fuffered a more grievous punishent than any other people who have not undergone a total excifion, whether we regard the great feverity, or the long continuance of it? If God therefore, after the fevere vengeance which he has poured out upon them, fhall, upon their repentance, not only reftore them again to their own land, but also to a much higher degree of national prosperity and power, than any they ever yet enjoyed, where will be the partiality of fuch proceeding? They may then be as fit objects of divine favour upon account of their righteousness, as they have been of judgment because of their iniquities. And indeed this is what the fame Prophecies alfo foretel. All this will not in the leaft impeach the juftice of GOD, or be any argument of partiality in him. May we not then reply to thefe objectors in the words of Ezekiel: Ye fay the way of the Lord is not equal. Hear now- is not the Lord's way equal? Are not your ways unequal? 1 Ezek. xviii. 25.

I fhall take notice of but one paffage more, which is a note of Dr. Sharpe's, beginning page 68. the principal part of which I fhall here transcribe.

Hence it is evident, that no entire tribes were loft in the captivity; the numbers of those who came back were registered in the book of Efrab and Nehemiah.All Ifrael returned, ' and twelve goats were offered for a fin-offering for all Ifrael, according to the number of the Stribes of Ifrael.-Throughout the fcriptures, Old · and

and New, the expreffion is, ALL ISRAEL, or the house of Ifrael and Judah. When our

Lord came, he ordered his disciples to go "firft to the loft fheep of the houfe of Ifrael." • Matt. x. 6. xv. 24. St. Paul declares in the fynagogue at Antioch, "that John had first preach"ed the baptifm of repentance to all the people "of Ifrael." Acts xiii. 24. And again, in the' prefence of Agrippa, fpeaking of the hope of the promise, he fays, "unto which promise our "twelve tribes, inftantly ferving God day and "night, hope to come." ch. xxvi. 7. St. Peter fays, "God fent the word unto the children "of Ifrael, preaching peace by Jefus Chrift." Alts x. 36. St. Paul declares, that all Ifrael 'fhall be faved- "when the Deliverer fhall re come out of Sion, and fhall turn away ungod"linefs from Jacob; for this is my covenant un"to them, when I fhall take away their fins.

Rom. xi. 26. I will make a new covenant "with the houfe of Ifrael, and the houfe of Ju"dab." fer. xxxi. 31. Heb. iii. 8. This lan

guage could never have been used of all Ifrael in both fcriptures, if the ten tribes, if all Israel had been loft in their captivity, having been carried away into Affyria, to return no more till fome future coming of the Meffiah. -If thefe tribes are yet loft, the gospel is not yet preached unto them, the new covenant not made with them, and therefore the Meffiah

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or Chrift is not yet come! A confequence • deftructive of Christianity, but which cannot be inferred from any paffage in the whole canon of fcripture: the contrary may be proved from every place in which mention is made of Ifrael; the house of Ifrael, and all Ifrael, after they

66 were gathered out of the lands from the eaft, and from the west, from the north, and "from the fouth." Pf. cvii. 2, 3. The perpe

tual lofs of the ten tribes, never yet return

ing, but remaining in fome part of the earth, ftill preferving the diftinction of their tribes, and obferving their rites and ceremonies, is a fiction, and a mere pretence of the Jews, fupported only by apocryphal writings, and a most extravagant affertion of Jofephus, who afferts, that numeration is incapable of expreffing the infinite myriads of the ten tribes that were in his time beyond the Euphrates: an argument fallaciously urged to fet afide the evidence of Christianity, by denying any covenant to have • been made with the house of Ifrael, and there⚫fore denying the Meffiah or Chrift to have ap

peared; for when he fhall come, a new cove

nant is to be made with the house of Ifrael; when all Ifrael, all the tribes, the ten tribes of

Ifrael, the house of Ifrael, as well as the house of Judah, &c. will be faved,' &c.—

To which I anfwer, that altho' a few might return along with the two tribes from Babylon, and

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other places thereabouts, fo that no entire tribes. perhaps might be loft in the captivity (as our Author obferves), yet it is very certain that ALL ISRAEL were very far from returning. The words ALL ISRAEL therefore, when they occur in many places of the New Teftament, muft, of neceffity, be taken in a limited fenfe, and fignify thofe only that then remained of them in the land of Judea; tho' in fome of the texts quoted by our Author, they may well mean the whole of them: As when twelve goats were offered for a fin-offering for all Ifrael, this furely might be done for those who were abfent, as well as for thofe prefent; or the law of Mofes having ordained that twelve goats fhould be offered for a fin-offering for all Ifrael, they might not think themselves at liberty to omit any of that number, tho' not one of the ten tribes had re. turned or been prefent. As to our Lord's ordering his difciples to go to the loft sheep of the houfe of Ifrael, the houfe of Ifrael is not here oppofed to the house of Judah; but the Jews, who were loft sheep of the house of Ifrael as much as any other tribes, are here mentioned in opposition to the Gentiles by our Lord, as appears from the preceding verfe: Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not, but go rather to the loft sheep of the house of Ifrael. Matt. x. 5, 6. So alfo, Matt., xxvi. 24. it was to a woman of Canaan that our Lord faid, I am

not fent but to the loft sheep of the house of Ifrael. And by John's preaching the baptifm of repentance to all the people of Ifrael, can only be meant that he preached to the Jews, and those few of the ten tribes that might be ftill remaining among them, they being all the people of Ifrael that. were to be found within the compass of John's preaching; but when St. Paul, in the prefence of Agrippa, fpeaking of the hope of the promise, fays, unto which promife our twelve tribes

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hope to come," he here fpeaks of the tribes in general. What the promife was, which they hoped to come to, we are told in the verfe before, viz. the promise made of God unto the Fathers; not that of fending the Mich into the world, for this was already paft, and therefore not then a fubject of hope, but that of a refurrection, and enjoying the promifed land; for the connection be-. tween which, fee the learned and fagacious Mr. Mede's obfervations on Matt. xxii. 31. Art. I. of the preceding work, p. 4. in the note: For the hopes of which promife, St. Paul adds, that he then fto.d. and was judged. When the fame Apostle alfo declares, that ALL Ifrael fhall be faved, he undoubtedly means the whole nation, confifting of all the tribes. But this faving of Ifrael is yet future, asappears from the preceding words; blindness in part has happened to Ifrael, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in, and fo all Ifrael shall be saved. It appears alfo to be future, from the words that immediately