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View of the Hebrews (1825 edition) — Chapter 4b

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View of the Hebrews (1825 edition) — Chapter 4b

Ethan Smith

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thundering through the nations of the eastern continent,) shall be found a realm of peaceful protection to all who fly from the abodes of despotism to its peaceful retreat; even as an eagle protects her nest from all harm. Yea, a land that, when all other lands shall be found to have trampled on the Jews, shall be found to have protecting wings for them, free from such cruelty, and ready to aid them.

Verse 2; “Who sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of bulrushes upon the face of the waters.” It is to be supposed that a great difficulty would at once present itself to the prophet’s view, when beholding in vision this western continent, over the mighty waters of the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic, and about to be called to restore his people. What could be done across such mighty waters? The difficulty at once vanishes, by the prophet’s being ascertained of this characteristic of the people addressed. They would be most expert in navigation. They could traverse the Atlantic and Mediterranean, and be able to send missionaries to Jerusalem, or to the ends of the earth, in those last days, or convey the Hebrews from one continent to another, with an expedition similar to that with which the Nile (beyond which this new world is beheld) used to be navigated with the skiffs made of the bulrush, or the rind of the papyrus.*1

Verse 2, concluded. “Saying, go ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and peeled, to a people terrible from the beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled.” ‘Saying,’ before the command Go, is interpolated in our translation, and destroys the sense; as though the nation said this to her swift messengers; whereas it is what God says to the nation addressed. q.d. Come, thou protecting nation; I have a great business for you. Collect and restore my ancient people; that nation whose ancient history has been so remarkable and terrible; **2 that nation so

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long dispersed, robbed, and insulted, in the people of the Jews; and so long outcast in the ten tribes; that people of line line, (as in the Hebrew, and in the margin of the great bible;) or, whose only hope to find their ancient inheritance must be in the line of divine promise, or the entail of the covenant. As the land addressed is described as away over the mouths of the Nile; so various characteristics in the address are suggested from thoughts associated with that river, and the people on its banks; as the bulrush vessel just noted; and here the measuring line. The river Nile periodically overflowed its banks, and swept away the boundaries of every man’s inheritance on its interval. Every man, then, had to depend on a noted line, to measure anew and find his land. So the Hebrews, having by their sins, and expulsion from Canaan, and from the covenant of Abraham, lost all the visible boundaries of their inheritance, have no ground of hope of regaining their standing either in Palestine, or in the covenant of grace, but the line of the mere and sovereign promise of God, for their restoration. The word is doubled, line, line; a mere Hebraism, to form a superlative. As peace, peace, means perfect peace.--Isai. xxvi. 3; and as good, good, means the best; so line, line, means superlatively of line, or altogether dependent on the mere promise of God. That the allusion is to the event noted is evident from what follows:--”Whose land the rivers have spoiled.” Whose inheritance (in the Holy Land) has been torn from them, and overrun by neighbouring hostile nations, often symbolized by rivers, even as the lands by the sides of the Nile often had their boundaries swept away by the overflowings of that river. Thus the Romans first, then the Persians, the Saracens, the Egyptians, and the Turks, have overflowed and possessed the Holy Land. But the line of divine promise will restore it to the Hebrews.*3

Go thou protecting people; shadow with thy wings my ancient family, as though the Most High should say. For thus it is written; “Surely the isles shall wait for me, (or lands away over sea from Palestine,) and the ships of Tarshish first, (a people expert in navigation,)

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to bring my sons from far.” A far distant land over sea shall be engaged in this work.

Verse 3. “All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye when he lifteth up the ensign on the mountains, and when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye.” After the land shadowing with wings is under way in fulfilment of the divine requirement; an apostrophe is made by the Most High to all nations, to stand and behold the banner of salvation now erected for his ancient people; and to hear the great gospel trumpet, the blessed Jubilee, now to be blown for their collection and their freedom. The ancient silver trumpets in Israel collected their solemn assemblies. And the same trumpets. with joyful and peculiar blasts, ushered in the Jubilee morn, and loosed every bond slave of the Hebrews. And the antitype of the event shall now be accomplished.

