especially and briefly direct your attention. It states that the past success of the efforts of the London Society for promoting Christianity amongst the Jews, and the future prospects of Israel's salvation, as made known in the inspired page of prophecy, have laid upon all Christians who believe that Word, and who are capable of appreciating that success, the necessity of devoting more energy, more diligence, and more devotedness, to the great work of making Christ crucified known to the Jewish nation. The resolution speaks, in the first place, of past success, and I would refer here, not to the success merely, or, as I would rather term it, to the blessing which God has been pleased to vouchsafe to the labours of this Society, during the past year; but to that blessing which he has uniformly continued to it, from the first year of its existence. I mean not to say, that the efforts of the Society have met with no opposition; because many and specious were the objections urged, even by Christians, and strenuous and conscientious in many instances, the opposition offered by the Jewish people to all its efforts. But in that opposition I recognise success and God's blessing. Had it been of men, or if it had been of the devil, there would have been no opposition. The thing would have been proposed; it might have come forward; for a while it would have been noticed; it would then have passed away, like so many other schemes of benevolence. But it was nurtured amidst opposition. God's blessing was, however, vouchsafed to it, and it has gone on from year to year growing and increasing, not indeed in the same ratio as other societies, but still sufficiently to call for heartfelt thankfulness on the part of all its friends.

When, my Lord, I speak of God's blessing, I would speak especially of that which has been done amongst the Jewish people themselves. I would say, in the first place, that this Society has been honoured, by being permitted to carry the New Testament, in Hebrew, to the Jews in all parts of the world. If it had done nothing else but this,-if it had only come forward, and done nothing more than circulate the New Testament amongst the Jews in the wilds of Kurdistan, in Persia, in Poland, where so many Jews are congregated, in the North of Africa, yea, wherever Jews are known, if it had done nothing more than this, we should have abundant cause of thankfulness. How were the Jews to believe, when they had not the Gospel?

And here, my Lord, permit me to say, that another token of God's blessing, and of our success, is, that by means of the preaching and circulation of tens of thousands of the Scriptures, a great impression has been produced on the minds of the people at large, and many false ideas of Christianity have been removed. This Society has preached the Gospel, I fear not to say, to hundreds of thousands of Jews. Some may not have been willing to receive it. Many have long since passed away and died in their sins and unbelief. But, sure I am, that God's word cannot go forth, or the name of Christ be faithfully, conscientiously, and prayerfully proclaimed amongst the Jews, without proving, as it has proved in many instances, the power of God unto salvation, to Jew as well as to Gentile. I will even go so far as to say, that this is a great token of success, the fact that the Gospel has been preached, knowing that God the Holy Spirit himself can give the increase. Look to Him and pray Him to grant a blessing to our labours. And then at the last day, hundreds of thousands shall appear, whom, perhaps, we have never seen, but who will stand up as monuments of His grace, and bear witness before God, that this Society has been the instrument of accomplishing their salvation.

I have said, that one of the great blessings vouchsafed has been the removal of the false ideas which the Jews entertain of Christianity. In the first place, the Jews in all Popish countries have believed that Christianity is idolatry. Indeed, many of the Jews really do believe that Christianity is the same idolatry as that which was practised in the land of Canaan; and that, therefore, it is their bounden duty to abstain from any inquiry into its principles. Jews have frequently said to me, "Why shall we break the second commandment?" and they have pointed to crucifixes and images, and said, “If this be Christianity, we need not inquire, for it carries its condemnation on its forehead. It is idolatry, and we reject it altogether." Now the missionaries of this Society have been privileged to declare that this is not Christianity at all—that it is not the religion of the New Testament. The Lord Jesus Christ taught us as the great commandment, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord." He hath taught the heathen to cast away their idols of gold and silver, of wood and stone, and to worship Him as the living and true God-the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. If, then, the Society had no

other object, and never were to accomplish more than this, to protest amongst the Jews in every part of the world against the idolatry of Rome, and other corrupt churches, I should think this Society had accomplished a great work, and has had God's blessing; and, therefore, Christian friends, I rejoice, not only that the Scriptures have been circulated, and that missionaries have preached, but that the Scriptural Liturgy of our church has been translated into Hebrew, and put into the hands of the Jews throughout the world; thus affording our National testimony, that Christianity is not idolatry. They see in the liturgy not the prayers of an individual, but of a great nation, a nation, after Israel, the greatest upon whom God's sun ever shone,-great, through scriptural truth,-great through the doctrines of the Reformation.

