come in due season. Scattered as they now are, and at the utmost possible distance from Christianity, the time is coming, when " the good Shepherd will seek and search them out, and bring them into his fold, and cause them to feed upon the mountains of Israel e." Then, says God, " I will set up one Shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David ; and he shall feed them, and be their shepherd. And I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David a prince among them : I the Lord have spoken itf." Let this be com- pared with what the Prophet Hosea says to the same effect ; and no doubt can remain, either respecting whom it is spoken, or at what period it is to be accomplished g. Were we to take from the Old Testament all the passages which speak to the same purpose, we should transcribe no inconsiderable portion of the prophetic writings. But this is unnecessary, since there is not any one who believes the Scriptures, who does not believe that the Jews shall at a future period be converted to the faith of Christ, and acknowledge him as their Messiah. Yet we must on no account pass over the testimony of St. Paul, who occupies one entire chapter with this subject ; assuring us, that there is yet among the Jews " a remnant according to the election of grace h;" that " they shall again be graffed on their own olive- tree, from which for our sakes (though for their own transgres- sions) they have been broken off:" and that as their temporary rejection from the Church of God has been the means of intro- ducing the Gentiles into it, so shall their restoration to it be an infinitely richer blessing to the Gentiles than ever their rejection was, being to the whole Gentile world " as life from the dead1."]
Regarding then the bestowment of this mercy to the Jews as certain, we proceed to state,
II. The way in which it shall be vouchsafed to them —
This we will trace,
1. In its commencement —
[The extent of territory originally assigned to them in God's covenant with Abraham, was that which is here speci- fied in our text ; it was from the river Euphrates to the Nilek. But, having been driven from thence, they are compared to an olive-tree which has been stripped of all its fruit, except a few that were either hidden from the owner, or inaccessible to him, on the topmost boughs1. God, however, will send his servants to seek out this scattered fruit, and to " beat it off,"
e Ezek. xxxiv. 11 — 14. f Ezek. xxxiv. 23, 24. s Hos. iii. 5. 11 R°m. xi. 6. i Rom. xi. 12, 15, 19, 20, 24.
k Gen. xv. 18 i Isai. xvii. 4 — 6.