my asser. on, was the appellation given to Je rusalem. that cry for the abominations committed in the midst thereof.' I am grieved for the honour of our critics, who have followed the Vulgate version in a reading which disfigures the text; set the letter thau on the foreheads of those that sigh.'. To how many puerilities has this reading given birth? What mysteries have they not sought in the letter that? But the Vulgate is the only version which has thus read the passage. The word thau in Hebrew implies a sign; to write this letter on the forehead of any one, is to make a mark; and to imprint a mark on the forehead of a man, is, in the style of prophecy, to distinguish him by some special favour. So the Seventy, the Arabic, and Syriac have rendered this expression. You will find the same figures employed by St. John, in the Revelation. Resuming the thread of the history: this alliance, which the Jews had contracted with Egypt, augmented their confidence at a time when every consideration should have abated it; it elevated them with the presumptuous notion of being adequate to frustrate the designs of Nebuchadnezzar, or rather those of God himself, who had declared that he would subjugate all the east to this potentate. He presently retook from Pharaoh Nechoh, Carchemish, and the other cities conquered by that prince. He did more; he transferred the war into Egypt, after having associated Nebuchadnezzar his son in the empire; and after various advantages in that kingdom, he entered on the expedition against Judea, recorded in the 37th chapter of the Second Book of Chronicles; he accomplished what Isaiah had foretold to Hezekiah, that the Chaldeans should take his sons, and make them eunuchs in Babylon,' Isa. xxxix. 7. He plundered Jerusalem; he put Jehoiakim in chains, and placed his brother Jehoiachin on the throne, who is sometimes called Jeconiah and sometimes Coniah; and who availed himself of the grace he had received, to rebel against his benefactor. This prince quick-present, or as already past. Consonant to ly revenged the perfidy; he besieged Jerusalem, which he had always kept blockaded since the death of Jehoiakim, and he led away a very great number of captives into Babylon, among whom was the prophet Ezckiel. Ezekiel was raised up of God to prophesy to the captive Jews, who constantly indulged the reverie of returning to Jerusalem, while Jeremiah prophesied to those who were yet in their country, on whom awaited the same destiny. They laboured unanimously to persuade their countrymen to place no confidence in their connexion with Egypt; to make no more unavailing efforts to throw off the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar; and to obey the commands of that prince, or rather the commands of God, who was wishful by his ministry to punish the crimes of all the east. Our prophet was transported into Jerusalem; he there saw those Jews, who at the very time while they continued to flatter them with averting the total ruin of Judea, hastened the event, not only by continuing, but by redoubling their cruelties, and their idolatrous worship. At the very crisis while he beheld the infamous conduct of his countrymen in Jerusalem, he heard God himself an nounce the punishments with which they were about to be overwhelmed; and saying to his ministers of vengeance, Go through the city; strike, let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: Slay utterly old and young, both maids and little children; and women. --Defile my house, and fill the courts with the slain,' ix. 5-7. But while God delivered a commission so terrible with regard to the aboninable Jews, he cast a consoling regard on others; he said to a mysterious person, Go through the midst of the city, and set a mark on the foreheads of the men that sigh, and The words of my text have the same import as the above passage; they may be restricted to the Jews already in captivity; I extend them,however,to the Jews who groaned for the enormities committed by their countrymen in Jerusalem. The past, the present, and the future time, are sometimes undistinguished in the holy tongue; especially by the prophets, to whom the certainty of the future predictel events, occasioned them to be contemplated, as this style, I have cast them far off among the heathen,' may imply, I will cast them far off; I will disperse them among the nations, &c. To both those bodies of Jews, of whom I have spoken, I would say, those already captivated in Babylon when Ezekiel received this vision, and those who were led away alter the total ruin of Jerusalem, that however afflictive their situation might appear, God would meliorate it by constant marks of the protection he would afford. or have cast them far off among the heathen; Though I may and among the countries: though I may disperse them among strange nations; yet I will be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they are come.' This is the general scope of the words we have read. Wishful to apply them to the design of this day, we shall proceed to draw a parallel between the state of the Jews in Babylon, and that in which it has pleased God to place the churches whose ruin we have now deplored for forty years. The dispersion of the Jews had three distinguished characters. I. A character of horror; II. A character of justice; III. A character of mercy. A character of horror; this people were dispersed among the nations; they were compelled to abandon Jerusalem, and to wander in divers countries. A character of justice: God himself, the God who makes 'judgment and justice the habitation of his throne,' Ps. lxxxix. 