date, in the Cufic character, of repairs made by them about seven centuries ago. The Mohammedans say it was an old building at that time. While a want of historical records makes it difficult to fix satisfactorily the date of particular churches, enough is known to show that Nestorian churches, now standing, were erected before the beginning of the fifth century; when, as we have seen, Jerome assures us that the ten tribes were still in this region," their captivity having never been loosed."*

The Jews and other classes of the people testify to the very early residence of the Nestorians in this country, making it appear that they have not succeeded in the place of the captive Israelites at a late day.

The present race of Mohammedans (the Affshars) are not the natives of this soil, but came from Khorassan, or from the east of the Caspian Sea, only a few centuries ago. But their learned men say there is no doubt of the great antiquity of the Nestorians, who, they affirm, were here before the Christian era. The Jews who were carried captive by the kings of Assyria to these parts, say the residence of the Nestorians has been contemporary with their own.

None of these Nestorians pretend to tell when,

so sacred that no Christian had been allowed to enter it till I obtained permission for our party to visit it about a year ago. Its dome is about sixty feet high, and it is the best edifice in the city. Tom. vi., p. 7, 80.

A A

or under what circumstances, their ancestors came here. But, on my showing some of their most intelligent scholars the account of the captivity of the ten tribes under the Assyrian kings, they have said at once that this must have been the occasion of their removal from the land of their fathers. If they came here since the commencement of the Christian era, it is truly strange that all of them should be so totally ignorant on the subject, and stranger still that no one should have heard of the removal of the captive Israelites, whose places the present inhabitants now occupy; and all this while there has been a regular, uninterrupted succession of bishops, priests, deacons, and churches, from the apostolic times to the present day!

CHAPTER XII.

Prophecies relating to the Conversion of the Ten Tribes, and their future Prospects.

WHAT prophecies or passages of Scripture, I am asked, intimate that the ten tribes should so early be visited in mercy, and acknowledge Messiah their king? In reply, I might inquire, which of the inspired prophets informs us that they would not welcome their Messiah till many centuries after his incarnation? But the subject is beset with apparent difficulties, since it is certain that some of the most glorious promises, consequent upon their entire conversion and reception to the full favour of God, have not, as yet, been accomplished. It becomes us, therefore, to review with much care what the Holy Spirit has revealed concerning this branch of God's chosen people. Passing by, for the present, those more cheering predictions that remain to be fulfilled, and others which, though in process of accomplishment, may be regarded by some as of equivocal import, we will direct our attention to a portion of the prophetic writings which all our best critics, both ancient and modern, regard as having a direct and specific application to Israel, or the ten tribes. I refer to the first three chapters

of Hosea, which in Townsend's Bible is entitled, "Hosea's first appeal to the Ten Tribes."

To avoid any appearance of wresting this prophecy to the support of a particular hypothesis, I shall base most of my remarks upon an exposition of the judicious Fuller (vol. ii., p. 110). "These chapters," he remarks, "are addressed chiefly to the ten tribes. Under the forms of signs and parables,* as I suppose, he delivers in the first chapter some very pointed reproofs to that idolatrous people, but concludes with great and precious promises to their distant posterity." He is commanded to go and take "a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms," and is supposed to have children by her. Such a command communicated to the people would shock them as grossly indelicate. "Nay," saith the prophet, like Nathan to David, "but ye are the men! If the Lord be a husband to you, he must have a wife of worse whoredoms than these!" On account of their spiritual adulteries, God says, "I will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel," and "I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will utterly take them away" (v. 4, 6). "Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor num

* Whether the language of these passages is parabolic, or the prophet actually formed alliances like those described in the text, the interpretation or applicaton to the idolatrous Israelites is the same.-Compare Ezek., xxxvii., 1–10.

bered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people [the place to which God would cast them away], there shall it be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God" (v. 10). After many cutting things in the second chapter, in which, to show the odiousness of Israel's conduct, and bring it home to their bosoms, they are again compared to an adulterous wife, who, having dissolved the marriage bond, deserved to be stripped, and, with her spurious offspring, turned out by her injured husband, they are even told that such will actually be their portion. Yet, after this, from verse 14 to the end, the most precious promises are made to their posterity. His "alluring her, and bringing her into the wilderness," however, seems rather to be expressive of present judgments than of future mercies. It denotes, I apprehend, not the drawings of love, but the devisings of Providence, to render her sin its own punishment.* As an injured husband makes use of the adulteries of his wife to convict and banish her, so the Lord would cause the fondness of this people for idolatry and idolaters to draw them into the Assyrian net (ch. vii., 11, 12), and they should be

* "I cannot find that anywhere signifies to influence in a way of mercy, but properly means to entice or deceive; and thus God, in just judgment, entices and deceives sinners by giving them up to their own delusions."-See 2 Chron., xviii., 19-22. Ezek., xiv., 9.