LECTURE IV.

RESTORATION OF THE TEN TRIBES.

BY THE REV. W. R. FREMANTLE, M.A.,

RECTOR OF MIDDLE CLAYDON, BUCKS.

JEREMIAH XXXIII. 24, 25, 26.

"Considerest thou not what this people have spoken, saying, The two families which the Lord hath chosen, he hath even cast them off? thus they have despised my people, that they should be no more a nation before them. Thus saith the Lord; If my covenant be not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth; then will I cast away the seed of Jacob, and David my servant, so that I will not take any of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will cause their captivity to return, and have mercy on them."

THE subject which is to engage our attention this evening is regarded by many as a question of topography and genealogy, and, although they see indirect and dim intimations in Scripture respecting it, yet they consider the subject suited rather for the investigations of general literature and history than for the pulpit. But it assumes a far more substantial and important aspect when it is viewed in its connexion with the one foundation of our hope-the truth of God's word; for the sceptic and scoffer are ever ready to take advantage of any inconsistency of exposition, and turn against us the very principles which we have asserted, and do assert still to be, the only sound, safe, and true basis of scriptural interpretation.

I am aware of the charge to which the attempt to explain this, or any kindred prophetic subject, exposes me, and have sought the guidance of the Divine Spirit, that He may be mouth and wisdom unto me on the present occasion, and I may be allowed to request the patient consideration of those who have taken a different view, and who do not scruple to state their conviction that we are dealing in wholesale speculations and imaginative chimeras. I, for one, readily admit that it is a plausible à priori argument to assume that Catholic doctrine, or the confessions of a particular section of the Church, are opposed to, or do not sanction, or carefully avoid giving a dogma

tical opinion upon, these points. It is even agreeable to our early prejudices and na*tural sympathies, to criticise metaphysically where faith has not been called into exercise, and the subject is not considered to be one of vital personal interest. But, in the face of apparent contradictions and improbabilities, to take up a fragment of long-neglected prophetic truth, and to seek for its place and connexion in the yet broken outline of future events, this requires more of universality and comprehensiveness of system, and closer attention to the phraseology of Scripture, than simply doctrinal or devotional readers of Scripture are prepared to admit; and that this is the true matter-of-fact state of the case, will be apparent at the very outset, for so long as we speak of the restoration of the Jews we are quite in order, we break no canon of admitted probabilities, but if we assert the restoration of the ten tribes, and add to it one or two points of circumstantial detail, based upon the verbal harmony, and the obvious, as opposed to mystical meaning of Scripture, the whole question is raised, we have entered upon forbidden ground, and proclaim the unsoundness and rashness of our theory.

The appeal, therefore, is to the law and to the testimony; and under the increasing persuasion that the Word of God is throughout consistent with

itself, it shall be my endeavour, in dependence upon the Divine blessing, to make it clear that the promises to Israel can never meet their accomplishment until the ten tribes which revolted under Jeroboam, and went into captivity under Tiglath-pileser, and Shalmaneser, are restored to their land and their covenanted inheritance.

I propose, then, to consider,

I. The perpetuity of the covenant with Israel. II. That the covenant is not made with typical Israel, but with the twelve tribes.

III. The separate existence of the ten tribes. IV. The certainty of their restoration.

I. It does not fall in with my present object to go into detail, and prove the nature and principles of the covenant made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with Israel in the wilderness, and with David in Zion, my object being to remove a misconception which has arisen in many minds, owing to a confusion of the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants; thus, when I refer to the words of my text, I find a reference to the covenant with David and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, which is described as perpetual. But we do not find the same terms applied to the Mosaic covenant; on the contrary, we read that "it was added because of transgressions until the seed should come." Two pas

sages in Galatians will explain my meaning, iii.

17, and iv. 24. St. Paul speaks of the two covenants, the one made with Abraham, the other at Mount Sinai, in Arabia, answering to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children, --that is, under the law and under the curse, and, therefore, in a state of alienation and excision; but in iii. 17, we read, "This covenant at Mount Sinai, which was four hundred and thirty years after Abraham, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect," and, therefore, whatever privileges were contained in the Abrahamic, are not superseded or repealed by the Mosaic, but stand sure to all the seed. It will be answered, that the Abrahamic covenant is immediately connected with the Messiah, and that as all the blessings of Messiah are spiritual, so the Abrahamic covenant must be explained spiritually. Now, this is just the point at issue. In Jeremiah xxxi. and in Hebrews viii. the old and new covenants are compared, the latter taking the place of the former: "For in that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away." But this new covenant does not supplant the Abrahamic; it does not abrogate one single promise, temporal or spiritual, made to Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob; as a question of contrast or supplement, it has reference exclusively to the Mo