15, was the author of those calamities; I have cast them far off among the heathen; and dispersed them among the countries.' In fine, a character of mercy: though I have cast them far off among the heathen, I have been,' as we may read, 'I will be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries SER. XCV.] CHURCH AT VOORBURGH. where they are come.' These are the three similiarities between the dispersed Jews, and the reformed, to whom these provinces have extended a compasionate arm. I. The dispersion of the Jews, connected with all the calamities which preceded and followed, had a character of horror: let us judge of it by the lamentations of Jeremiah, who attested, as well as predicted the awful scenes. 1. He deplores the arnage which stained Judea with blood: The priests and the prophets have been slain in the sanctuary of the Lord. The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets; my virgins and the young men are fallen by the sword: thou hast slain; thou hast killed, and hast not pitied Thou hast them in the day of thine anger. convened my terrors, as to a solemn day,' chap. ii. 20-22. 2. He deplores the horrors of the famine which induced the living to envy the lot of those that had fallen in war: The children and the sucklings swoon in the streets; they say to their mothers, when expiring in their bosom, where is the corn and the wine?They that be slain with the sword are happier than they that be slain with hunger. Have not the women eaten the children that they suckled? Naturally pitiful, have they not baked their children to supply them with food?' chap. ii. 11, 12. 20; iv. 9, 10. 3. He deplores the insults of their enemies: All that pass by clap their hands at thee; they hiss and shake their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city called the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth?' chap ii. 15. 4. He deplores the insensibility of God himself, who formerly was moved with their calamities, and ever accessible to their prayers: Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud that our prayers should not pass through: and when I cry and shout, he rejecteth my supplication,' chap. iii. 44. 8. 5. He deplores the favours God had conferred, the recollection of which served but to render their grief the more poignant, and their fall the more insupportable: Jerusalem in the days of her affliction remembered all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old. How doth the city sit in solitude that was full of people? How is she that was great among the nations become a widow, and she that was princess among the provinces become tributary?' chap. i. 7. I. 6. Above all, he deplores the strokes levelled against religion: The ways of Zion do mourn because none come to the solemn feasts: all her gates are desolate : her priests sigh; her virgins are afflicted. The heathen have entered into her sanctuary; the heathen concerning whom thou didst say, that they should not enter into thy sanctuary,' chap. i. 4. 10. These are the tints with which Jeremiah paints the calamities of the Jews, and making those awful objects an inexhaustible source of tears; he exclaims in the eloquence of grief; Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see, if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done unto me, wherewith But is all this a mere portrait of past ages, I am impelled to the objects which the solemnities of this day recall to your minds, though I should even endeavour to dissipate the ideas; I would say, to the destruction of our churches, and to the strokes which have The cobeen levelled against our religion. lours Jeremiah employed to trace the calamities of Jews, cannot be too vivid to paint those One scourge has which have fallen on us. followed another for a long series of years, One deep has called unto another deep at the noise of his water-spouts,' Ps. xlii. 7. A thousand and a thousand strokes were aimed at our unhappy churches prior to that which rased them to the ground! and if we may so speak, one would have said, that those armed against us were not content with being spectators of our ruin; they were emulous to effec tuate it. Sometimes they published edicts against those who foreseeing the impending calamities of the church, and unable to avert them, sought the sad consolation of not attesting the scenes. Sometimes against those who having had the baseness to deny their religion, and unable to bear the remorse of their conscience, had recovered from their fall.t Sometimes *The edict of August, 1689. : vate cases, and when we would draw the con- they prohibited pastors from exercising their discipline on those of their flock who had abjure the truth. Sometimes they permitted children at the age of seven years to embrace a doctrine, in the discussion of which they affirm, that even adults were inadequate to the task.t At one time they suppressed a college, at another they interdicted a church. Sometimes they envied us the glory of converting infidels and idolaters; and required that those unhappy people should not renounce one kind of idolatry but to embrace another, far less excusable, as it dared to show its front amid the light of the gospel. They envied us the glory also of confirming those in the truth who we had instructed from our infancy. Some-pear