This standard of salvation at that period, is a notable event in the prophets. See Isai. xi. 12, where God sets his hand a second time to gather his Hebrew family from all nations and regions beyond sea; doubtless from America, as well as other nations; and it is promised, “He shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.” If from the four corners of the earth, then surely from America! In this passage are the descriptive situations from which the two great branches of the Hebrews are recovered; Judah from being dispersed among the nations; and Israel from being outcast from the nations; thrown out of sight of the social world; precisely as they have been in the wilds of America for more than two thousand years, provided our natives are of Israel.

Verse 4. “For so the Lord said unto me, I will take my rest, and I will consider my dwelling place like a clear heat upon herbs, and like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.” The event and the figures in this passage are best explained by those found in synchronical passages, or prophecies alluding to the same event. And according to them, it is as though the Most High should say; I am now about to renew my ancient dwelling place. I will again have a fixed habitation in Canaan; as Zech. i. 16: “Thus saith the Lord, I am again returned to Jerusalem with mercies; my house shall be built in it;” and viii. 3; “Thus saith the Lord, I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem.” And the event shall be as “life from the dead” to the nations; Rom xi. 15. Therefore, ye Gentile lands, now behold. I will now be to my ancient heritage like the genial heat of

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the sun to promote vegetation after the death of winter; as Isai. xxvi. 19, “Thy dew is as the dew of herbs,” which in the spring shall vegetate. “And I will be like the fertile cooling cloud in the sultry heat of harvest.” The Hebrews shall now become “as the tender grass springing out of the earth, by the clear shining after rain;” 2 Sam. xxiii. 4. Yes; “I will be as the dew unto Israel; he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive tree, and his smell as Lebanon; Hos. xiv. 5, 6. The nations shall behold this fulfilment of divine grace to Israel, and shall find instruments raised up adequate to the work.

But a tremendous scene to the anti-christian world shall be found intimately connected.

Verse 5. “For afore the harvest, when the bud is perfect, and the sour grape is ripening in the flower, he shall both cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and take away and cut down the branches.” Or near the fulfilment of this event of the last days, a vast scene is to be accomplished. Prophetic notice is ever given relative to that period, that the salvation of the friends of Zion shall be ushered in with a proportionable destruction to her enemies. The harvest and vintage of divine wrath, called “the battle of that great day of God Almighty,” must be accomplished; and at the time of the restoration of the Hebrews, that tremendous event shall be at the doors. As in the natural vineyard, when the blossom is succeeded by the swelled pulp, which soon reaches the size of the full grape, indicating that the vintage is near; so at the time of the service here divinely demanded, wickedness shall have blossomed; pride shall have budded in anti-christian realms. The sour grapes of their tyranny, violence, and licentiousness, will be found to be arriving at their growth; indicating that the time for the casting of the vine of the earth into the wine press of the wrath of God, is just at hand.

Verse 6. “They shall be left together unto the fowls of the mountains, and the beasts of the earth; and the fowls shall summer upon them, and the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them.” Soon the most prominent branches of the anti-christian vine of the earth, shall be collected and trodden upon the mountains of Israel, in the noted scene of Armageddon; Rev. xvi. 16. The passage noted in Ezek. xxxix. 17-20, (at the time of the slaughter of Gog and his bands, and which is given as an illustration of the text,) shall then be accomplished. “And thou son of man, thus saith the Lord God, speak unto every feathered fowl, and to every beast of the field, Assemble

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yourselves, and come; gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh, and drink blood. Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth; of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bullocks, all of them fatlings of Bashan. And ye shall eat fat till ye be full, and drink blood till ye be drunken, of my sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you. Thus ye shall be filled at my table with horses and chariots, with mighty men, and with all men of war, saith the Lord God.” Also the further illustration of the same, Rev. xix. 17, 18; “And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; That ye may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.”

