Earlier text: PURIFYING THE HEART.Infidel Objections to the Bible Answered. No. 21.
By J. M. A.
The companions of Saul on the occasion of his miraculous conversion HEARD the voice of Christ. “And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man.” Acts ix, 7. The companions of Saul, on said occasion, DID NOT HEAR the voice of Christ. “And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me,” Acts xxii, 9. In the common version there is a seeming contradiction of the sacred historian in the foregoing texts, but rather than admit the objector’s claim that the inspired writer has really and plainly contradicted himself, in saying, first, that the men did hear the voice, and then making Saul say that they did not hear it, we prefer to adopt a rendering warranted by the original text, which produces a perfect harmony in the two statements, and doubtless expresses the fact in the case. The word “hearing,” in the one text, and “heard,” in the other, are both from the Greek akouo, which is sometimes rendered understand or understood, as in 1 Cor. xiv, 2. “For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue, speaketh not unto men, but unto God; for no man understandeth him.” (Margin, heareth.) This text is an exact parallel to Acts xxii, 9, which should read, And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they understood not the voice of him that spake to me.
J. M. A. No. 22. Moses says 24,000 died by the plague. “And those that died in the plague were twenty and four thousand.” Num. xxv, 9. Paul puts the number at 23,000. “Neither let us commit fornication as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.” 1 Cor. x, 8. An objection is offered on account of a discrepancy in the above figures; but when we compare the scriptures touching the case in question, all ground for such objections is removed. While Paul, in the latter text, stated the number that fell in one day by the plague, Moses, in the former text, gave the whole number that came to their death in consequence of the sin referred to, embracing, not only the 23,000 that fell in one day, as stated, but also those that were slain by express command. Verse 5. “And Moses said unto the judges of Israel, Slay ye every one his men that were joined unto Baal-peor.” J. M. A. ARTICLES SELECTED.
By H. F. PHELPS
The world has had, and still contains, many thinking men and women; and many things have been said and written that are true, and yet many things that are not true. From the many books and papers that now flood the world, might be made noble selections, choice articles with which no one could find any fault, and have no objection to their appearing in just such a paper as the Review. But should not a paper engaged in heralding the last and most solemn message to the world, be mostly filled with original articles? I think so. Among the many thousand readers of the Review, are there not enough who are capable of writing out their thoughts, who can and will engage themselves immediately in this duty? It is needed. The paper should be filled with stirring appeals in favor of the truth. Who cannot pen a few thoughts? Who cannot give a bit of experience? Who cannot tell a little of their determinations? of their joys? their hopes? their fears? what trials of faith, what persecutions they have to endure? and how they are delivered out of them all? Who, I say, cannot add some of these things and so fill our paper with interesting, original articles? You did write once, did you, and it never appeared. There was probably a good reason for it. So try again, and if you fail, “Try, try again.” Or may be you have written two or three times, and one piece appeared. Well this is encouraging. Try again. Write oftener. Come, brethren, let us be up and doing. The editor needs our help. Let us fill his drawer to overflowing, with pieces fresh from the heart, thoughts dictated by the Spirit of God. Let us pray for a fresh baptism into this work, and what we have to do, do it with our might. Does it not indicate a low state of spirituality on the part of the church, to see the paper filled with selections? To say the least it seems to indicate a lack somewhere. Shall this lack be on our part? I hope not. I will try that it shall not be so with me. Who will be another, and another, till there shall be an abundance of good, wholesome material with which to fill the paper? I was led to these thoughts from a view of my last paper; and at this present writing I have read considerable of it. It is all good. I have no objections to the selections, only it seems they do not speak with the same power as those coming from a living witness. Who will answer to this call? THE SAINTS' REWARD.
