as they were when embodied in the land of Canaan ? Other nations, that have been subdued and carried captive, have been blended at last with the inhabitants of the countries where they sojourned; but the Jews still, as formerly, " dwell alone" in the midst of the earth, as it was foretold they should do*. Hence they, above all people, are witnesses of his godhead. And in this view God himself appeals to them, yea, and appeals to the whole universe on the authority of their tes- timony11. We may say then of the Jews in every place throughout the world, that they are living epistles from God to man, yea, are " epistles known and read of all men ;" so that, whatever be the language of the country where they live, they do unwittingly, yet most intelligibly and unques- tionably, proclaim, " The Lord, He is the God ; the Lord, He is the Godx."
They are witnesses also of all his glorious perfections. Who that sees a Jew can help seeing in him the potver and love, which God manifested to his fathers in all the wonders of his grace ; in their very origin from parents, who, according to the course of nature, could have had no children ; in bringing them forth also out of the land of Egypt, and carrying them in safety to the promised land, and, in short, in all his other dealings with them to the present moment ? Who can but see also the purity and holiness of Jehovah, as marked in the judg- ments inflicted on them? Is it not evident, that they are monuments of God's wrath ; and that, though God may spare long, he will at last visit the offences of his rebellious people? Above all, Who that sees a Jew, does not see in him the truth and faithfulness of Jehovah ? God promised, that for Abra- ham's sake he would not utterly cast them off: and, notwith- standing all their provocations, he still preserves them, in order to their future restoration to their own land, and their renewed enjoyment of his special favour. David, expatiating on all the glorious perfections of God, interrupts, as it were, his song by what appears, at first sight, to be an unsuitable and irrelevant observation ; " He made known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel y." But this one observation speaks more than the whole psalm besides ; for it embodies all that is more particularly expressed, and gives, what we may call, a graphical exhibition, or picture, of the Divine character ; and in the fewest possible words shews us, what will be God's con- duct towards his people to the end of time. Precisely thus the sight of a Jew gives us a compendious view of all the Divine perfections, and sets God himself, as it were, almost visibly before our eyes.]
* Numb, xxiii. 9. u Isai. xliii. 9 — 12. and xliv. G — 9.
x 1 Kings xviii. 39. y Ps. ciii. 7.