at the bar of philosophy the most scruputimes they prohibited the pastors from exer-lous and severe, and at the bench of policy the cising the ministerial functions for more than most refined and profound, to prove that it is three years in the same place. Sometimes not possible for a state long to subsist in splenthey forbade us to print our books; and dour which presumes to derive its prosperity sometimes seized those already published.T from the practice of crimes. For, Sometimes they obstructed our preaching in a Who is he that will dare to exclaim against church sometimes from doing it on the founa proposition so reasonable, and so closely dations of one that had been demolished; and connected with the grand doctrines of relisometimes from worshipping God in public. gion; and which cannot be renounced withAt one time they exiled us from the kingdom; out a stroke at the being of a God, and the and at another, forbade our leaving it on pain superintendence of a Providence? a man adof death.** Here you might have seen tro-mitting those two grand principles, and prephies prepared for those who had basely de-suming to make crimes subservient to the supnied their religion; there you might have seen dragged to the prisons, to the scaffold, or to the galleys, those who had confessed it with an heroic faith: yea, the bodies of the dead dragged on hurdles for having expired confessing the truth. In another place you might have seen a dying man at compromise with a minister of hell, on persisting in his apostacy, and the fear of leaving his children destitute of bread; and if he made not the best use of those last moments that the treasures of Providence, and the long-suffering of God, yet afforded him to recover from his fall. In other places, fathers and mothers tearing themselves away from children, concerning whom the fear of being separated from them in eternity made them shed tears more bitter than those that flowed on being separated in this life. Elsewhere you might have seen whole families arriving in Protestant countries with hearts transported with joy, once more to see churches, and to find in Christian communion, adequate sources to assuage the anguish of the sacrifices they had made for its enjoyment. Let us draw the curtain over those affecting scenes. Our calamities, like those of the Jews, have had a character of horror; this is a fact; this is but too easy to prove. They have had also a character of justice, which we proceed to prove in our sccond head. 11. That public miseries originate in the crimes of a chastened people, is a proposition that scarcely any one will presume to deny when proposed in a vague and general way; but perhaps it is one of those whose evidence is less perceived when applied to certain pri ort of society, should digest the following propositions. There is indeed a God in heaven, who has constituted society to practise equity; to maintain order; and to cherish religion; he has connected its prosperity with these duties; but by the secrets of my policy, by the depths of my counsels, by the refinement of my wisdom, I know how to elude his designs, and avert his denunciations, God is indeed an Almighty Being whose pleasure has a necessary connexion with its execution; he has but to blow with his wind on a nation, and behold it vanishes away; but I will oppose power to power; I will force his strength;* and by my fleets, my armies, my fortress, I will elude all those ministers of vengeance. God has indeed declared, that he is jealous of his glory; that soon or late he will exterminate incorrigible nations; and that if from the nature of their vices there proceed not a sufficiency of calamities to extirpate them from the earth, he will superadd those unrelenting strokes of vengeance which shall justify his Providence; but the state, over which I preside, shall be too small, or perhaps too great to be absorbed in the vortex of his commanding way. It shall be reserved of Providence as an exception to this general rule, and made to subsist in favour of those very vices, which have occasioned the sackage of other nations. My brethren, there is, if I may presume so to speak, but a front of iron and brass that can digest propositions so daring, and prefer the system of Hobbs and of Machiavel to that of David and of Solomon. But what awful objects should we present to your view, were we wishful to enter on a detail of the proofs concerning the equity of *The versions vary very much in reading, Isaiah XXVIL 5. Vide Poli Synopsis Crit. in loc. the strokes with which God afflicted the Jews;, horror, had also a character of mercy; and this and especially were we wishful to illustrate is what is promised the Jews in the words of the conformity found in this second head, be- my text: Although I have cast them far off tween the desolations of those ancient people, among the heathen, and among the countries; and those of our own churches? yet I will be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they are come.' Whelittle sancther you give these words, as tuary,' a vague, or a limited signification, all resolves to the same sense. If you give them a limited import, they refer to the temple of Jerusalem, which the Chaldeans had destroyed, and which was the emblem of God's presence in the midst of his people. I have dispersed them among the heathen;' I have deprived them of their temple, but I will grant them supernaturally the favours I accorded to their prayers