By H. A. St. John
AIR: “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp.” Sons and daughters of the Lord,
You who trust his faithful word,
Trim your lamps and let them now be burning bright;
Soon the Saviour will descend,
All your conflicts have an end,
For you'll all be numbered with the saints in light. Cho.—“Sing, oh sing, ye heirs of glory;
Shout your triumph as you go;
Though you're scattered, bruised, oppressed,
Soon you'll reach the Heavenly rest,
Where there'll be no sickness, sorrow, pain nor woe. Oh, 'twill not be very long,
Till the saints, an army strong,
Shall mount up to meet the Saviour in the air;
Then they will, a mighty throng,
Sing their first victorious song,
As they to the New Jerusalem repair. To the pearly gates they'll come,
Of the New Jerusalem,
For they all have been forever freed from sin;
And the gates will open wide,
For the saints who have been tried,
And have kept the truth of God, to enter in. Now their trials are all past,
For they've reached their home at last,
Where with Jesus and the angels they will dwell;
Of the tree of life they'll eat,
Cast their crowns at Jesus' feet,
And the song of praise to God forever swell. Cho.—Sing, oh sing, ye saints in glory;
No more conflicts you shall know;
You were scattered, bruised, oppressed,
But you've reached the heavenly rest,
Where there'll be no sickness, sorrow, pain nor woe. ARE WE OBEYING THE REQUIREMENTS OF GOD?
By Wm. Pepper.
THIS is a question we would do well to consider. Are we obeying the light of present truth as it is being brought to our knowledge in these last days? Are we obeying the Health Reform to the very letter, or only in part? Are we still using, or looking back with desire for those things which, instead of building up and making strong, tend to destroy both body and mind? If so, how can we with a clear conscience go before the throne of grace, asking our Heavenly Father to bless and guide while we are not on our part willing to obey? We may assert that we believe the testimonies to be of divine command; but if we fail to obey and still walk contrary to them, do we not deny the assertion, and prove that we have not the truth at heart? Brethren, why should we be so lukewarm? Why so cold and indifferent in the things which so much concern our spiritual welfare? Who is there that does not cherish life as sweet and precious, even this poor, mortal life which is so subject to pain, disease and death? But when we look forward to that immortal life which our Lord and Redeemer hath purchased for those who love and obey him, should we not be more sanctified to God and his requirements? In Testimony to the church No. 13, we read, “In the last vision given me, I was shown the startling fact that but a small portion of those who now profess the truth will be sanctified by it and be saved.” Truly this is startling; to know that but few who are professing to be followers of the meek and lowly Jesus will be saved. Brethren, let us see to these things. Let us get on the whole armor, and with determination press forward with the remnant few to that promised land. THE MEANEST, MIGHTY WITH GOD.
By Dr. Guthrie
Nothing is more remarkable in the Bible than to see how God, as if to teach us to trust in nothing and in none but himself, selects means that seem the worst fitted to accomplish his end. Does he choose an ambassador to Pharaoh? it is a man of stammering tongue. Are the streams of Jericho to be sweetened? salt is cast into the spring. Are the eyes of the blind to be opened? they are rubbed with clay. Are the battlements of a city to be thrown down? the means employed is, not the blast of a mine, but the breath of an empty trumpet. Is a rock to be riven? the lightning is left to sleep above, and the earthquake with its throes to sleep below, and the instrument, a rod, is one much more likely to be shivered on the rock than to shiver it. Are people to be converted by preaching, and won from sensual delights to a faith whose symbol is a cross, and whose crown is to be won among the fires of martyrdom? leaving schools, and halls, and colleges, God summons his preachers from the shores of Galilee. The helm of the church is intrusted to hands that had never steered aught but a fishing-boat; and by the mouth of one who had been its bloodiest persecutor, Christ pleads his cause before the philosophers of Athens, and in the palaces of Rome. And when he chose the weak things of the world to confound the strong, and the foolish to confound the wise, what God meant to teach us, was, that we are to look above the instruments to the great hand that moves them; and that, whether it was a giant or a devil that was to be conquered, the eyes of the body or of the soul that were to be opened, walls of stone, or what are stronger, walls of ignorance and sin that were to be overthrown, men are but instruments in his hand—the meanest mighty with, the mightiest mean without, Him.—Dr. Guthrie. MY BROKEN COVENANT.
