could various persons have testified, in different ages, of the selfsame and of similar facts, as wonderful as they have proved to be true? Could they have divulged so many secrets of futurity, when, of necessity, they were utterly ignorant of them all? The probabilities were infinite against them. For the mind of man often fluctuates in uncertainty over the nearest events, and the most probable results; but, in regard to remote ages, when thousands of years shall have elapsed, and to facts respecting them, contrary to all previous knowledge, experience, analogy, or conception,-it feels that they are dark as death to mortal ken. And, viewing only the dispersion of the Jews, and some of its attendant circumstanceshow their city was laid desolate-their temple, which formed the constant place of their resort before, levelled with the ground, and ploughed over like a field—their country ravaged, and themselves murdered in massfalling before the sword, the famine, and the pestilence -how a remnant was left, but despoiled, persecuted, enslaved, and led into captivity-driven from their own land, not to a mountainous retreat, where they might subsist with safety, but dispersed among all nations, and left to the mercy of a world that everywhere hated and oppressed them-shattered in pieces like the wreck of a vessel in a mighty storm-scattered over the earth, like fragments on the waters—and, instead of disappearing, or mingling with the nations, remaining a perfectly distinct people, in every kingdom the same, retaining similar habits, and customs, and creed, and manners in every part of the globe, though without ephod, teraphim, or sacrifice-meeting everywhere the same insult, and mockery, and oppression-finding no resting-place without an enemy soon to dispossess them-multiplying amid all their miseries-surviving their enemies-beholding, unchanged, the extinction of many nations, and the convulsions of all-robbed of their silver and of their gold though cleaving to the love of them still, as the stumblingblock of their iniquity-often bereaved of their very children-disjoined and disorganized, but uniform and unaltered-ever bruised, but never broken-weak, fearful, sorrowful, and afflicted-often driven to madness at the spectacle of their own misery-taken up in the lips of talkers-the taunt and hissing and infamy of all people, and continuing ever, what they are to this day, the sole proverb common to the whole world;-how did every fact, from its very nature, defy all conjecture, and how could mortal man, overlooking a hundred successive generations, have foretold any one of these wonders that are now conspicuous in these latter times? Who but the Father of Spirits, possessed of perfect prescience, even of the knowledge of the will and of the actions of free, intelligent, and moral agents, could have revealed their unbounded and yet unceasing wanderings-unveiled all their destiny—and unmasked the minds of the Jews, and of their enemies, in every age and in every clime? The creation of a world might as well be the work of chance as the revelation of these things. It is a visible display of the power and of the prescience of God,-an accumulation of many miracles. And, although it forms but a part of a small portion of the Christian evidence, it lays not only a stone of stumbling-such as infidels would try to cast in a Christian's path,-but it fixes an insurmountable barrier at the very threshold of infidelity, immoveable by all human device, and impervious to every attack. CHAPTER V. PROPHECIES CONCERNING THE LAND OF JUDEA AND CIRCUMJACENT COUNTRIES. THE writings of the Jewish prophets not only described the fate of that people for many generations, subsequent to the latest period to which the most unyielding skepticism can pretend to affix the date of these predictions, but while the cities were teeming with inhabitants, and the land flowing with abundance, for centuries before Judea ceased to count its millions, they foretold the long reign of desolation that would ensue. The land is a witness as well as the people. Its aspect in the present day, and for many a past age, is the precise likeness delineated by the pencil of prophecy, when every feature that could admit of change was the reverse of what it now is. And it is necessary only to compare the predictions themselves with that proof of their fulfilment, which, were all other testimony to be excluded, heathens and infidels supply. The calamities of the Jews were to arise progressively with their iniquities. They were to be punished again and again, "yet seven times, for their sins."* And in the greatest of the denunciations which were to fill up the measure of their punishments, the long-continued desolation of their country is ranked among the worst and latest of their woes; and the prophecies respecting it, which admit of a literal interpretation, and which have been literally fulfilled, are abundantly clear and expressive. "I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries into desolation. And I will bring the land into desolation; and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it. And I will scatter you among the heathen, and draw out a sword after you; and your land shall be desolate and your cities waste. Then shall the land enjoy her Sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land; even then shall the land rest and enjoy her Sabbaths. The land also shall be left of them, and shall enjoy her Sabbaths while she lieth desolate without them. So that the generation to come of your children that shall rise up after you, and the stranger that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses which the Lord hath laid upon it, Wherefore hath the Lord done this unto the land, what meaneth the heat of this great anger? The anger of the Lord was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book.