The second inference, that the Jews occupy a remarkable place in the economy of God's dealings with mankind. But this very fact has been repeatedly urged as an argument against all interference with the Jews, that the place which the Jews occupy is so remarkable, that it is assigned to them by heaven, that their hardships as well as their "blindness" are judicial, that at the worst our progenitors were only instruments in the hands of the Almighty to do his pleasure, that by our sympathies with Judah's offspring, and our efforts to convert them, we may 66 haply be found to fight against God." How faithless, how selfish, how heartless this reasoning is, let scripture and experience shew. Was Judas, who betrayed his Master, justified? Was conscience-stricken Pilate guiltless when he pronounced the unjust sentence on the Lord of life? Both were bringing about the everlasting purposes of God. Let the horrid end of the one and the self-convicting language of the other declare. Was the relentless, selfish, murderous conduct of Henry VIII. held harmless in the sight of heaven, when by his cruelty he advanced the blessed reformation? Were those who chained the martyr to the stake, and fanned the flame which agonized him, quite blameless, because "the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church?" Every religious persecution was mercy when compared to the conduct of the Gentile church towards her elder and afflicted brother; her members have "stood on the other side and looked on their brother Jacob in the day that he became a stranger." And, if they have done so, they are guilty of fratricide, and their "brother's blood crieth from the ground." We have seen the desolation of Jacob, and the children of God's friend left with "neither root nor branch;" and, whether we regard the scene of their exile, their feelings, or their remembrance of Zion, we must mourn over their degradation, their injuries, and their sorrows, and devoutly acknowledge that they have peculiar claims on our sympathy, on account of the remarkable place which they occupy in the economy of God's dealings with mankind.

We have monopolized the blessings which give the Jews peculiar claims on our gratitude.

We have accumulated their miseries which have a demand upon our sympathy.

How deeply then must we be anxious to restore them to their privileges, which we have withheld, to alleviate the sufferings which our forefathers inflicted! We have the first, best age of the church for our guidance; and from the premises of scripture which we have adduced, "the sum of the whole matter" is this, that the Jews have peculiar claims on our gratitude on account of the great spiritual blessings which we have received through them; and that they have peculiar claims on our sympathy on account of the remarkable place which they occupy in the economy of God's dealings with mankind.

Prophecies may encourage, but not instruct us how to act. In treating of the Jews we would urge commands, rather than insist upon prophecy. In the New Testament we have a rule for our conduct. For comfort we may refer to promises of prophecy, such as the following:-" Thus saith God, I will lift up my hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people, and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried on their shoulders, and kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers." And doubtless God is "lifting up" the hand of his providence, and pointing us Gentiles to Israel. Persecution has well nigh ceased to hunt them: their feelings to Christians are less hostile. The power which Turkey once exercised against them now admits them to Zion. The holy city hails her sons: the rabbinical influence is losing ground. England, the guardian of the Christian religion, is now at peace. Twice has the tempest

of war swept over Syria from Egypt within the last forty-three years, and twice has the invader been driven back within this period; and mainly by a part of Britain's navy, apparently inadequate to the purpose, especially in the recent victory before the walls of Acre-Acre, the key of the Holy Land, so famous in the crusades under Richard 1. for a siege of two years, in which three hundred thousand Christian soldiers perished, before the banners of England and France were seen floating in triumph on its walls. Buonaparte was unconquered and irresistible, till discomfited by the land defences of Acre.

Sidon, and Tyre, and Mount Carmel are abandoned to the friends of Israel. So that we may pass over "that ancient river," Kishon, with the bible in our hand ; we may advance and see Jerusalem stretched before us, and look upon the "Mount of Olives," and panse in the garden of Gethsemane; or, stand by "The Brook Cedron," and view a thousand interesting objects of this hallowed land. God had declared that Egypt should be the basest of the kingdoms, and that it should "no more rule over the nations." And so the event: Egypt has been subject to the Babylonians, Persians, Romans, and Saracens, and is now confirmed in the integrity of the Ottoman or Turkish empire. That Egypt will be the scene of Israel's return, we infer from the eleventh chapter of Isaiah; therefore solemn are the interests involved in the results of the late war in Syria, announced at Jerusalem on the 5th November, 1840, in favour of the sultan. In short, mountains of difficulty are melting down before the standard of the cross. The very depth of that gloom which has been thickening for ages, is the harbinger of "the day-spring from on high." The first faint streaks of gospel light are already stealing through the distant horizon, and bringing on the dawn to gild the long neglected and benighted hills of Judah-the brightening prelude of the "Sun of Righteousness." Cheered by this prospect, we may contemplate with sacred delight the first stone of a Christian church which, in February 1840, was laid on Mount Zion. The building has been partially raised, and materials collected. Here you may behold the church of the Redeemer rising from that very spot consecrated by his blood, and destined to be the splendid scene of his universal triumph. The psalms of David, as they fell from his own inspired lips, will once more awake the sweetest echoes of God's holy hill.