By S. E. Lindsley
MORE than six months have rolled away since numerous brethren and sisters, my unworthy self included, took upon themselves the solemn covenant recorded in 2 Chron. xv, 12. I well remember with what deep feelings of solemnity, realizing that Heaven recorded the act, I rose to my feet, thus pledging myself in no trifling manner to seek the Lord with all my heart; not merely for a day, a week, nor a month, but till I found him to the joy of my soul. My brethren and sisters seemed nearer to me than before we were additionally bound together by this solemn covenant. I wished I might ever have their society, and turned away sadly to go to my place of employment among the world. For some weeks I felt that the fulfilling of this covenant by prayer, meditation and the study of God's word, must occupy all my spare moments. And the Lord was not slack concerning his promise, but met with me, and blessed me in proportion to my faithfulness. But it was often difficult to find a place of retirement; frequent prayer was gradually neglected and soon became less earnest. And just to that degree indifference and selfishness took possession of my heart, until I exclaimed with sorrow and bitter remorse as I went before the Lord, Alas! my broken covenant! And while reading in Testimony No. 12, the “Appeal to Young Sabbath-keepers,” I felt compelled to respond to a large portion of it, Lord, it is I. Were it not that the mercy of the Lord is very great, I should now despair. But I humbly trust that God will grant to me that godly sorrow which “worketh repentance unto salvation not to be repented of.” I am striving to be faithful in my daily duties, in seeking meekness and humility, and in searching for my sins and the evil traits of my character, that I may overcome them all. I trust the Lord will, and does, help me in this work, and I will leave it to him to bless me with joyful feelings when I can use the blessing to his glory. I do desire to be thoroughly converted and consecrated to God, strive to work out my own salvation, and would that I might be the means of saving some precious soul and be not a reproach to the cause of truth. I have learned by painful experience that lost ground is hard to be regained. But the Lord is good. He is faithful. Oh! for more of that love in our hearts which Jesus has for his weak, erring children. I am thankful for the privilege I have enjoyed of attending the late meeting at Roosevelt. Dear brethren and sisters, let us hold fast the help we have received. The Lord has blessed the faithful labors of his servants, and done a great work even in our midst, as well as in other parts of the field. Oh! let us perform our vows to the Lord, so shall we enjoy the light of his countenance. Dear, lonely traveler, Look up. Press forward yet more earnestly. The time is drawing near when there will be no lonely ones. Your sister in hope of life, Oswego Co., N. Y., Nov. 10, 1867. THE LAMP FOR OUR FEET.
By Adolphus Smith
I was belated. It was very dark and my path led through a lonely wood beside a river. What should I do! I procured a lantern which cast a dim light just ahead, by which I was able to keep the path. But at times the light emitted was so faint that I had to tread warily, and slacken my pace, lest I should go astray. Again the volume of light cast upon my pathway would be so great that I could tread safely and at a rapid pace; and from the window on the distant hill, beyond the waters, whither I was going, shone the beacon light to tell me I was nearing home. And so it is with the Christian, whose pathway leads through this dark world. He must needs have a lantern to avoid the gins and snares set for his feet. Such a lantern is supplied in the Bible, which is as a lamp to our feet and a guide to our path; and according as he attends to, or is careless of, what it teaches, will his light be brilliant or obscure. And then, too, borne on the wings of hope, comes the light from the mansions on the heavenly hills, where the greater effulgence of the glory of God has caused the sun, abashed, to hide his head. Can you and I, Christian brother, sister, point to that heavenly beacon and truthfully exclaim, “There is my home?” “A home in Heaven! when our pleasures fade,
And our wealth and fame in the dust are laid,
And strength decays, and our health is riven,
We are happy still with our home in Heaven.
A home in Heaven! when the faint heart bleeds,
By the Spirit’s stroke, for its evil deeds;
Oh! then what bliss, in that heart forgiven,
Does the hope inspire of a home in Heaven?” Ottawa Co., Mich., Oct., 1867. IS ALL WELL?
