tre of iron. They attributed to him a throne, the seat of temporal kings: thy throne, O God! is for ever and ever; the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre, Psal. xlv. 6. They attributed to him the armies of a temporal king: thy people shall be willing in the day when thou shalt assemble thine army in holy pomp, Psal. cx. 3. They attributed to him homages, like those which are rendered to a temporal king: they that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him; and his enemies shall lick the dust, Psal. lxxii. 9. They attributed to him the subjects of a temporal king; ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession, Psal. ii. 8. They attributed to him the prosperity of a temporal king: the kings of Tarshish, and of the isles, shall bring presents; the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts, Psal, lxxii. 10. They attributed to him the exploits of temporal kings: he shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath; he shall judge among the heathen, he shall fill the places with the dead bodies, he shall wound the heads over many countries, Psal. cx. 5, 6. They even foretold, that the king promised to the Jews should carry the glory of his nation to a higher degree than it had ever attained under its most successful princes.

How could the Jews know our Jesus by these descriptions, for he was only called a king in derision, or at most, only the vile populace seriously cal

*Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron. Our author uses the French version, Tu les froisseras avec un sceptre de fer. The Hebrew word is put literally for a common walking-stick, Exod. xxi. 19. A rod of correction, Prov. x. 13. The staff that was carried by the head of a tribe, or by a magistrate, as an ensign of his office, Gen. xliix. 10. The sceptre of a prince, and indeed for a rod, or staff, of any kind. It is put figuratively for support, affliction, power. &c. The epithet iron is added to express a penal exercise of power, as that of golden is to signify a mild use of it.

led him so? Our Jesus had no other sceptre than a reed, no other crown than a crown of thorns, no other throne than a cross; and the same may be said of the rest. Never was an objection seemingly more unanswerable, my brethren: Never was an objection really more capable of a full, entire, and conclusive solution. Attend to the following considerations:

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1. Those predictions, which are most incontestible in the ancient prophecies, are, that the sceptre. of the Messiah was to be a sceptre of righteousness. Psal. xlv. 6. Heb. i. 8. and they who would enjoy the felicities of his kingdom, must devote themselves to virtue. They must be humble, and in lowliness of mind, each must esteem other better than himself, Phil. ii. 3. They must be clement toward their enemies, do good to them that hate them, and pray for them which persecute them, Matt. v. 44. They must subdue the rebellion of the senses. ject them to the empire of reason, and crucify the flesh with its affections and lusts, Gal. v. 24. But of all the means that can be used to subjugate us to those virtues, that which we have supposed, is the most eligible; I mean the giving of a spiritual and metaphorical sense to the ancient prophecies. What would be the complexion of the kingdom of the Messiah, were it to afford us all those objects which are capable of flattering and of gratifying our passions? Riches would irritate our avarice. Ease would indulge our sloth and indolence. Pomp would produce arrogance and pride. Reputation would excite hatred and revenge. In order to mortify these passions, the objects must be removed by which they are occasioned or fomented. For the purpose of such a mortification, a cross is to be preferred before a bed of down, labor before ease, humiliation before grandeur, poverty before wealth.

2. To give a literal meaning to the prophecies which announce the kingdom of Christ, is to make them contradict themselves. Were terrestrial pomp, were riches and human grandeurs, always to attend the Messiah, what would become of those partsof the prophecies, which speak with so much energy of his humiliation and sufferings? What would become of the prophecy which God himself gave to the first man, The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head: but indeed the serpent shall bruise his heel? What would become of this prophetic saying of the psalmist, I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people? Psal. xxii. 6. What would become of this prophecy of Isaiah, He hath no form nor comeliness; when we shall see him, there is no beauty, that we should desire him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not, chap. liii. 2, 3. Whether, to free ourselves from this difficulty, we say, with some Jews, that the prophets speak of two Messiahs; or with others, dispute the sense in which even the traditions of the ancient Rabbies explained these prophecies, and deny that they speak of the Messiah at all in either case we plunge ourselves into an ocean of difficulties. It is the only kingdom of our Jesus, that uniteth the grandeur and the meanness, the glory and the ignominy, the immorality and the death, which the ancient prophets foretold would be found in the kingdom, and in the person of the Messiah.

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3. The prophets themselves have given the keys of their prophecies concerning the Messiah. hold! the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah. I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts. Jer. xxxii. 31, 33. And again, I will have mercy

upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the Lord their God; and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen, Hos. i. 7. What is that covenant which engageth to put the divine law in the hearts of them with whom it is made? What is this salvation, which is procured neither by bow nor by sword? Where is the unprejudiced man, who doth not perceive that these passages are clues to the prophecies, in which the Messiah is represented as exercising a temporal dominion on earth?

4. If there be any thing literal in what the prophets have foretold ofthe eminent degree of temporal glory to which the Messiah was to raise the Jewish nation; if the distinction of St. Paul, of Israel after the flesh, 1 Cor. x. 18. from Israel after the spirit, Rom. ix. 3, 6. be verified in this respect; if the saying of John the Baptist, God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham, Matt iii. 9. if, in one word, as we said before, there be any thing literal in those prophecies, we expect a literal accomplishment of them. Yes! we expect a period in which the king Messiah will elevate the Jewish nation to a more eminent degree of glory than any to which its most glorious kings have ever elevated it. The heralds of the kingdom of our Messiah, far from contesting the pretensions of the Jews on this article, urged the truth and the equity of them. I say then, (these are the words of St. Paul writing on the rejection of the Jews) I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Rom. xi, 11, 12, God forbid ! But rather through their fall salvation is come unto the gentiles for to provoke them tojealousy. Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the gentiles: how much more their fulness?

St. Paul establisheth in these words two callings

of the Gentiles: a calling, which was a reproach to the Jewish nation, and a calling, which shall be the glory of that nation. That calling, which was a reproach to the Jews, was occasioned by their infidelity; the full of them was the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles: that is to say, the apostles, disgusted at the unbelief of the Jews, preached the gospel to the Pagan world.

But here is a second calling mentioned, which will be glorious to the Jews, and this calling will be occasioned by the return of the Jews to the covenant, and by their embracing the gospel. The Gentiles, to whom the gospel had not been preached before, will be so stricken to see the accomplishment of those prophecies, which had fortold it; they will be so affected to see the most cruel onemies of Jesus Christ become his most zealous disciples, that they will be converted through the influence of the example of the Jews. If the fall of them, if the fall of the Jews, were the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles: how much more their fulness? This is an article of faith in the christian church.

This furnisheth us also with an answer to one of the greatest objections, that was ever made against the christian system, touching the spiritual reign of the Messiah. A very ingenious Jew hath urged this objection; I mean the celebrated Isaac Orobio. This learned man, through policy, had professed the Catholic religion in Spain: but, after the fear of death had made him declare himself a christian, in spite of the most cruel tortures, that the inquisition could invent, to make him own himself a Jew; at length he came into these provinces to enjoy that amiable toleration, which reigns here, and not only professed his own religion, but defended it, as