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DISCOURSE XI.

THE RECOVERY OF JERUSALEM FROM ITS LONG DESOLATION, AND THE FULL RESTORATION OF JUDAH AND ISRAEL TO THE LAND OF CANAAN, IN CONNECTION WITH THEIR CONVERSION.

[A SERMON PReached at thE EPISCOPAL CHAPEL, WEST STREET, LONDON, ON TUESDAY, MARCH 23, 1841, AND AT THE ABBEY CHURCH, BATH, ON SUNDAY, APRIL 18, 1841.]

JEREMIAH Xxxiii. 6-9.

Behold I will bring it health and cure, and I will cure them, and will reveal unto them the abundance of truth and peace, and I will cause the captivity of Judah and the captivity of Israel to return, and will build them as at the first; and I will cleanse them from all their iniquity whereby they have sinned against me, and I will pardon all their iniquities whereby they have sinned and whereby they have transgressed against me; and it shall be to me a name of joy, a praise, and an honour before all the nations of the earth which shall hear all the good that I do unto them, and they shall fear and tremble for all the goodness and for all the prosperity that I procure unto it.

THE restoration and the future glory of Israel is the haven set before the Church in all the Old Testament

prophecies amidst the dark and stormy scenes of the last days. It is the citadel of its hope in the times of affliction. This subject occupies a very large proportion of the word of God. The restoration of Israel is the fountain-head also of innumerable blessings to the whole world. Well then does it become the Ministers of God's word prominently and distinctly to direct the attention of men to it, and to open out its reality and its glories

We find this great and important event, which is yet to come, presented to us in the most rich variety of forms, and with special beauty in seasons of trial and danger. It is so in the glowing prophecy of our text. Jeremiah was shut up in the court of the prison; the houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah were thrown down by the mounts and by the sword of the Chaldeans. When the Jews went forth to fight with them it was but to fill the places with the dead bodies of men. Jerusalem was sentenced of God to fall (chap. xxxii. 28, 29). In this dark and gloomy season the Lord gives one of the fullest and most glowing prophecies in the Old Testament. So it is ever. This is the way of our gracious God. To the upright there ariseth light in darkness. The hour of temptation to the world is the time of redemption to the Church.

Our whole subject is eminently one of faith and not of mere argument. Its foundation is in the word of God, and not in the wisdom of man. It is one that has to encounter therefore the scorn of the unbeliever, and we must look for this. We believe in God who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were. God's word is to us the only and the all-sufficient warrant of our faith. Receive what I bring forward only so far as I bring clear Scripture testimony; but let us fully believe every jot and every tittle of God's word, knowing that the Scriptures cannot be broken.

It may be well to strengthen my explanation of my text by the remark of the late venerable Mr. Simeon. Introducing his discourse upon it, he says, "the more fully the subject of the restoration and conversion of the Jews is considered, the more important it will appear. The prophetic writings are full of it, and the obscurity of those writings arises in a great measure from the gross perversions of them, of which even pious ministers have been guilty through a long succession of ages. Those whose office has been to interpret them have almost universally applied them spiritually to the Gentiles, overlooking the plain literal meaning of them as addressed to the Jewish people; and by this means not only has the attention of the Christian world been drawn from the Jews; but it has been drawn also even from the prophecies themselves, because of the impenetrable veil that has been cast over them. That the passage before us relates to that subject no one can entertain a doubt; and that it has never yet been fulfilled is equally clear." Thus is the passage of my text commended to us by our departed friend.

O may the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, graciously pour out his own blessed Spirit upon us, and guide us into all truth! As we have no wisdom herein of our own, but only the wisdom of God's holy word, so we have no eyes to discern his truth, but as he himself opens the eyes of our understanding.

The words of our text suggest these things for your consideration

I. The objects of the prophecy.

II. The blessings promised.

III. The glorious results which will follow.

I. THE OBJECTS OF THE PROPHECY.

They are distinctly brought before us by three well

defined titles, Jerusalem, Judah; and Israel. Each must be separately viewed, that we may discern the fulness of the prophecy.

1. JERUSALEM. Behold, I will bring it health. The immediate antecedent is this city, the city of Jerusalem, then besieged by the Chaldeans. Trace rapidly its peculiar history.

1. GOD'S PAST CHOICE OF JERUSALEM. In the mysterious history of Melchizedek, king of Salem, nearly 2000 years before the birth of Christ, Jerusalem is first brought before us. It was then under the dominion of that Priest of the Most High God and King of Righteousness, the type and emblem of its yet future glorious King our Lord Jesus Christ. Jerusalem soon lost this glory, and though Adonizedek the heathen king of Jerusalem was slain by Joshua, it became the stronghold of the Jebusites, who still dwelt with the children of Benjamin in this city, (Judges i. 21), and afterwards took entire possession of it. Judges xix. 10. Thus it was the last stronghold in the Holy Land possessed by the Canaanites; and it was not completely subdued till the ten tribes had anointed David king over all Israel. The Jebusites then mocked David with the scornful insinuation that the lame and the blind could defend the stronghold of Zion against its true king; this mockery brought on their overthrow, and the complete triumph of David. Yet afterwards Araunah the Jebusite freely gave a place for an altar where the temple was to be built, (1 Chron. xxi. xxii.), thus furnishing an earnest of that large bounty the Gentiles shall hereafter shew to this city. Isaiah Ix. 9.

Jerusalem was indeed in God's mind from the beginning. Before the Israelites took possession of the land he mentioned it to Moses thus: Unto the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there, even unto his habitation shall ye seek, and thither thou shalt come. Their tithes

for the poor were to be eaten there, Before the Lord thy God, in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, thou and thy son and thy daughter, and thy man servant and thy maid servant, and the Levite that is within thy gates, and thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God, in all that thou puttest thine hands unto. Deut. xii. 5, 11, 18, 26.

When Solomon therefore dedicated the temple, just 1000 years before Christ, he reminded Israel that God had said, I have chosen Jerusalem that my name might be there, and have chosen David to be over my people Israel. 2 Chron. vi. 6. Hence even when, through Solomon's idolatry the kingdom was divided, God still referred to his choice of this city, David my servant shall have a light always before me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen me to put my name there. 1 Kings xi. 36. It is often noticed in the Psalms that the Lord hath chosen Zion, he hath desired it for his habitation. Psalm cxxxii. 13; lxxviii. 68.

After another 1000 years had passed away, our Lord came himself to Jerusalem, and was rejected by the Jews; but in his opening sermon on the mount, he asserted and confirmed the dignity of this chosen place, styling it the city of the Great King. He made it for ever memorable by dying, rising again, and ascending to heaven at this place. Thus for 2000 years Jerusalem was marked out as the city of God's choice; and at length the stupendous sacrifice of incarnate deity was there offered up to God.

ITS LONG DESOLATION must be farther noticed. When the true King of Zion came, notwithstanding all his mighty miracles, heavenly wisdom, and spotless holiness, he was disowned and rejected. They denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto them, and killed the Prince of Life. Then, according to the prediction of our Lord, their house was left unto them desolate, and Jerusalem has been ever since trodden down of the Gentiles.

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