By Fanny Fern
“Twelve o’clock at night, and all’s well.” False prophet! Still and statue-like at yonder window stands the wife. The clock has told the small hours; yet her face is pressed against the window pane, striving in vain, with streaming eye, to pierce the darkness. She sees nothing, she hears nothing—but the beating of her own heart. Now she takes her seat; opens a Bible, and from it seeks what comfort she may, while tears blister the pages. Then she clasps her hands and her lips are tremulous with mute supplication. Hist! there is an unsteady step in the hall; she knows it! Many times, and oft, it has trod on her very heart-strings. She glides down gently to meet the wanderer. He falls heavily against her, and, in maudlin tones, pronounces a name he had long since forgotten to “honor.” Oh! all-enduring power of woman’s love!—no reproach, no upbraiding—the light arm passed around that reeling figure once erect in “God’s own image.” With tender words of entreaty, which he is powerless to resist, if he would, she leads him in. It is but the repetition of a thousand such vigils! It is the performance of a vow, with a heroism and patient endurance too common and every day to be chronicled on earth; too holy and heavenly to pass unnoticed by the “registering angel” above. False prophet! In yonder luxurious room sits one whose course it was to be fair as a dream of Eden. Time was when those clear eyes looked lovingly into a mother’s face—when a kind, loving father laid his trembling hand, with a blessing, on that sunny head—when brother’s and sister’s voices blended with her own in heart-music around the happy hearth. Oh! where are they now? Are there none to say to the repenting Magdalen—“Neither do I condemn thee—go and sin no more.” Must the gilded fetter continue to bind the soul that loathes it, because man is less merciful than God? False prophet! There lies the dead orphan. In all the length and breadth of the green earth there was found no sheltering nest where the lonely dove could fold its wings when the parent-birds had flown. The brooding wing was gone that covered it from the cold winds of neglect and unkindness. Love was its life, and so—it drooped! False prophet! Sin walks the earth in purple and fine linen; honest poverty, with tear-bedewed face, hungers and shivers, thirsts, “while publicans stand afar off!” The widow pleads in vain to the ermine-clad judge for “justice;” and, unpunished of Heaven, the human tiger crouches in his lair, and springs upon his helpless prey. Ah! yes! all is well; for He who “seeth the end from the beginning” holds evenly the scales of justice. “Dives shall yet beg of Lazarus.” Every human tear is counted. They will yet sparkle as gems in the crown of the patient, enduring disciple! When the clear, broad light of eternity shines upon life’s crooked path, we shall see the snares and pitfalls from which our hedge of thorns has fenced us in, and in our full-grown faith, we shall exultingly say—“Father, not as I will, but as thou wilt.”—Fanny Fern. Stop grumbling. Get up two hours earlier in the morning, and begin to do something out of your regular profession. Mind your own business, and with all your might let other people's alone. Live within your means. Sell your horses. Give away or sell your dog. Smoke your cigar through an air-stove. Eat with moderation, and go to bed early. Talk less of your own peculiar gifts and virtues, and more of those of your friends and neighbors. Be cheerful. Fulfil your promise. Pay your debts. Be yourself all you would see in others. Be a good man, and stop grumbling. —One hour lost in the morning will put back all the business of the day; one hour gained by rising early will make one month in the year. Historical Department.
By Dr. H. Bonar
Prophecy is History in Advance. JERUSALEM TRODDEN DOWN OF THE GENTILES.