Verse 7. “At that time shall the present be brought unto the Lord of hosts of a people scattered and peeled, and from a people terrible from the beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden under foot, whose land the rivers have spoiled, to the place of the name of the Lord of hosts, the Mount Zion.” Just at that period of the world, the present which I claim of you shall be brought to the Lord of hosts, of that scattered and outcast people; of that people so terrible in ancient times to their enemies by the presence and power of their God with them; that people of “line, line,” or depending solely on the measuring line of promise, or the entail of the covenant, found in the sacred oracles, for their restoration to their ancient inheritance in the church of God, and in the promised land; inasmuch as the boundaries of their inheritance in both these respects have long since been swept away. A present of this people must be brought by you, sequestered land shadowing with wings, unto the place of the name of the Lord of hosts, the Mount Zion.

Ye friends of God in the land addressed; can you read this prophetic direction of the ancient prophet Isaiah, without having your hearts burn within you? Surely you cannot, if you can view it as an address of the Most High to you. God here exalts you, in the last days, the age of terror and blood, as high as the standard to be raised for the collection of the seed of Abraham; “on the mountains.” Nor is this the only passage, in which this your exaltation is recognized. See the same honour alluded to, in Zeph. iii. 10.--There, nearly connected

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with the battle of the great day of God, in which he there asserts he “will gather the nations, and assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them his indignation, even all his fierce anger, and all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of his jealousy;” and that he will then “turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, and serve him with one consent;” he informs, as in the address in Isaiah; “From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, my suppliants (or a people who are my worshippers,) shall bring mine offering, even the daughter of my dispersed,” (as the verse should be read). Here is the same people, away in the same direction, over the mouths of the Nile, who are called God’s suppliants, and who, in those days of vengeance, are to bring their offering to God, consisting of the descendants of his ancient people.

If these views be correct, Christians in our land may well bless God that it is their happy lot to live in this land shadowing with wings; this protecting realm, an asylum of liberty and religion; a land so distant from the seat of anti-christ and of the judgments to be thundered down on old corrupt establishments in the last days. And their devout gratitude to Heaven ought to rise, for the blessing of having their existence so near the period alluded to in this sublime prediction, when this land of liberty is beginning to feel her distinguishing immunities compared with the establishments of tyranny and corruption in the old continent. We may rejoice to have our earthly lot with a people of whom such honourable mention is made by the prophetic spirit of old; and to whom so noble a work is assigned. Our children coming upon the stage may live to see the meaning and fulfilment of this prophetic chapter, which is most rich in sentiment, and which will not fail of accomplishment.

The great argument found in this sacred address, to induce to a compliance with the duty demanded, is the terrors of the days of vengeance on eastern corrupt nations; which seems to imply some good degree of exemption in our own case, and our happy leisure for the business assigned. Heaven will show despotic nations, and old corrupt empires, the difference between them, and a land “shadowing with wings;” a happy asylum of liberty and religion in the west.

Can a motive be wanting to induce us to maintain the character implied in this address, and to obey the injunction of Heaven here urged upon us? Should any say, what can be done? Let this be the reply; be devoutly disposed and prepared to obey; and Heaven will, in due time, make the duty plain. By prayer, contributions, and your

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influence, be prepared to aid every attempt for the conversion of the Jews and Israel; and God will be his own interpreter, and will make the duty plain.

A leading step has already been taken in a Jerusalem mission. This may prove, in relation to a fulfilment of our text, a cloud like a man’s hand, which shall afford a sound of great rain; and shall water the hills of ancient Zion. How great effects spring from little causes! A purling stream from the threshold of the sanctuary, soon rises to the ankles, to the knees, to the loins, and to an unfordable river, which heals the Dead sea; Ezek. xlvii. Already has the bulrush vessel slipped from the “land shadowing with wings,” across the mighty waters, over which the prophetic eye glanced; over the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, by the mouths of the “rivers of Ethiopia,” and has landed ;her “ambassadors,” for a Jerusalem mission! Bless the Lord, O children of Abraham, for this ray of light from the land of the going down of the sun. This may shed an incipient lustre on the noted passage in our evangelical prophet. It may prove to the children of Abraham, in these days of signal phenomena, a morning rising in the west to break their long and dreadful night! Let us, dear countrymen, second this attempt with our intercessions, our contributions, and our influence. May all societies formed in behalf of the Jews, and all solicitations in their favour, meet our most fervent patronage. And God will not fail of fulfiling by us his gracious designs. The blessed business will be brought within our reach, and will be accomplished.