The church of England, with all her fulness of catholic doctrine and evangelical truth, will minister in filial homage to the church first planted at Jerusalem, "which is the mother of us all." If it "is more blessed to give than to receive," will you not help us to send back that faith once delivered to the saints of Jerusalem, and handed down to our fathers and to us? Thus you may associate, as it were, the history, the labours, and the blood of the primitive yet strictly protestant martyrs, "who counted not their life dear unto them." Yes, my dear brethren, "Ye that make mention of the name of the Lord, keep not silence, and give him no rest, until he make Jerusalem the praise of the whole earth;" that so, O Lord, thy word may not only be a light " to lighten the Gentiles," but also "the glory of thy people Israel;" thus "the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion, and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads ;. they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and mourning shall flee away."

THE CHAOS:

A Sermon

(For New Year's Day)

BY THE REV. JOHN MATTHEWS, M.A., Curate of Langley-Burrell, Wilts.

GEN. i. 2.

"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." THE ending of one year, and the beginning of another, are events calculated to bring many profitable reflections to our minds, and that more forcibly than most other periods of time; owing, perhaps, to these circumstances: that a year is the longest division of time, and that few of them happen in our lives; that, when a year has just ended, one large portion of our existence is passed into eternity; that the beginning and the end of the year in this hemisphere happen in a dreary season, and at a time when nature appears least lovely, wearied and exhausted; that we are accustomed to look forward to the end of the year as a time of deadness and darkness and suffering, but to the beginning of the new that, as soon as its first morning dawns upon us, we may then begin to lift up our heads with joy, cheered with the promise of returning spring, and with the fond expectation of warm, bright, and lengthened days. Hence, on the one hand, at the dying away of the old year, we may be led to more spiritual reflections, to think upon the langour of old age, the approaching days of suffering and death, and more especially upon that solemn period of time when the awful will of God, declared by his angel in Revelation, shall be accomplished: "Who sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven and the things that therein are, and the sea and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer." There shall then be no severe return of winter, no sweet return of spring, no change of day and night; but all shall be swallowed up in eternity eternal darkness and eternal suffering shall rest upon the dwellings of the ungodly; but eternal light and warmth and joy upon the habitation of the just.

For, as the ending of the year leads to these reflections on the one hand, so, on the other hand, entering on the new year, with spring and summer before us, is strongly calculated to encourage us in looking forward to a new and heavenly life, to an eternal spring, eternal summer, an eternal day in heaven, where darkness cannot dwell. But it is not less suited to lead our reflections back to the beginning of time, to the first day when God arose to form and adorn the worlds, and to appoint the returns of day and

night, of years and seasons, for the use of mortals.

The text is easily divided into two parts: first, the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep: second, the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

I. The first subject then for our consideration is the state of the world in the beginning of time. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: that is, the earth lay a hideous, barren, and desolate heap; as a waste, howling wilderness, earth and sea mingled together-" the earth standing out of the water, and in the water," without order or control; the wild roaring waters dashing over the mountains and sweeping through the plains; now overwhelming one part, now another, and rendering all useless. Not a single tree, not a single plant, not a blade of grass was to be seen upon the whole of the earth's surface; not a single living creature had yet moved or existed, either in earth or sea: all was empty, barren, and desolate. Added to this, the blackest darkness covered the whole: "and darkness," says the text, 66 was upon the face of the deep." The sun and moon and start were not yet created; nor was there light from any other source, till God commanded, There was therefore the most awful confusion and desolation, buried in horrors of the thickest gloom; the world appearing like one vast and gloomy cavern, the womb of darkness. The blackest and most miserable night of the desolate winter may assist in bringing the scene to our imagination, though it may be but a very faint resemblance. Now think for a time on this comfortless scene of things: bring it to your imagination: set it before your eyes. How short and wretched must have been the existence of creatures, if God had doomed any to dwell in such a state!— how utterly impossible would it have been for them to fix a comfortable habitation, or to remedy one even of the existing evils! Where should we have made our pleasant homes and warm fire-sides? Could we "have commanded the morning, and caused the dayspring to know its place?" Could we have driven away the darkness? or "have shut up the sea with doors," and have said unto it"Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed?" As well might we now attempt to place ourselves on some barren rock in the midst of the sea, and say, "Here shall be my resting-place for ever; here will I plant me vineyards, and build me a quiet dwelling, and the waters shall not come near." The returning tide would perhaps put an end to all our hopes, and also to our existence.

