Their condition is exactly the opposite of all that can be termed rule or authority. They are scattered among the nations of the earth; have scarcely any of them a fixed habitation, and none of them the least shade of authority. There is hardly a kingdom in the world, where they have not been excluded, not merely from any share in the national government, but even from the common rights of citizenship.

The woes that Moses predicted, have fallen upon them, and they are cursed in the city and cursed in the field; cursed in their basket and in their store; cursed in their children and in the fruit of their land; cursed when they go out and when they come in; and in all that they set their hand unto for to do.

They have planted vineyards, and another has gathered the grapes. They have become an astonishment, a proverb, anda by-word. They have served their enemies in hunger, and thirst, and nakedness, and have worn upon their neck a yoke of iron. They have sodden and subsisted upon their own children. Their plagues and their sicknesses have been sore and wonderful. The Lord has seemed to rejoice over them to destroy them, and bring them to nought, and scatter them among all nations. They have found no rest to the sole of their foot; have had a trembling heart, and failing eyes, and sorrow of mind. They have been in fear day and night, and have been sold to their enemies for bondmen and bondwomen, till none would buy them. Precisely this has been their condition more than two thousand years. If Moses had written their history yesterday, instead of two and thirty hundred years ago, it had hardly been possible to pen it more correctly. Hence we need offer no arguments to prove that the law-giver and the sceptre departed from Judah at the time predicted.

Whatever pretence that wretched people may make, that somewhere, no one knows where, there is yet in that tribe the badge of power, and the right of legislation; no man of common understanding, and not blinded to the last degree, will listen for a moment to such desperate arguments in support of their obstinacy and their unbel ef.

III. It remains that we inquire whether he who came, at the time when the Jews expected their Shiloh, has exhibited the sign given of him in the text: "Unto him shall the gathering of the people be." By some this clause is made to mean, him shall the people obey, or to him shall the people hearken, and again, to him shall all the kingdoms of the earth be subject. Hence Christ is styled in Haggai, the desire of all nations. Now you remember that in the original promise made to Abraham, it was said, that in his seed, by which is meant the Redeemer, shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. Hence the Shiloh mentioned in the text, is he to whom the Gentiles shall seek, whose instruction they shall receive, whose precepts they shall obey, to whom they shall be subject, in whom they shall be blessed, and to whom they shall be gathered. All this must appear in him who shall answer the description given in the text of Shiloh.

We remember that very early in the gospel history, while yet salvation was scarcely offered to any but the Jews, the Gentiles seemed more ready than they to become his disciples. It is true that a few churches were very early gathered among the Jews, but the principal success of the gospel was among the Gentiles. The dispersion that took place on the death of Stephen, seconded by the conversion of Cornelius, soon showed the world that the Jews had ceased to be God's people and that in every nation he that feareth God and

worketh righteousness is accepted of him. Soon churches
were established in many places among the Gentiles, and
from that day to this the gospel has been making its way
through the nations, and the people have been gathered
to the Lord Jesus.

Now here lies the proof of his Messiahship, that the
religion he taught, and the means he used to propagate
it, should gather him disciples so rapidly and so exten-
rively. And had there been no other proof that he was
the predicted Shiloh, this one should have been sufficient
long since to convince the Jews that he whom they still
expect, has come. On the supposition that the Lord
Jesus Christ was not the promised Messiah, and of
course that no divine power gives efficacy to his gos-
pel, nothing can be more surprising than the promptness
with which he gathers disciples. And this was the very
sign given, "to him shall the gathering of the people be."
Now if any Jews or Gentiles are not prepared to
receive him in the character of their Redeemer, they
must account for the success of his gospel. It was never
propagated with the sword; it asks no support from
human power and human law, but has made its silent
way in direct opposition to the powers of earth and
hell.

The very nature of the religion of Christ renders its
propagation a proof of his Messiahship. It can adopt
no system of compromise with any other religion. It
must be either rejected, or adopted as the only one that
can bring men to happiness and God. The Saviour is
not to be worshipped in conjunction with Jupiter, and
Moloch, and Diana. He must have the supreme regard,
and every idol must be abandoned. Hence his religion,
when it began its course, was at war with every other, in
every town or city where it was attempted to be propaga-

ted, and the smallest success in these circumstances must have been a demonstration that its author was divine.

And what is more, the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ found the bitterest enmity in every heart it attempted to subdue. It demanded on its first presentation at the door of him it would redeem, that he be radically changed, that he love what he hated and hate what he loved. Hence our Lord would not deceive his disciples, but told them that he came not to send peace but a sword. Still with just such a religion as this, the Lord Jesus gathered disciples, and continues to gather them, while every native passion of the soul is at war with the Saviour, and the doctrines it is invited to embrace.

The character of the Saviour, when presented to the people that were to be gathered to him, was awfully forbidding. Aside from the consideration that he was the enemy of all sin and they totally depraved; his humble ingress, the meanness of his parentage and his birth, and the ignominy of his crucifixion, all tended to render it wholly improbable that he should ever gain adherents, and still men of the most towering views became his disciples, even some of the members of the Sanhedrim.

And what seemed an insurmountable barrier, he chose as the instruments who should propagate his gospel, men from the lowest walks of life, fishermen and tentmakers. These were to go and plead his name before kings and emperors. Still under all these embarrassments the people were gathered to him, and his religion spread throughout the civilized world. How then could the Jews, or how can the unbelievers in the present day, doubt that Jesus was the promised Shiloh, and that his own almighty power gave efficacy to his gospel.

And when we consider again the state of the world,

how exactly the opposite of that religion, unbelief is put to still deeper confusion. We can hardly read without a blush, the account that Paul gives us of the state of morals anterior to the gospel, among the very men to whom it was published. I will read you a part of that description. He says, "Men were filled with all unrighteousness." (Rom. i. 29-32.) Now it was among just such beings as these that the gospel had to make its way. Such were the people that the Lord Jesus would gather to him, or if he failed, did not claim to be owned as the promised Shiloh. We are all ready to say that the Jews had no excuse for rejecting their Messiah. But let us not forget that the light which thus poured upon the page of prophecy, and pointed out to the Jews their Shiloh so distinctly that we wonder at their unbelief, is still increasing. The council that condemned him, and the man who betrayed him, and the multitude who exulted in his agonies, had less evidence that he was the Son of God than we have, and had a better excuse for their unbelief than we. They had sufficient light to condemn them, but we have still more. They saw his gospel have some success, and were under obligation to believe; we see it operating on almost all nations, and are under still increased obligation to embrace and love him. We all join to condemn the Jews for their unbelief, but it would not be wonderful if we perish under a more aggravated condemnation.