once offered up in the house, of which they have been deprived. In this sense St. John said, that he saw no temple in the new Jerusalem, because God and the Lamb were the temple thereof,' Rev. xxi. 22. If you give these words an extended import, they allude to the dispersion. Although I have cast them off among the heathen, and put them tar away' from the place of their habitation; yet I will be myself their refuge. Much the same is said by the author of the xeth psalm; Lord' thou hast been our retreat, or refuge, from one generation to another.' But without a minute scrutiny of the words, let us justify the thing. . To justify what we have advanced on the first head, it would be requisite to investigate many of their kings, who were monsters rather than men; it would be requisite to describe the hardness of the people who were wishful that the ministers of the living God, sent to rebuke their crimes, mi ht contribute to confirm them therein; and who, according to the expression of Isaiah, said to the seer, see not; and to those who had visions, see no more visions of uprightness; speak unto us smooth things, prophecy deceit. Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us,' xxx. 10. 11. It would be requisite to exhibit the connivance of many of their pastors, who, as Jeremiah says, healed the hurt of his people slightly, saying, peace, peace, when there was no peace;' vi. 14; and who were so far from suppressing the licentiousness of the wicked, as to make it their glory to surpass them! It would be requisite to describe the awful security which in the midst of the most tremendous visitations infatuated them to say, • We have made a covenant with death, and with hell we are at agreement,' Isa. xxviii. 15. It would be requisite to trace those san- I. Even amid the carnage which ensued on guinary deeds, which occasioned that just re- the taking of Jerusalem, many of the princibuke, In the skirts of thy robe is found the pal people were spared. It appears from the blood of the innocent poor,' Jer. ii. 34. It sacred history, that Jeremiah was allowed to would be requisite to exhibit those scenes of choose what retreat he pleased, either to reidolatry, which made a prophet say, Lift up main in Babylon,* or to return to his country. thine eyes on the high places, and see where He chose the latter; he loved the foundations thou hast been lien with. O Juda, thy gods of Jerusalem, and of his temple, more than are as many as thy cities,' ii. 23; iii 2. It the superb city; and it was at the sight of would be requisite to speak of that paucity of those mournful ruins, that he composed those righteous men, which occasioned God himself Lamentations, from which we have made to say, Run ye to and fro through the streets many extracts, and in which he has painted of Jerusalem, and see now and know, and in the deepest tints, and described in the most seek ye in the broad places thereof, if ye can pathetic manner, the miseries of his nation. find a man, if there be any that executeth judgment, that seeketh truth, and I will par don it,' v. i. But instead of retracing those awful recollections, and deducing from them the just application of which they are susceptible, it would be better to comprise them in that general confession, and to acknowledge when speaking of your calamities what the Jews confessed when speaking of theirs: The Lord is righteous, for I have rebelled against him. Certainly thou art righteous in all the things that have happened, for thou hast acted in truth, but we have done wickedly. Neither have our kings, our princes, our priests, nor our fathers, kept thy law, nor hearkened unto thy commandments, and to thy testimonies wherewith thou didst testify against them,' Lam. i. 18; Neh. ix. 34. III. But it is time to present you with objects more attractive and assortable with the solemnities of this day. The calamities which fell upon the Jews, and those which have fallen on us; those calamities which had a character of justice; yea, even a character of 6 2. While some of the Jewish captives had liberty to return to their country, others were promoted in Babylon to the most eminent offices in the empire. The author of the second Book of Kings says, that Evil-merodach lifted up the head of Jehoiachin out of prison-and set his throne above the throne of the kings that were with him in Babylon.' Jeremiah repeats the same expression of this author, 2 Kings xxv. 23; Jer. lii. 32; and learned men have thence concluded, that Jehoiachin reigned in Babylon over his own dispersed subjects.' Of Daniel we may say the saine; he was made governor of the province of Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, and chief of the governors over all the wise men,' Dan. ii. 48. Darius conferred many years afterward the same dignities on this prophet; and Nehemiah was cupbearer to Artaxerxes. 