Jerusalem, as it now stands, bears no mark of being anything save a city of the Gentiles. There is nothing Jewish about either the inhabitants or their dwellings. It is as truly Gentile in its aspect, and customs, and buildings, in its bazaars, and thoroughfares, and costumes, as Alexandria or Cairo. In passing through it no one feels this is Israel’s capital; nay, no one would be led to say this is a city of Israel at all. It does not retain one Jewish feature, save in those parts which cannot change—its rocks, its valleys, its hills. These are the same as in other ages, and they are the only unchanged memorials of the wondrous city—beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth. Yes, Jerusalem, as it now stands, is a Gentile city. Its walls, and towers, and gates, and streets, are all in the hands of the stranger. One cannot pass along its streets, or look down from some height upon its desolations, without feeling that the “times of the Gentiles” have not yet run their course. Jerusalem is the standing proof of this transference of dominion from Jew to Gentile; the great exhibition of Jewish degradation and Gentile supremacy in the earth. These times of the Gentiles have lasted long; they may be said to have begun in the age of Nebuchadnezzar; they may, perhaps, be fast running out; but they are not yet ended; and the evidence of this (even were there no other) is Jerusalem. The Turkish empire may be feeble and ready to crumble into fragments; still its sovereign is the Lord of Jerusalem. The Egyptian Viceroy may be a hated tyrant, ruling over his own Arabs with an iron rod; still he bears sway in Jerusalem. The kingdoms of Europe may be divided among themselves, some of them hardly able to maintain their own throne and crown; still the Consul of the weakest of them exercises more authority in Jerusalem than all the Jews together. The Arab, the Egyptian, the Greek, the Latin, all have some kind or amount of influence in Jerusalem; the Jew alone has none. The various nations of East and West have their political representatives in Jerusalem; the Jew alone has none. Without power, or influence, or weight, he is exposed to the oppression of every Gentile, whom covetousness, or malignity, or pride, may stir up against him. He has no protector, no friend, no impartial judge. It is not, however, of the Jew himself, but of his City that we mean to speak. On him, no doubt, the rod of the Gentile has lain, in all its weight and sharpness, for ages; on his hands and feet have the fetters of the stranger been fastened; but still it is specially of his city, his metropolis, that the Lord speaks, when he uttered the prediction, “Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” It was specially of the city and its temple that he had been speaking in the commencement of the chapter, and hence it is especially on its doom that he dwells. It was the magnitude of its buildings that had called forth the admiration of the disciples, as if its greatness could never be affected by time, nor its glory turned into shame; so it is specially the desolation of this their magnificent metropolis that he predicts—destruction to be perpetrated by Gentile hands; destruction not such as that wrought by Nebuchadnezzar or Antiochus,—from which the city was, in the course of a generation, to rise with renewed splendor,—but destruction to be prolonged for ages—ages during which Israel was to be scattered like the leaves over all the earth; and Israel’s city was to be not merely in the hands of, but under the feet of, the Gentile oppressor. All the four Gentile monarchies have, in their turn, trodden down Jerusalem. First came the Babylonian, then the Persian, then the Greek, and then the Roman; and the representatives of these may be said, at the present day, to have their feet upon the city. Every part of it they have trampled down, and on every part of it they are still trampling. Hence, it is that every vestige of ancient Jerusalem has been obliterated. Its stones, indeed, are there, vast and massive, but they are tossed hither and thither, and some of the finest and greatest occupy the obscure corner of a wall, or are buried under some modern structure, as if these only relics of former greatness that survive were to be used for the treading of Gentile feet, or the foundations of Gentile walls and towers. No place of honor has been assigned by the Gentile to these stupendous fragments. He has treated the very stones of the Temple as only fit to be trodden on or cast out of sight. Ancient Jerusalem has completely passed away, or rather, we should say has been buried under ground; and it is upon the top of this city that the modern Jerusalem stands. Hardly has any city been so completely ruined as has Jerusalem by the various Gentile nations that have held it in subjection. In token of the utter ruin to which they had reduced it, it is said that the Romans ploughed it up, or, at least, made their plough to pass over it, as an emblem of its complete and hopeless overthrow. Thus it may be said that each Gentile possessor has acted. They have driven their ploughs remorselessly over its ruins till every trace of the beautiful city has been obliterated, so that it stands