The ten tribes, as well as the Jews, belong to the “nation scattered and peeled, and terrible from the beginning.” Yes, the stick of Ephraim is to become one in the hand of the prophet, with the stick of the Jews; Ezek. xxxvii. 15.--If it is a fact, that the aborigines of this “land shadowing with wings,” are the tribes of Israel; we perceive at once what can be done to fulfil the noted demand of God, as it relates to them.--And all who fear God will leap for joy, that as the Jerusalem mission is already under way; so missions to these tribes of Israel are already under way!

Should we find ample conviction that our natives are of the lost tribes of the house of Israel, and that the address noted is directed to us; we may in the light of this address, and of evangelical considerations connected with it, imagine ourselves as though seated in the audience of the prophet Isaiah;--may imagine him sighing at the long and dreadful exilement of his brethren of Israel;--and uttering the following sentiments of the holy prophetic spirit;

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Ho thou nation of the last days, shadowing with thy wings of liberty and peace; pity, instruct, and save my ancient people and brethren; especially that outcast branch of them, who were the natives of your soil. Pity that degraded remnant of a nation so terrible in ancient times, but who have been now so long wretched. Bring a present of them, ye worshippers of Jehovah, to the God of Abraham. Give not sleep to your eyes, till a house be builded to your God, from those ancient and venerable materials.--Were not your fathers sent into that far distant world, not only to be (in their posterity) built up a great protecting nation; but also to be the instruments of gathering, or recovering the miserable remnant of my outcasts there, in the last days?*4 Rejoice, then, ye distinguished people in your birth-right, and engage in the work by Heaven assigned. Let not those tribes of my ancient people, whom I have borne as on eagles’ wings for so many ages; let them not become extinct before your eyes; let them no longer roam in savage barbarism and death! My bowels yearn for Ephraim, my first born. “For since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still.” “I have seen his ways, and will heal him. I will restore peace to him, and to his mourners; peace in the renewal of my covenant. I will again bear him on eagles’ wings, and bring him to myself. For you, (my suppliants in the west,) this honour is reserved;” Zeph. iii. 10. The wings of your continent have long borne him in his banishment. Let now the wings of your liberty, compassion, and blessed retreat, bear him from his dreary wilds to the temple of God.

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Look at the origin of those degraded natives of your continent, and fly to their relief.--Send them the heralds of salvation. Send them the word, the bread of life. You received that book from the seed of Abraham. All your volume of salvation was written by the sons of Jacob. And by them it was transferred from Jerusalem to the lost heathen world, and to you; otherwise you had now been heathen, and eternally undone. Remember then your debt of gratitude to God’s ancient people for the word of life. Restore it to them, and thus double your own rich inheritance in its blessings. Learn them to read the book of grace. Learn them its history and their own. Teach them the story of their ancestors; the economy of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Sublimate their views above the savage pursuits of the forests. Elevate them above the wilds of barbarism and death, by showing them what has been done for their nation; and what is yet to be done by the God of their fathers, in the line of his promise. Teach them their ancient history; their former blessings; their being cast away; the occasion of it, and the promises of their return. Tell them the time draws near, and they must now return to the God of their salvation. Tell them their return is to be as life from the dead to the Gentile nations. Tell them what their ancient fathers the prophets were inspired to predict in their behalf; and the charge here given for their restoration. Assure them this talk of an ancient prophet, is for them, and they must listen to it and obey it. That the Great Spirit above the clouds now calls them by you to come and receive his grace by Christ the true star from Jacob, the Shiloh who has come, and to whom the people must be gathered. Inform them that by embracing this true seed of Abraham, you and multitudes of other Gentiles, have become the children of that ancient patriarch; and now they must come back as your brothers in the Lord. Unfold to them their superlative line of the entail of the covenant; that “as touching this election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes;” that they were for their sins excluded for this long period, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in, and so all Israel shall be saved.

Go, thou nation highly distinguished in the last days; save the remnant of my people.--Bring me a present of them “to the place of the name of the Lord of hosts, the Mount Zion.”

