forth out of the land of Egypt, in the fight of the Heathen, that I might be their God, I am the Lord.

But if from thence

Lord thy God, thou

Having foretold the difperfion of the Ifraelites into the moft diftant regions, he adds, Deut. iv. 29, 'thou fhalt feek the 'fhalt find him, if thou feek him with all thy heart, and with all thy foul. When 'thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, even in the latter days, if thou turn to the Lord thy God, • and shalt be obedient to his voice (for the Lord thy God is a merciful God) he will not forfake thee, nor deftroy thee, nor 'forget the covenant of thy fathers, which •he fware unto them. Ch. xxx. 1. And

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it fhall come to pafs when all these things are come upon thee, the bleffing and the curfe which I have fet before thee, and thou fhalt call them to mind, among all the nations whither the Lord thy God hath driven thee, and fhalt return to the 'Lord thy God, and fhalt obey his voice, according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thy

• heart,

heart, and with all thy foul, that then the Lord thy God will turn thy capti

vity, and have compaffion upon thee, and 'will return, and gather thee from all the 'nations whither the Lord thy God hath fcattered thee. And if any of thine be 'driven out to the outermost part of heaven, 'from thence will the Lord thy God ga'ther thee, and from thence will he fetch thee. And the Lord will bring thee to the land which thy fathers poffeffed, and 'thou fhalt poffefs it, and he will do thee

good, and multiply thee above thy fathers.'

That the future profperity of the Ifraelites, though thus conditionally announced, will abfolutely take place, what follows clearly expreffes. The nation will, in fact, become fuch as the promife requires. And 'the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy feed, to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy foul, that thou mayest • live.'

After Mofes we find no prophecy relating to this fubject till we come to the latter times of the kings of Judah, about

eight hundred years before the Chriftian æra. But they abound in the writings of Joel, Amos, Hofea, Ifaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Obadiah, and Daniel, before the return from Babylon, and in thofe of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, after it. To quote the whole of what these prophets fay on this fubject, would be to copy a great part, if not the greater part, of their prophecies. For the future flourishing ftate of their nation is the great and favourite theme of all their writings. But as the subject is of particular importance, and appears to me not to have been fufficiently attended to, or understood, by Chriftians, who have fuppofed many of the prophecies to have been figurative, and to have been defigned to exprefs the ftate of the Christian church, and not that of the Jewish nation, I fhall recite a considerable number of the paffages, to fatisfy you they do not admit of any fuch figurative interpretation,

You will obferve, as I recite them, that the prophecies concerning the restoration of the Ifraelites to the land of Palestine are generally accompanied with predictions of

the

the glorious state of this extraordinary,though now defpifed and abject, nation, after their return, and also concerning the heavy judgments which will fall upon all the nations that have oppreffed them, and especially those who shall oppofe their return, or endeavour to disturb them after it. You will clearly fee, from the exprefs mention that is made of the quiet and undisturbed enjoyment of their country, that is promifed to the Ifraelites, that thefe prophecies were by no means fulfilled at the return from the Babylonish captivity.

The predictions concerning the return of the ten tribes is a farther evidence of the fame thing; besides that after their reftoration all the twelve tribes are to make but one nation, and are to be governed by a prince of the houfe of David. Then alfo will be a time of univerfal peace and happinefs through all the world, all mankind becoming worshippers of the one true God, and having the highest respect for his peculiar people, if not under fome kind of fubjection to them. I fhall recite the paffages according to the order of the time in

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which

which they were delivered, and without intermixing many particular obfervations by way of illuftration; for it will be feen, that they require none.

Amos ix. 14, 15. And I will bring again the captivity of my people Ifrael, and they fhall build the wafte cities and in•habit them, and they fhall plant vineyards and drink the wine thereof. They fhall alfo make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they fhall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, faith the Lord thy God.'

Hofea iii. 4. For the children of Ifrael 'fhall abide many days without a king,

and without a prince, and without an ' ephod, and without teraphim. After'ward shall the children of Ifrael return,

and feek the Lord their God, and David their king, and fhall fear the Lord and 'his goodness in the latter days.'

Ifa. ii. 1. It shall come to pass in the laft days, that the mountain of the Lord's •house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and fhall be exalted above

'the