before us not like Samaria, a city that has fallen into ruins, and sunk, as it were, by its own weight; but as a city which has been first laid in ruins by some hostile hand, and then had these ruins tossed hither and thither, mingled and remingled in wasteful confusion, till nothing has been left which might tell either of the splendor of its early greatness or of the grandeur of its sad decay. Across its ruins first went the plough of Rome in the first century. In after centuries came the so-called Christian occupants, the Greeks and Latins, who defaced it with their wretched superstitions. Then came the Saracen, and drove his plough across these ruins once more. Then came the Crusader, and ploughed up the ruins once more. Then, again, came the Turk, and re-ploughed the whole. Since that, during the last three or four centuries, all Gentile nations may be said to have been doing this same work. The Gentile does what he pleases with the dust of Jerusalem. The Jew looks on, but can only sigh. He sees the Gentile turning the very foundations of his city upside down, and casting out the memorials of the once glorious Jerusalem; but he cannot utter a word. He is, no doubt, the descendant of David, the representative of its rightful lords, the true heir of the city and the land; but he dare not interpose. The Gentile is his lord, and he may do with himself, with his city, and with his dust, all that caprice, or cruelty, or pride may dictate. “Jerusalem is trodden down of the Gentiles.” When looking on such a scene, or hearing the report of such desolations, with what point, as well as power, do the words of Scripture come home to us, “Behold, I am bringing evil upon Jerusalem and upon Judah, that whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle . . . and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it, and turning it upside down.” (2 Kings xxi, 12, 13.) The foot of the Gentile is everywhere, both in Jerusalem itself and in that region which surrounds it; that girdle of hills and valleys that formed at once its ornament and its bulwark. Look where you will, and you will find the traces of Gentile lordship, if not of Gentile oppression. Suppose we take our seat upon the slope of the Mount of Olives, which commands so full and so fair a prospect of the city. Look behind you, before you, around you, beneath you, you see the traces of this down-treading. Look behind you, and there upon the top of Olivet you have two things: first an Arab village filled with poverty and filth, whose inhabitants hate the Jew and worship the Impostor of the East. Then you have what is called the Church of the Ascension, pretending to mark the spot from which the Lord ascended, but desecrating the scene by its Gentile mockeries of superstition, and holding up before the eye of the Jew and in full view of Jerusalem an amount of abominable idolatry, such as even Babylon of old did not surpass. Look beneath you, where the valley of the Kedron winds along, and there, just at the extremity of Gethsemane, and hard by that bridge by which the Lord must so often have crossed on his way to Bethany, you see another Latin or Greek erection—the tomb of the Virgin—as if the Apostate Gentile Church had seized upon the holiest spots for parading its mummeries before the eye of the Jew. Lift up the eye, and you see the slope of Moriah, from Kedron up to the walls of the city, covered with the tombs of the Gentile. It is the Moslem burying-ground. They have chosen Moriah for their place of sepulture, as if to defile the sacred hill with ashes—as if to prevent its being recognized as a spot which Israel had ever occupied. The whole side of the hill is hidden by the white tombstones which in thousands lie scattered over that sloping platform, where not the debris of the city, but the dust of the temple lies buried. The bones of the Gentile unbeliever have been scattered over the most sacred spots of the city. Nay, and it would seem, too, as if this spot had been chosen in mockery of the Jew; for, while the Gentile burying-ground thus occupies the temple-hill, the eastern slope of Moriah, the Jewish burying-ground, where they and their fathers had laid their dead from time beyond memory, lies opposite, on the slope of the valley of Jehoshaphat, which ascends to the Mount of Olives. The ashes of the Jew seem cast out of their own city and precincts, and the Gentile occupies the place where they should have been. But look a little higher still, and there, on Moriah itself, stands the Mosque of Omar, enclosing the whole area of the Temple. That Mosque alone, into which no Jew can enter, and hardly ever any Christian—were there nothing else—points to the treading down of Jerusalem by the Gentiles. The great temple of the Eastern impostor, the finest Mahometan structure in the world, save Mecca, stands upon the ruins of Israel’s shrine; and that strange mass of rock, which seems to have been the spot where the Holy of holies was, and which remains to this day untouched by the tool of man, as in the days of Araunah the Jebusite, has been fixed upon by the Moslem as the place over which the spacious dome of the mosque has been built. The Gentile has not merely entered into the sanctuary