Note:--Since publishing the first edition of the View of the Hebrews, the writer has for the first time obtained sight of an exposition upon this chapter of Isaiah by Dr. McDonald, and feels himself strengthened in a

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persuasion of the correctness of applying this address of the prophet to America. As the two expositions are before the public, the writer forbears to make any remarks, except upon one idea. Dr. McDonald, upon the bulrush navigation of the nation addressed, conceives that it may have, perhaps, considerable reference to the boat and canoe navigation of internal streams. And observing that “the central and eastern regions of Asia are generally supposed to be the present seats of Israel’s dispersion; what nation then of Christendom can convey with so much ease and expedition, as the Americans, their messengers to the shores of that vast and unexplored country? What nation is better qualified to search and to discover them in their unknown retreats? Sheltered in the capacious bosom of mountains, that reach the clouds, occupying the extensive sides of rivers rapid and broad, whose waves never felt the keel, and on whose banks a highway has never been stretched; to European missionaries their retreat would be inaccessible, without great expense of time and labour. But these obstacles oppose difficulties easily surmounted by the nation of the canoe. Bred with the paddle in their hand, and taught to construct vessels lighter than the bulrush, they can ascend every stream, wind round the foot of every mountain, and as circumstances require, they can carry their canoe, or be carried by it.” Had this author been led to believe that the natives in the vast wilds of America are the ten tribes of Israel; and that it comes within the prescribed duty of the people addressed by the prophet, to recover these outcast tribes; he would have perceived the application he makes, to come with still greater force to the sons of America, in relation to their searching out the wild tenants of the forests in the west, and through the wilds of America. It is a fact, the bulrush navigation, or light boats and birch canoes, have been a powerful auxiliary to travellers among the Indians, in ascending and descending their streams, in coming at their villages, and winding round the feet of mountains, carrying their canoes, or being carried by them in turn, to learn the existence and the customs of the natives. And the same means must be pursued, (and have already in a measure been pursued,) in carrying to them the word of life, and blessings of civilization. While the writer of these sheets still believes the leading object in the allusion to the ancient bulrush navigation of the Nile, when addressing our land, is to fix our characteristic of expertness in the navigation of seas and oceans-- “who sendeth messengers by the sea even in vessels of bulrushes”--yet he feels no difficulty in admitting that it also comprehends our great facilities in inland navigation; especially considering our astonishing recent improvements in canal navigation. The eye of the prophetic spirit might partially rest on this circumstance, in fixing this characteristic of the nation in the west, who was the subject of the message.

In relation to the American people having a favourable agency in meliorating the condition of the Jews, as well as the tribes of Israel, it appears the thought has struck the minds of some on the eastern continent, as well as the western. Consult the following:

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Extract of a letter from Erasmus Hermanus Simon of Stockholm, to the Secretary of the American Meliorating Society, dated April 26, 1823.

“I am constrained to congratulate you, western Christians, on the glorious prospects which are before you. It has become evident to me, that the Lord reserves for the Christians of America the scriptural means of effectually benefitting the lost stock of Israel. Nothing can be conceived worse than the present state of religion over the continent (of Europe) in general. And nothing so subversive of that little serious impression, which a month or two of superficial teaching may have made, than their being left to the danger which abounds on every hand in what are denominated places of Christian worship. The reception which proselytes with the best desires and characters meet with, is truly deplorable. The Society of Frankfort, had it not been for the American Meliorating Society, would have degenerated into a mere tract society, having constantly heard of the miseries which beset those proselytes whom they sent seeking for employment among Christians.”

In another letter from the same place, the writer says; “I unite my voice of thanksgiving and praise to the Supreme Disposer of hearts, who has in this time of Israel’s extremity, turned so many in America to undertake their neglected cause. Our souls are refreshed by the prospect which is held out, of “a lodge in the wilderness for the wayfaring men of Israel, where they may hasten to escape from the storm and tempest. Happy country, which affords a refuge for Abraham’s believing sons!”

