The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-10-23 00:00:00

apostolic interpretation, by which, under God's blessing,
even Jewish priests were-converted to the faith. But. my
lord, up to this point, I have said nothing, which ought
to convince a Jew. For anything that I have yet spo en,
the New Testament may be to him the specious history of
an impostor. I have simply stated, for myself, that a
careful perusal of the New Testament records would pre-
vent me, if I were a Christian Missionary to Jews, from
giving any christian support to their hope of national
restoration. But, my lord, if I have not trespassed too
long on your kind patience, suffer me to say, that an at-
tentive study of the Old Testament Scriptures has con-
vinced me, that a National Restoration to Palestine ought
not to be expected by any Jew, who acknowledges the
authority of his own sacred writings. He ought not to
expect it : because the definite marks of chronology arc
plainly against him. The passages, which he cites most
triumphantly to prove the future glories of his nation,
are precisely those, which are inseparably connected with
the chronological signs of the past. He bids us listen to
Isaiah, and to expect, that Jehovah will again assemble
the outcasts of Israel and the dispersed of Judah ; but
Isaiah tells me, that, whenever that event should come to
pass, the Philistines should be overthrown, and Edom
and Moab subdued, and the children of Ammon van-
quished. He bids me again listen to Isaiah, and to be-
lieve that " the Lord will have mercy upon Jacob, and
will yet choose Israel, and will set them in their own
land." But I examine his quotation for myself, and I
find, that his own prophet informs me, that a proverb
against the King of Babylon wes to celebrate that Na-
tional Restoration, and I cannot, therefore, demand it of
the future. He assures me, from the same prophet, that
Israel is yet to be saved with an everlasting salvation, and
that nations in chains are to make their supplications in
the dust, before the monarch people of the earth ; but
Isaiah tells me also, that this glory was to be procured by
Cyrus, and the breaking of Babylon's gates of brass w s
to be the harbinger of that return. He brings Zechariah to
convince me, that the land of the north will send its Jews
to Palestine; t hat the dispersion of the fourwin ds of heaven
will again become a nation, and that Jehovah will again
inherit Judah and choose Jerusalem. But I 'ask Zecha-
riah for whom he meant the encouragement of his pro-
phecy ? And he replies : For Zion, who was dwelling
with the daughter of Babylon. He bids me recollect.
that Jeremiah promised that Jehovah would gather his
Jews from every nation and from every place of their cap-
tivity ; but then Jeremiah also declared, that the accom-
plishment of seventy years was to be the date of God's
promised mercy. My Lord, Ido not say that chronology,
is poetry, but it is true and useful : and it ought, I hum-
bly think, to prove to every logical Jewish mind, that the
restoration of the Jewish nation, hewever it may be brought
about in God's providence, by the influence and efforts of
Rothschilds and Montt fibres, ought not to be expected by
the Jews as an accomplishment of the prophecies of Jeho-
vah. But, supposing that these stern chronological diffi-
culties could be got over, there would still remain, as I
respectfully submit, an unanswerable objection to Jewish
restoration derived from the very nature' of the Old Tes-
tament prophecy, when that prophecy has reference to the
destinies of nations. This objection arises from the fact,
that, according to the plain declarations of God himself,
his national prophecies were never intended to be uncon-
ditional, and, therefore, were never to be considered as
fated to be literally accomplished. I learn this from the
I positive assertion in the eighteenth chapter of Jeremiah's
prophecies, where Jehovah declares, in the clearest lan-
guage, that however he may prophecy either national evil
or national good, he retains in his own hands the power
of repenting (to use his own divine expression) of either
the evil or the good, which, by his prophets, he had pre-
dicted. And, in perfect consistency with this sacred
canon, I find, in the Old Testament Scriptures, a variety
of predictions, which never have been, and, in the very
nature of things, never can be accomplished. I find Na-
than, the prophet, predicting to David, that Israel should
never move from the land of Palestine : and I know that
they were removed;' and I know that the removal was
afterwards accounted for by an explicit assertion that God's
prophecy was not unconditional. I find Micah, the pro-
phet. predicting, as a punishment to the rebellious Jews
of his day, that their city should become heaps; but I
find also, in Jeremiah the prophet, that that very pro-
phecy of Micah, the Morasthite, is quoted, word for word,
only to prove that God had repented of it, and had not
fulfilled it. I find the same prophet, Jeremiah, prophesy-
ing, that the Jews, who returned from Babylon, should
also turn to God with their whole heart, and should never
be plucked up from Palestine: but yet I know from Ezra
and Nehemiah, that they were not all true servants of
Jehovah, and I have no reason to doubt that the destruc-
tion of Jerusalem by the Romans is a credible fact of his-
tory. I find Jonah, the prophet, prophesying (and it is
his only prediction,) that Nineveh would be overthrown
in forty days, and yet the appointed time passed by, and
spared Nineveh remained an instructive witness to God's
(Ought,
then, repentance of prophecied destruction.
then, the Jew, with this principle of prophetic interpreta-
tion in his memory, to expect, from prophecy, the tempo-
ral restoration of his nation ; certainly not. National
prophecy was evidently intended by God for national
encouragement and national warning. The Jewish nation,
according to their own records, neglected the encourage-
ment and despised the warning : and, unless it can be
proved, that the sole obj-ct of God's prophecies was to
foretel future events, which were fatally to come true, ir-
respectively of all conditions and circumstances, the Jews
have no right to expect such a fulfilmentof them , as is not at
all required by God's own canon of propheticinterpretat ion.