1. Here then we are led to reflect, first, upon the wisdom and goodness of God manifested in his gracious design in the creation. God had no design to form creatures for misery, but for happiness, as the apostle declares when speaking of the Christian dispensation: "God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain mercy by Jesus Christ." So here he had determined to make man; but to make him, not a child of sorrow, but a comfortable and happy creature: he therefore first begins, with infinite goodness, to prepare him a pleasant and goodly dwelling-place. But which among the angels would have supposed that he would form it from this gloomy chaos, this miserable and barren spot we have been considering? They had no such power themselves, not the mightiest of them; and it is probable they did not yet know the almighty power of God, or, at least, that they had not seen it so marvellously displayed. When, therefore, he fixed the foundation of the earth, and formed the world, he tells Job that then "the morning stars sung together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy:" they sung of the mighty power and glory of God: they shouted for joy at the goodness and wisdom of their everlasting Father, here displayed so gloriously. And who, my brethren, when he hears and considers for a moment the declaration of the text, and then casts his eyes around, above, and beneath him, upon the wonderful change which God has wrought upon the beauty and order and usefulness of all things, who can refuse or avoid bowing in deepest adoration before him who by his Spirit has also gathered together the great and the wide sea, wherein are creatures innumerable, supplying food for this life; "and there go the ships," now winging their way on its bosom, with the food that never perishes, heralds of the gospel of peace, where once they were only as furies of war, thirsting for blood?

And, as the Spirit composed and regulated the waters under the firmament, so did he the waters that are above. "By his Spirit," says Job, “he hath garnished the heavens:" therefore the beauty and grandeur of the clouds adorning the heavenly canopy; their convenient station and usefulness, either to protect the tender herb with mantles of snow, dove-like emblem of his own pure love, or to enrich the earth with their showers, or to screen us from the burning sunbeam: this was the work of the Spirit of God. And doubtless these words of Job are designed to teach us that he also set forth the stars in their courses, and clothed them with living brightness. Thus, when we consider the works of the Holy Spirit, how lovely does he himself appear to us!-how worthy of our

highest adoration and gratitude! Indeed, when we meditate upon the separate works of the three divine Persons of the blessed Trinity, we know not which to love and adore the most; and arrive reasonably at the conclusion, that all are equally glorious, equally to be loved and worshipped.

But, further, the word here translated "moved," literally means settled or brooded, and it is understood by some to express that act of the Holy Spirit by which he imparted life and activity. This is the peculiar office of the Holy Spirit, "it is the Spirit that quickeneth," saith our Saviour: "the Spirit giveth life," says St. Paul: it was the Spirit that "raised Jesus from the dead :" it is the Spirit that shall breathe upon our dry bones, that they may live; for in like manner it was the Spirit of God that entered Adam, and man became a living soul. And here, in the text, we are to understand that by moving upon the waters he imparted vitality to the innumerable creatures that swim in the depths of the seas, and equally so to whatsoever moveth upon the face of the earth. To this Holy Spirit of God then we are indebted, not only for our own life and preservation from day to day and from year to year, but for all those living creatures which increase and multiply to supply us with food and clothing, and many other comforts. As often, therefore, as we use them, should not our hearts be grateful to him who is the author of them, and take heed not to abuse them?

Now, my brethren, we have considered the state of this world before the word of God and the Spirit of God began their operations upon it. You have seen its disorder and confusion, its barren, empty, and useless condition, and the utter darkness in which it was buried. You have seen also what the word and Spirit of God have been able to effect: you see around you in earth, and sea, and skies, what goodness and blessedness is imparted to the whole creation. You have seen, then, an exact representation of the fallen state of man, and what the word and Spirit of God, and these only, can do for him. The whole soul and body of man without these is without form, and void: his heart is a misshapen, hideous, and disordered mass of empty, unprofitable, and good-for-nothing matter; and, when the Holy Spirit of God enters it, he finds it lifeless, dark, and barren, and, like the unrestrained and troubled waters, all ruinous and in wild disorder, as in chaos. That this is the state of man, and that therefore he is fit for nothing else but destruction, except he is rendered "fit for a habitation of God through the Spirit," holy scripture very clearly declares: we are, it says, while unrenewed, "sitting in darkness and the