‡ Your country is desolate, your cities burned with fire; your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and desolate as overthrown by strangers. And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. Except the Lord of Hosts had left us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah. Ye shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no water. I will lay my vineyard waste. Of a truth many houses shall be desolate, even great and fair, without inhabitant. Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and the † Lev. xxvi. 31, 45, 53. Isa. i. 7. 8, 9. *Lev. xxvi. 18, 21, 24. Deut. xxix. 22, 24, 07 | Isa. i. 30. seed of an homer shall yield an ephah.-There shall the lambs feed after their manner, and the waste places of the fat ones shall strangers eat.* Then said I, Lord, how long? and he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate; and the Lord have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. But yet in it shall be a tenth; and it shall return and shall be eaten; as a teil-tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them when they cast their leaves.† The Lord of Hosts shall make a consumption, even determined, in the midst of all the land. The glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall wax lean; and it shall be as when the harvest-man gathereth the corn, and reapeth the ears with his arm; and it shall be as he that gathereth ears in the valley of Rephaim. Yet gleaning grapes shall be left in it, as the shaking of an olive-tree, two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outmost fruitful branches thereof, saith the Lord God of Israel. Behold the Lord maketh the earth|| (the land) empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof. The land shall be utterly emptied and utterly spoiled: for the Lord hath spoken this word. The earth (land) mourneth and fadeth away; it is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore hath the curse devoured the land, and they that dwell therein are desolate, and few men left. The new wine mourneth, the vine languisheth, all the merry-hearted do sigh. The mirth of tabrets ceaseth, the noise of them that rejoice endeth, the joy of the harp ceaseth. They shall not drink wine with a song; strong drink shall be bitter to them that drink it. The city of confusion is broken down: every house is shut up that no man may come in. There is a crying for wine in the streets, all joy is darkened, the Isa. xvii. 4, 5, 6. * Isa. v. 6, 9, 10, 17. † Isa. vi. 11, 12, 13. ‡ Isa. x. 23. The twenty-fourth chapter of Isaiah contains a continuous prophetic description (exactly analogous to other predictions) of the desolation of Judea, during the time that the "inhabitants thereof" were to be "scattered abroad;" and it is only necessary, in order to prevent any appearance of ambiguity, to remark, that the very same word in the original which, in the English translation, is here rendered earth, is in subsequent verses of the same chapter also translated land-evidently implying the land of Israel, the inhabitants of which were to be "scattered abroad;" and so obviously is this the meaning of the word, that the chapter is properly entitled "the deplorable judgments of God upon the land." mirth of the land is gone. When thus it shall be in the midst of the land among the people, there shall be as the shaking of an olive-tree, and as the gleaning grapes when the vintage is done." Yet the defenced city shall be desolate, and the habitation forsaken, and left like a wilderness; there shall the calf feed, and there shall he lie down and consume the branches thereof. When the boughs thereof are withered they shall be broken off: the women come and set them on fire; for it is a people of no understanding. Many days and years shall ye be troubled, ye careless women; for the vintage shall fail, the gathering shall not come. Tremble, ye women that are at ease; be troubled ye careless ones: strip you and make you bare, and gird sackcloth upon your loins. They shall lament for the teats, for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine. Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briers; yea, upon all the houses of joy in the joyous city; because the palaces shall be forsaken, the multitude of the city shall be left; the forts and towers shall be for dens for ever, a joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks; until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest.‡-The highways lie waste, the wayfaring man ceaseth; he hath broken the covenant, he hath despised the cities, he regardeth no man. The earth mourneth and languisheth; Lebanon is ashamed and hewn down; Sharon is like a wilderness; and Bashan and Carmel shake off their fruits. Destruction upon destruction is cried; for the whole land is spoiled. I beheld, and lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord; for thus hath the Lord said, the whole land shall be desolate, yet will I not make a fuil end. For this shall the earth mourn, because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and will not repent, neither will I turn back from it. How long shall the land mourn and the herbs of every field wither, for the wickedness of them that dwelt therein ?-I have forsaken mine house, I have left mine heritage.-Many pastors have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot, they have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness. They have made it desolate, and being desolate it mourneth unto me; the whole land is made desolate, beIsa. xxxiv. 10-15. *Isa. xxix. 12, 13. Isa. xxxiii. 8, 9. Isa. xxvii. 10, 11. |