But, for the sake of friendly argument, let chronology be
dispersed with, and the principle of ancient prophecy be,
that everything must literally be accomplished, whether
for weal or for woe. Alas ! for Jewish restoration ! What,
though as the finger of the Jew directs me, I find it
written—that the temple, with all its cedar and vermilion
and precious stones, shall be rebuilt; that Levi's priest-
hood, with all its gorgeous vestments, shall be restored ;
that rams of Nebaioth shall yet be sacrificed, with accept-
ance, on God's altar ; that rivers, not to be passed over,
shall flow from the eastern sanctuary, shadowed by unfaded
foliage ; and that Jerusalem shall be lighted, not by sun
and moon, but by the excessive splendour of Jehovah's
glory ? I turn, my lord, with undazzled eyes, (for such
religious magnificence will never dazzle the eyes of him
who looks at God in the face of Jesus Christ,) I turn
from that glowing eescription of a poetic future, and point
with my own finger to dark passages of fearful import. I
find that ancient prophet, Moses, prophesying that God's
destructive curse should rest upon the Jews for ever,
and that, " as the nations of Canaan had been destroyed,
even so should they be destroyed." I read Jeremiah
predicting, from the mouth of the Lord; that his anger
and his fury would be poured out upon Palestine, upon
man. and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and
upon the fruit of the ground ; and that it would burn and
would not be quenched," I find that it was prophesied
by the same prophet, that Judahrs sin was so written with
"the point of the diamond, that it had kindled a fire in
God's anger, which would for ever burn." And, once again,
I find it written in Jehovah's prophecy, that he would ut- '
terly forget the Jews, that he would forsake both them and
their city, and that he wortle. " bring upon them an ever.
lasting reproach, and a perpetual shame, which should not
be forgotten." Alas! my lord, for Jewish Restoration! How
shall the Jew feast himself on anticipated national glory,
with this Divine sword of prophesied extermination sus-
pended over his banquet table' It cannot be. Let chrono-
logy be an ancient fable, and let God's dealings-with man be 1
resolved into Mahometan fatalism : but so long as, in this
Jewish garden, the dragon of vengeance guards this tree
of prophecy ; so long as no hero can be found to silence
that dread voice, and quench those burning eyes of eter-
nal anger, no Jew may ever dare to touch the forbidden
fruit of national restoration. My lord, and Christian
friend's, and Jewish brethren, if any such be present, I
have now declared, in all honesty and Christian sim-
plicity, the views which I' have carefully and deliberately
adopted as to the scriptural mode of preaching the gospel
to the Jews. It is, in few words, to teach them Christi-
anity as the fulfilment of Judaism. It is to declare to
them that that new and better covenant,. of which their
own prophets spake, is the gospel of Christ They must
make their choice. They cannot have both Judaism and
Christianity. They cannot have the type and with it the
antitype. They cannot have the rest of Canaan, and with
it the rest which remaineth for the people of God. They
cannot be at once Wider the law and under grace. They
cannot lie in bondage under the elements of the world,
and also stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has
made us free. They cannot worship with slaughtered,
beasts on Mount Zion, and also offer spiritual sacrifices-
of praise and thanksgiving for the Lamb of God, slain
from the foundation of the world. My lord. I have not
spoken this evening against Jewish restoration. I have
spoken in its favour. I would, indeed, restore the Jews
I to the true Church of God, to their own olive tree' for
God's church was-once their church. But it pleased God'
graciously to lead-that church from childhood to manhood.
It pleased him, in his great goodness, to abolish its old'
covenant by giving it a new and better one. It pleased
him to make temporal promises wax dim in contrast with
that immortality and life which Christ brought to light
by the gospel. Why, my lord., should the Jew prefer to.
be a slave, when he may be a son of God through Jesus
Christ ? Oh !' let him restore himself to that church,
which is his. own as well as ours. We will all welcome
him as a brother. We will honour him as a true son of
Abraham. And while we deny to him any separate right
to God's favour, for that would be to dishonour our uni-
versal Bishop, yet, if he will love God more and serve
Christ better, we will all acknowledge, with willingness of
heart, his-pre-eminence in the kingdom of God, and his
nearer relationship to Christ our Kiag. We are bound
to do so,, for he has said, " Whosoever shalldo the will of
my Father, which is in heaven, the same is my brother,
and sister, and mother." I have been delighted this
evening in listening to statements distinct from my own,
—(haar, hear,)—because if a mind is simply in search of
truth, I know that mine is so in the sight of God. I
know that such a mind can listen patiently to every
staten.ent which may be made, if it be done in a tem-
perate spirit, because the effect of such statements must
be either to convice him of the error of his views or
confirm him in them. (Loud applause.) My Lord, for
, the reasons which I have stated,. I am an advocate of
the society for the promotion of Christianity amongst
the Jews. (The reverend gentleman was repeatedly
warmly cheered during the delivery of his address, and en
resuming his seat was again very much applauded.)
E The Rev. E. BICK RSTETH, in a few observations in
the course of which he differed from the views propounded
by the Rev. Mr. Ewbank, commended the Society for
Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews to the warm
affection of all Christian people.
A vote of thanks was then unanimously passed to his
Lordship for his kind and urbane conduct in the chair,
after which the meeting separated.
The following is a list of the collections received at the
various churches, on Sunday, in aid of the society
s. d.
St. Andrew's
St. Anne's, Aigburth
St. Augus ine's
St. Bride's
St. Clement's
Crosby