part of it, he launches forth into a subject more congenial with his feelings, and announces, both to the Jewish and Gentile world, that God had designs of love towards them, and would incorporate them all in one blessed society, and restore them all- to his favour. In the address which I have just read to you he is peculiarly animated. We may consider it as delivered,
I. To the Jews, prospective!//, in a way of anticipa- tion—
The events referred to are spoken of as already past, even though at this time, after the lapse of twenty-five centuries, we see not yet the predictions fulfilled. But this mode of speaking is common to all the prophets, who, knowing the unerring certainty of their predictions, look through intervening ages as through a telescope, and see the objects of which they speak accomplished before their eyes.
Now here the prophet felicitates the Jews as already liberated from the judgments which they had suf- fered, or which yet at distant periods impended over them —
[They were to be carried captive to Babylon and to As- syria, and to be utterly destroyed by the Roman power, and to be scattered over the face of the whole earth as objects of hatred and contempt amongst all people. And it is a fact, that no people that ever existed upon earth were ever so universally despised, and hated, and persecuted as they. But the prophet says to them by anticipation, " Thy judgments are taken away." This has already in part been " fulfilled." And it is certain that in God's good time her judgments shall be so perfectly taken away, as not to leave even the appearance, and scarcely the recollection, of them behind : " Thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widow- hood any more. For thy Maker is thine husband .... the God of the whole earth shall he be called V So completely shall this be done, that Jerusalem shall yet become a name and a praise amongst all the people upon earth, as soon as ever the Lord shall have turned back the captivity with which his people are now oppressed0.]
b Isai. liv. 1 — 10. See also Zech. i. 15 — 17. In a Discourse writ- ten on this subject, almost all the passages here referred to, under the first head especially, should be cited at full length.
c ver. 19. with Isai. lxv. 17 — 19.
D d2