can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered *.”

I am well assured, if we were to select an individual of understanding, who had never heard of the holy Scriptures, nor of an opposition to them; and if we were to read to him these words, and then point out to him, that in the persons of the dispersed Jews, the posterity of Abraham is now in existence in countless numbers, though four thousand years have elapsed since the promise was given; I am well assured, I say, that this man would exclaim, that so wonderful a promise, so faithfully executed, could have no other author than the Governor of the universe, and the Director of every event.

But what would this man say when he came to hear the history of the posterity of that Abraham, to whom these words were addressed, when he came to learn what their grandeur, and what their misery had been at various times; when he should be told of their Egyptian bondage, their wonderful deliverance from it, their entrance into Canaan, their possession of that land for many centuries, their wars with various mighty nations, their quarrels among themselves, their desolation from the Assyrians, their captivity in Babylon,

*Gen. xiii. 16.

their persecutions from the Greeks, their total overthrow and comparative destruction by the Romans; when he should be shewn the unhappy Jews fleeing from the sword of their conquerors, and becoming bond-slaves and fugitives over the face of the whole earth; when to this should be added, that they have existed for the space of nearly two thousand years, thus scattered and dispersed, suffering every indignity, deprivation, and insult, which man can invent; and that in every place, nation, and country, they are to be found, perfectly a distinct and separate people? What other reply could he make to this, but to avow it to be a miracle, and to exclaim; Behold in this wonder the almighty power of God, and the truth of his word?

The present existence of the Jews is, to my conception, of itself a demonstrative proof of the Divine origin of the Bible. Surely nothing but a mind wilfully rejecting the light of truth, can refuse its assent to such a host of evidence in favour of revelation, as this one circumstance presents. Perhaps the sceptic will raise yet another objection, and will attempt to say, that when Moses wrote, the Jewish people were already so numerous, that he could safely assert this promise. This objection we will also shew to be equally groundless and vain. First, the Israelites, always have acknowledged Abraham to be their

progenitor, and to this day they do so; and as to their numbers, that identical circumstance was in the days of Moses a verification of the truth of the promise, and of the power of God. Secondly, we will reply by putting a question to these cavillers: How did Moses know that the posterity of Abraham would exist for four thousand years, and still continue to be a numerous people? How many other nations have arisen and fallen in the lapse of that time; how many kingdoms have been raised into power and sunk again into insig nificance, whose inhabitants have become mixed and amalgamated with their conquerors in such a manner, that their origin cannot in any way be traced! Yet the Jews, though scattered over the whole of the habitable world, are as distinct from the rest of mankind as when they dwelt in Jerusalem and in Judea.

The fulfilment of God's promise to Abraham is thus proved beyond all rational doubt. Then there is a God who gave this promise, and the laws written by Moses are the laws of that God.

Thus time, which devours nations and empires, kingdoms and states, has not been able to consume that people, which God had formed through his promise, and upheld by his power. In the unaltered course of that blood of Abraham, which has flowed for four thousand years unintermixed and distinctly known, we trace another of the

wonders of Providence; in preserving to us through the Jews the writings of Moses and the Prophets in their original shape. It was worthy the wisdom of the Almighty Creator, that the depositaries of his word, the keepers of the archives of the church, of the title-deeds of religion, if I may so call them, should be peculiarly set apart, and distinct from other men, both by nation and language; by forms and ceremonies; by a miraculous establishment and equally wonderful preservation.

It appears to have been one of the purposes of Divine Wisdom, that the Jews, who rejected the promised Messiah themselves, should possess proofs, by which the whole world besides might acknowledge Him, that all people might be convinced, that, however exact the conformity they might discover in the Old and New Testament, there could not, by any possibility, be the slightest collusion between the authors of the two.

By this continued distinction of the Jews from the rest of mankind, it is manifested clearly also, that though now they abide in the darkness of unbelief, though they nationally still reject Jesus Christ as the Messiah, yet that they are the ancient people of God, concerning whom his Prophets declare, that he will shew mercy and gather them together as a nation above all nations, when they shall acknowledge that mighty Saviour

whom their ancestors rejected and slew. If the Jews had been indiscriminately mixed and confounded with other nations, what advantage might not the unbeliever have made of the circumstance? He would have told us perhaps, that the history of this people was merely a romance, that the Gospel is a fraud from the same, or at least from no better, source. But in the simple fact of their mere existence, as a still distinct and separate people, we find sufficient to refute any attempt at such an assertion, and to close the mouth of the infidel for ever.

One reason, we say, for the establishment of some ceremonies was, that they might serve as memorials of the most remarkable events in the history of the Israelites. We have before observed, that some of the Jewish ceremonies were not only types of the blessings promised in the Messiah, but also memorials of some signal mercies received by that people themselves. Thus the passover, in every one of its particulars, has a reference to the circumstances of the Jewish release from Egyptian bondage, as well as to the deliverance of all mankind from the bondage of sin and Satan.

Perhaps there is not any part of Scripture, at which incredulity more delights to cavil than at the account of the wonders wrought by Moses, in withdrawing the children of Israel from Egypt;