Shall we be ashamed to be unlike the world, and like God in this peculiar love for captive Israel ?

But you say, God has cast them off. Hath God cast away his people which He foreknew ? God forbid ! The whole Bible contradicts such an idea. “Is Ephraim my dear son ? is he a pleasant child ? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still; therefore my bowels are troubled for him: I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord,” Jer. xxxi. 20. “I will plant them again in their own land assuredly, with my whole heart and with my whole soul.” “ Zion saith, The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee,” Isa. xlix. 14. "And so all Israel shall be saved, as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.” Now the simple question for each of you is, and for our beloved church, Should we not share with God in his peculiar affection for Israel? If we are filled with the Spirit of God, should we not love as He loves ? Should we not grave Israel upon the palms of our hands, and resolve that through our mercy they also may obtain mercy ?

(3.) Because there is peculiar access to the Jews.—In almost all the countries we have visited, this fact is quite remarkable; indeed, it seems in many places as if the only door left open to the Christian missionary is the door of preaching to the Jews.

We spent some time in Tuscany, the freest state in the whole of Italy. There you dare not preach the gospel to the Roman Catholic population. The moment you give a tract or a Bible, it is carried to the priest, and by the priest to the government, and immediate banishment is the certain result. But the door is open to the Jews. No man cares for their souls; and therefore you may carry the gospel to them freely.

The same is the case in Egypt and in Palestine.—You dare not preach the gospel to the deluded followers of Mahomet; but you may stand in the open market-place and preach the gospel to the Jews, no man forbidding you. We visited every town in the Holy Land where Jews are found. In Jerusalem and in Hebron we spoke to them all the words of this life. In Sychar we reasoned with them in the synagogue, and in the open bazaar. In Chaifa, at the foot of Carmel, we met with them in the synagogue. In Zidon also we discoursed freely to them of Jesus. In Tyre we first visited them in the synagogue and at the house of the Rabbi, And then they returned our visit ; for when we had lain down in the khan for the heat oi mid-day, they came to us in crowds. The Hebrew Bible was produced, and passage after passage explained, none making us afraid. In Saphet, and Tiberias, and Acre, we had the like freedom. There is indeed perfect liberty in the Holy Land to carry the gospel to the Jew.

In Constantinople, if you were to preach to the Turks, as some have tried, banishment is the consequence; but to the Jew you may carry the message. In Wallachia and Moldavia the smallest attempt to convert a Greek would draw down the instant vengeance of the Holy Synod and of the government. But in every town we went freely to the Jews : in Bucharest, in Foxany, in Jassy, and in many a remote Wallachian hamlet, we spoke without hindrance the message to Israel. The door is wide open.

In Austria, where no missionary of any kind is allowed, still we found the Jews willing to hear. In their synagogues we always found a sanctuary open to us; and often, when they knew they could have exposed us, they concealed that we had been there. · In Prussian Poland, the door is wide open to nearly 100,000 Jews. You dare not preach to the poor Rationalist Protestants. Even in Protestant Prussia this would not be allowed; but you may preach the gospel to the Jews. By the law of the land every church is open to an ordained minister; and one of the mission aries assured me that he often preached to 400 or 500 Jews and Jewesses at a time. Schools for Jewish children are also allowed. We visited three of them, and heard the children taught the way of salvation by a Redeemer. Twelve years ago the Jews would not have come near a church.

If these things be true,—and I appeal to all of you who know these countries if it is not; if the door in one direction is shut, and the door to Israel is so widely open; oh, do you not think that God is saying by his providence, as well as by his word, Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel? Do you think that our church, knowing these things, will be guiltless if we do not obey the call ? for the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

(4.) Because they will give life to the dead world.—1 have often thought that a reflective traveller, passing through the countries of this world, and observing the race of Israel in every land, might be led to guess, merely from the light of his natural reason, that that singular people are preserved for some great purpose in the world. There is a singular fitness in the Jew to be the missionary of the world. They have not that peculiar attachment to home and country which we have. They feel that they are outcasts ip

every land. They are also inured to every clime: they are to be found amid the snows of Russia, and beneath the burning sun of Hindostan. They are also in some measure acquainted with all the languages of the world, and yet have one common languagethe holy tongue-in which to communicate with one another. All these things must, I should think, suggest themselves to every intelligent traveller as he passes through other lands. But what says the word of God ?

" It shall come to pass, that as ye were a curse among the heathen, 0 house of Judah and house of Israel; so will I save you, and ye shall be a blessing,” Zech. viii. 13. To this day they are a curse among all nations, by their unbelief-by their covet ousness; but the time is coming when they shall be as great a blessing as they have been a curse.

“And the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from the Lord, as the showers upon the grass, that tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men,” Micah v. 7. Just as we have found, among the parched hills of Judah, that the evening dew, coming silently down, gave life to every plant, making the grass to spring, and the flowers to put forth their sweetest fragrance, so shall converted Israel be when they come as dew upon a dead, dry world.