Let us never forget that national prosperity springs from national righteousness. If we do not acknowledge that principle, we shall soon find, to our ruin and our confusion, that there is no prosperity without God's blessing. But the idea that Christianity is idolatry, is only one part of the Jewish mistake concerning our religion. There is another which has become prevalent in Germany, where rationalism prevails; and that mistake is, that Christianity is infidelity, that it does not believe anything at all; and, therefore, Jews who consider themselves reformers, have been willing to coalesce with Christians who call themselves such, but who reject inspiration, and who consider all miracles and all revelations of God as impossible, unworthy of the divine Being, and derogatory to the dignity of man. Now this is what Jews have been hearing from the chairs of professors, and from the pulpits of those who ought to be the followers of Luther and of Calvin. And therefore the missionaries of your society go forward and declare, We are Protestants. We are friends of religious liberty. We delight in liberty of conscience; and would promote it amongst all. But we believe firmly that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God, the co-equal and co-eternal with the Father, and that there is no hope of salvation but through His atoning blood. Here, then, your Society has raised up a standard, and endeavoured to remove false impressions concerning Christianity, both as regards Popery and Infidelity.

But there is another idea that the Jews maintain, viz., that Christianity is a religion of persecution, uncharitableness, and malignity. Here again your missionaries, in various parts of

the world, have taken every opportunity of testifying to the contrary. But there is another great testimony has been set up in Jerusalem itself, I mean the hospital. This institution shows to Jews, coming from every part of the world, that we can love and pity the poor Jew, and do him good both temporally and spiritually.

You have heard that there has been a slight increase in the Temporal Relief Fund. This fund is nevertheless far from being sufficient. And I think it is a bounden duty on every true follower of the Redeemer, to administer to the necessities of the Jew, who through his conversion to Christianity has been reduced to poverty. We should imitate the example of our Lord himself, who went about not only preaching the Gospel, but working miracles of mercy. We should seek to possess that greatest of all gifts, the gift of charity. We can work a moral miracle, by showing the Jews that the love of Christ, and the love of sinners, enable us to overcome all our selfishness, and to sacrifice all our goods, yea, to give all that we can, in order to assist those who are suffering for Christ's sake.

But I was forgetting one of the great proofs of God's blessing, viz., the number of Jews who have been brought to confess the Lord Jesus Christ, in various parts of the world. Many of them have already passed hence, and are gone into eternity; and their last moments were enlivened by the hope of seeing the Lord Jesus Christ in glory. Here, indeed, has been a great work. I have not time to enter into details; but when I remember that in Germany, Holland, Poland, the East, and wherever Christ has been long preached amongst the Jews, there are Israelites carrying the Gospel into countries where before it was not preached for many centuries, I then feel that we have an additional proof that the blessing of God is resting on our work. I know nothing more interesting than the journals of Messrs. Stern and Sternschuss, from Persia and Kurdistan. When I consider the zeal and the devotedness of such men, I cannot but give thanks to God.

I could point out in Germany many Lutherans and Calvinists, and many churches where the Gospel is preached, in these days of infidelity. I deem it a great privilege, that this Society has been permitted for forty years to go scattering the good seed, and calling the attention of Jews to the testimony of God's word concerning the future.

This leads me to the other part of the resolution, viz. :that we are encouraged not only by past success, but by the sure word of promise contained in the Scriptures of truth. We rest our assurance of success on Christ's commands and on God's promises concerning the Jewish nation. We know that there ever has been a remnant, according to the election of grace, and that in every age and nation God has gathered to himself a people, and believe in due season Israel shall be restored. We lay as our foundation that which is the source of all missionary and Gospel exertion-the word of God. This part of the subject was fully treated in the excellent and scriptural sermon preached last night, proving that "The word of God cannot be broken." That is our hope; and a glorious futurity it holds out to Israel. Israel shall be converted. They have not been preserved as monuments of wrath, but as monuments of grace-as God's witnesses for the truth. If we trace God's severity in their punishment, we also trace his goodness in their preservation—and nations are thus taught to look upon the Bible, as the only true book of political economy. For if they wish to have prosperity they must consult its sacred pages, but if they reject its doctrines they may expect nothing but ruin and confusion.

The Jews are to be converted, to be restored, to become a great nation; yea, the means of spreading light and knowledge among all the nations of the earth. Carnal and unbelieving men might ask, How is it possible that this nation of outcasts can ever do anything to enlighten the world or to bring men to Christ? The answer is, Look to the history of the past. Neither the wisdom of Greece nor of Egypt, nor the power of Rome, could do anything to liberate men from the bonds of superstition and idolatry, or from moral servitude; but when twelve Jews, Galileans, ignorant fishermen, were commissioned by Jesus of Nazareth to go forth and preach his Gospel, they effected that which all the wisdom of antiquity had not even dared to hope or expect. They overthrew all the existing systems of philosophy and idolatry, and established everywhere the knowledge of the one true God, as revealed in his Son Jesus Christ. What God has done once he can do again; and, therefore, looking to this encouragement, to the history of the past, and to the glorious prospects of the future, let us go forward in dependence upon God. Let Him be our strength. Let us not think of doing anything of ourselves;