The following is ascertained from ample authority; that in many of the old establishments of Europe, the convicted anxious Jew can obtain little or no evangelical instruction. Such an one applying to a professed minister of the reformed church, was informed, “that it was not necessary to his salvation to believe in the Divinity of Christ. It would be sufficient should he persevere in the duty of being a good member of society.”

“To a minister in Wurtemburg, (one of the most religious parts of Germany) a young Israelite came for instruction. He said he found no consolation in the present state of Judaism, as an immortal being, guilty before God. And that he wished candidly to inquire into Christianity. The instructor said to him, (clapping him on the shoulder,) are you an honest man? and do you disturb nobody? If so; you need not give yourself any trouble about being saved; you are sure enough of that!” Must not these things operate as a thousand arguments on the people of our Christian land, and of our superior advantages, to aid the children of Abraham, from whom we have received the blessings of salvation, and who in their turn are in a perishing state, and are stretching out their hands, and directing their wishful eyes across the Atlantic to us, for a return of that same word of eternal life? May they here find a present asylum; and here be led to the “Balm of Gilead, the Physician there.”

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1. *Our states may claim the characteristic of expert navigation, equal at least to any people on earth. Consider our steam-boat navigation, and such accounts as the following; found in Niles’ Register, of March 22, 1823. “Baltimore vessels,--The brig Thessalian arrived at Baltimore on Saturday evening last, in 79 days from Lima, and 24 from the sight of the city of Pernambuco, in Brazil; a distance of 12,000 miles; averaging six and a quarter miles every hour of her passage. This vessel was, less than eight months ago, on the stocks in this city.”

2. ** If this characteristic allude to this people in their dispersed state, as do the other characteristics here connected with it, it must be construed, as the Hebrew well admits, as their being subjected to great terror. This has been the fact. And this well accords with ancient predictions relative to them. Lev. xxvi. 16 “I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart.” Deut. xxviii. 37; “And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a by-word among all nations whither the Lord shall lead thee.” The Jews during their dispersion, have been a people worn down with perpetual terrors. But they were terrible to inimical nations from ancient date. The text then may allude to either, or both of these characteristics.

3. *Much perplexity had rested on the passage, a nation of line, line, till the above solution occurred to mind. With this I am fully satisfied. It is natural, as is the bulrush navigation. It agrees with facts, and is confirmed by the clause following; “whose land the rivers have spoiled.” Here the long occupancy of their beloved Canaan by hostile invading nations, is noted by a figure, alluding to the overflowing of the Nile;--which confirms the idea that the phrase, “a nation of line, line,” alludes to the same overflowing of the Nile, sweeping away boundaries, and rendering the use of the line necessary to ascertain every man’s bounds.

4. *This duty of christianizing the natives of our land, even be they from whatever origin, is enforced from every evangelical consideration. Rev. Dr. Mayhew accordingly remarks; “As the conversion of the heathen (in this land) was from the first one professed aim of our forefathers in settling New England; so almost all the royal charters, grants, letters patent, and acts of government in England relative to this country, have made mention of, and encouraged, yea enjoined upon settlers, the prosecution of this pious design.” The same author notes in the new charter granted by William and Mary to Massachusetts, as express recognition of this object, viz “to win the Indians to the knowledge and obedience of the only true God and Saviour of men.” The same object is expressly recognized in the charter granted by king Charles II to William Penn of Pennsylvania. How sadly has the object been neglected and forgotten! If our natives be indeed from the tribes of Israel, American Christians may well feel, that one great object of their inheritance here, is, that they may have a primary agency in restoring those “lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Those Hebrews first occupied the blessing of the covenant under the old and dark dispensation. Then the Christian Gentiles came into possession of the blessings of this covenant, under its last, the Christian dispensation. Noah, more than four thousand years ago, in prophetic rhapsody, uttered the following prediction. Gen. ix. 27; “God shall enlarge Japheth; (i.e. the Gentiles) and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem,” (or of the Hebrews.) But this event is only till the fulness of the Gentiles be come in; Rom. xi. 25. Then shall the Hebrews again take their place, as God’s first born. (Jer. xxxi. 20, 21; Zech. i. 16; Isai. lx.) Let us then be active in restoring their long lost blessing.

 

 

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