and made it a desolation; he has not merely trodden it down and desecrated it; but he has erected over the holiest spot of all the great monument of his false faith—the manifestation of his hatred to the Jew, and his determination, not merely to defile their city and their temple, but to make that defilement and down-treading perpetual. But pass beyond the Mosque, and look over the city. There you have mosques and minarets—I was almost about to say without number—all of them symbols of the great down-treading. Besides these you have the churches and convents of the Greek and Roman apostasy rising in different parts; and in these there is even bitterer enmity to the Jew than in the Moslem mosque. They have planted upon the ruins of the desolate city, and on the head of the hapless Jew, the foot of more remorseless hatred and persecution than has been done by the blind devotees of Mahomet. They are the great treader-down of Jerusalem; nor are they less to be accounted so because they take the name of Christ into their lips, dedicate churches to his name, and build tombs in honor of his saints. Look again over the fair city as it lies before you on that sunny slope, and see the flags of many nations waving in the wind. At each Consulate these banners are flying; but they are all Gentile, and seem as if waving over a conquered city. The banners of all Europe are there, and distant America as well, with all varied symbols—such as the French eagle and the British lion. But in all that array of banners the Jew has no place. He has no emblem, no banner. The lion of the tribe of Judah, the wolf of Benjamin, the stag of Naphtali, or the vine-branch of Joseph—these have no place in that gay display of national emblems. For this is the day of Gentile sovereignty; and the Jew is reaping the sorrow and the degradation which375 he has sown. Their sin has found them out, and has been tracking them for ages. Blood is upon them! The cry of innocent blood has risen up against them. “We have no king but Caesar!” was their shout when they rejected their own Messiah; and that Gentile supremacy which they thus chose for themselves has been manifesting itself, age after age, in a hundred various forms—oppression, persecution, contempt, extortion, bondage, denial of privilege, and ruin, and dishonor,—even in their own city. Not only does the Jew not rule the Gentile anywhere, but he is not allowed to rule himself, even in his own land. The sceptre of Judah has departed, and in its place has come the iron rod of the Gentile—the prison, the chain, the sword. And the centre of all Jewish calamity, the scene of Israel’s lowest humiliation, has ever been Jerusalem, whose special doom has been to be trodden down of the Gentiles. Different from all other desolations has been the desolation of the once holy city—a sorrow and ruin peculiar to herself. Her ruin has not been like that of Sodom, which the Lord overthrew in a morning and covered with a veil of waters which has never since been removed. Not like Samaria, whose glorious beauty was to be a fading flower, as the hasty fruit before the summer (Isaiah). Not like Gaza, on which baldness was to come (Jer. xlvii, 5). Not like Ar or Kir of Moab, which were to be laid waste and brought to silence (Is. xv, 1). Not like Bozrah, which was to be a perpetual waste (Jer. xlix, 13). Not like Damascus, of which we read, “I will kindle a fire in Damascus” (Jer. xlix, 27). Not like Babylon, which was to be a desolation—a dry land, a wilderness, a land where no man dwelleth (Jer. li, 43). Not like Sidon, of which it is written, “I will send unto her pestilence and blood” (Ezek. xxviii, 23). Not like Tyre, of which it was prophesied, “I will bring up the deep upon thee, and great waters shall cover thee” (Ezek. xxvi, 19). Not like Egypt, of which it is said, “I will spread out my net over thee with a company of many people; I will leave thee upon the land; I will cast thee forth upon the open field, and I will lay thy flesh upon the mountains” (Ezek. xxix, 3). Not like the doom of these nations or cities has been the doom of Jerusalem, but something altogether her own. Her sin was peculiar, and so has been her judgment. She exalted herself above the Gentiles; she has been trodden down by them. She gloried in her honors as if she were the mistress of all the kingdoms of the world; she has been placed not merely under the power, but under the very feet of the Gentiles; and the spot which of all others has been most degraded by the Gentile has been that very temple of which she boasted as the badge of Jehovah’s favor, which could never be taken from her. How true do we find it to be that as each sinner has his own sin, so has each sin its own judgment. For God does not smite at random, nor punish without special reason and meaning; but not less truly is there judgment for each sin, and condemnation for each sinner, than there is the one great cleansing from all sin—a cleansing which would have sufficed even Jerusalem if she would but have known it in her day—a cleansing which suffices, to this hour, for any sinner upon earth, whether Gentile or Jew, for there is no difference; for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.—Dr. H. Bonar.