“In those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold, out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you; for we have heard that God is with you,” Zech. viii, 23. This never has been fulfilled; but as the word of God is true, this is true. Perhaps some one may say, If the Jews are to be the great missionaries of the world, let us send missions to them only. We have got a new light; let us call back our missionaries from India. They are wasting their precious lives there in doing what the Jews are to accomplish. I grieve to think that any lover of Israel should so far pervert the truth, as to argue in this way. The Bible does not say that we are to preach only to the Jew, but to the Jew first. “Go and preach the gospel to all nations,” said the Saviour. Let us obey his word like little children. The Lord speed our beloved missionaries in that burning clime. The Lord give them good success, and never let one withering doubt cross their pure minds as to their glorious field of labour. All that we plead for is, that, in sending out missionaries to the heathen, we may not forget to begin at Jerusalem. If Paul be sent to the Gentiles, let Peter be sent to the twelve tribes that are scattered abroad; and let not a by-corner in your hearts be given to this cause; let it no: be an appendix to the other doings of our church, but rather let there be written on the forefront of your hearts, and on the banner of our beloved church, “ To the Jew first,” and “Beginning at Jerusalem.”

Lastly, Because there is a great reward. Blessed is he that blesseth thee; cursed is he that curseth thee. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem ; they shall prosper that love her. We have felt this in our own souls. In going from country to country, we felt that there was one before us preparing our way. Though we have had perils in the waters, and perils in the wilderness, perils from sickness, and perils from the heathen, still from all the Lord bas delivered us; and if it shall please God to restore our revered companions in this mission in peace and safety to their anxious families,' we shall then have good reason to say, that in keeping his commandment there is great reward.

But your souls shall be enriched also, and our church too, if this cause find its right place in your affections. It was well said by one who has a deep place in your affections, and who is now on his way to India, that our church must not only be evangelical, but evangelistic also, if she would expect the blessing of God. She must not only have the light, but dispense it also, if she is to be continued as a steward of God. May I not take the liberty of adding to this striking declaration, that we must not only be evangelistic, but evangelistic as God would have us to be, not only dispense the light on every hand, but dispense it first to the Jew ?

Then shall God revive his work in the midst of the years. Our whole land shall be refreshed as Kilsyth has been. The cobwebs of controversy shall be swept out of our sanctuaries, the jarrings and jealousies of our church be turned into the harmony of praise, and our own souls become like a well-watered garden.

SERMON X X V I.

"BLESSED ARE THE DEAD."? Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith ths

Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow

them."-Rey. xiv. 13. THERE are two remarkable things in the manner in which th363 words are given to us.

Drs Black and Keith were at this time still detained by sickness abroad ? Preached in the summer of 1840.

I. They are the words of the Father echoed back by the Spirit.“ I heard a voice from heaven.” “Yea, saith the Spirit.” John's eye had been riveted upon the wondrous sight mentioned in verse 1. A Lamb stood on Mount Zion, and one hundred and fortyfour thousand redeemed ones following Him whithersoever He goeth, when suddenly a still small voice broke upon his ear, saying, “ Write, Blessed are the dead;” and then the Holy Spirit breathed, Amen. “Yea, saith the Spirit.”

It is written in the law that the testimony of two witnesses is true. Now, here are two witnesses,—the Father of all, and the Holy Spirit the Comforter, both testifying that it is a happy thing to die in the Lord. Is there any of you, God's children, who tremble at the thought of dying? Does death appear a monster with a dreadful dart, ready to destroy you? Here are two sweet and blessed witnesses who declare that death has lost his sting—that the grave has lost its victory. Listen, and the frown will disappear from the brow of death,—the valley will be filled with light; the Father and the Holy Spirit both unite in saying, “ Blessed are the dead.”

U. “ Write.” — Whatever is written down is more durable, and less liable to be corrupted, than that which is only spoken from mouth to mouth. For this reason, God gave the Israelites the Ten Commandments, written with his own finger on two tables of stone. For the same reason, He commanded them, on the day they passed over Jordan, to set up great stones, and plaster them with plaster, and write upon them all the words of that law. For the same reason, God commanded his servants the prophets to write their prophecies, and the apostles to write their gospels and epistles, so that we have a permanent Bible instead of floating tradition. For this reason did Job wish his words to be written. “Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were printed in a book! That they were graven with an iron pen and with lead in the rock for ever! I know that my Redeemer liveth,” Job xix. 25. It was one of his precious, ever memorable sayings,-a saying to comfort the heart of a drooping believer in the darkest hour,_"1 know that my Redeemer liveth.” For the same reason did the voice from heaven say, “ Write,”-do not hear it only, but write it print it in a book-grave it with an iron pen— with lead in the rock for ever.

“ Blessed are the dead.” Learn the value of this saying. It is a golden saying—there is gold in every syllable of it. It is sweeter than honey and the honeycomb,--more precious than gold, yea,