3. How dark, how impenetrable soever the history of the seventy years may be, during which time the Jews were captive in Babylon, * It appears, below, that Saurin thought Jeremiah and others returned from Babylon! it is extremely obvious, that they had during | credulous, that the same God who had dethat period some form of government. We termined their captivity, was he also who had have explained ourselves elsewhere concern- prescribed its bounds. He moved in their being what is meant by the Echmaloturks; half the hearts of pagan princes! We see that is, the chiefs or princes of the captivity. Darius, and Cyrus, and Artaxerxes, become, We ought also to pay some attention to the by the sovereignty of Heaven over the heart book of Susanna: I know that this work bears of kings, the restorers of Jerusalem, and the various marks of reprobation, and that St. builders of its temple! Xenophon reports, Jerome, in particular, regarded it with so that when Cyrus took Babylon, he commandmuch contempt as to assure us, in some sort, ed his soldiers to spare all who spake the Sythat it would never have been put in the rian tongue; that is to say, the Hebrew nation; sacred canon had it not been to gratify a bru- and no one can be ignorant of the edicts issued tish people. Meanwhile, we ought not to in favour of this people. slight what this book records concerning the general history of the Jews: now we there see, that during the captivity, they had elders, judges, and senators; and if we may credit Origen, too much prejudiced in favour of the book of Susanna, it was solely to hide the shame of the princes of their nation that the Jews had suppressed it. 4. God always preserved among them the ministry, and the ministers. It is indubitable that there were always prophets during the captivity; though some of the learned have maintained, that the sacred books were lost during the captivity; though one text of Scripture seems to favour this notion; and though Tertullian and Eusebius presume to say that Esdras had retained the sacred books in memory, and wrote them in the order in which they now stand; notwithstanding all this, we think ourselves able to prove that the sacred trust never was out of their hands. It appears that Daniel read the prophets. The end of the second book of Chronicles, which has induced some to conclude that Cyrus was a proselyte, leaves not a doubt that this prince must have read the xlivth and xlvth chapters of Isaiah, where he is expressly named, and to this knowledge alone we can attribute the extraordiuary expressions of his first edict. The Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he has charged me to build him a temple in Jerusalem,' 2 Chron. xxxvi. 23. Now, my brethren, nothing but an excess of blindness and ingratitude can prevent the seeing and feeling in our own dispersion those marks of mercy, which shone so bright in the dispersion of the Jews. How else could we have eluded the troops stationed on the frontiers of our country, to retain us in it by force, and to make us either martyrs or apostates? What else could excite the zeal of some Protestant countries, whose inhabitants you saw going to meet your fugitives, guiding them in the private roads, and disputing with one another who should entertain them; and saying, Come, come into our houses, ye blessed of the Lord? Gen. xxiv. 31. . Whence proceeds so much success in our trade; so much promotion in the army; so much progress in the sciences; and so much prosperity in the several professions of many of us, who, according to the world, are more happy in the land of their exile, than they were in their own country? Why has God been pleased to signalize his favours to certain individuals of the nations, and have extended to us a protecting arm? Why, when indigence and exiles seemed to enter their houses together, have we seen affluence, benediction, and riches emanate, if we may so speak, from the bosom of charity and be neficence? By what miracle have so great a number of our confessors and martyrs been liberated from their tortures and their chains? without the camp, bearing his reproach,' and those who have wished to join the interests of mammon with those of heaven? Gal. i. 16; Heb. xiii. 13. We are masters of whatever property with which it pleased Providence to invest us on our departure; but our brethren cannot dispose of theirs but with vexatious restrictions and imposts. 5. God wrought prodigies for the Jews, From what principle proceeds the extraor which made them venerable in the eyes of dinary difference, God has put between those their greatest enemies. Though exiles; of our countrymen, who, without consulting though captives; though slaves of the Chal-flesh and blood, have followed Jesus Christ deans, they were distinguished as the favourites of the Sovereign of the universe. They made the God of Abraham to triumph even in the midst of idols; and aided by the prophetic Spirit, they pronounced the destiny of those very kingdoms in the midst of which they were dispersed. Like the captive Ark, they hallowed the humiliations of their captivity by symbols of terror. Witness the flames which consumed their executioners. Witness the dreams of Nebuchadnezzar, and of Belshazzar interpreted by Daniel, and realized by Providence witness the praises rendered to God by idolatrous kings: witness the preservation of Daniel from the fury of the lions; and his enemies thrown to assuage the appetites of those ferocious beasts. 6. In a word, the mercy of God appeared so distinguished in the deliverance accorded to these same Jews, as to convince the most in We have over our children the rights which nature, society, and religion have given us; we can promise both to ourselves and to them the protection of the laws, while we shall continue to respect the laws, which we teach them to do. But our countrymen, on leaving their houses for a few hours, know not on their return, whether they shall find those dear parts of themselves, or whether they shall be dragged away to confinement in a convent, or thrown into a jail. |