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Page 42
�What an extent of prophecy, and how firm a faith in the whole of
it do we see here! (says Dr. Priestly.) The Israelites were not then
in the land of Canaan. It was occupied by nations far more
numerous, and powerful than they; and yet it is distinctly foretold
in the 4th ch. that they would soon take possession of it, and
multiply in it: and that afterwards they would offend God by their
idolatry, and wickedness, and would in con-sequence of it be
driven out of their country; and without being exterminated or
lost, be scattered among the nations of the world; that by this
dispersion, and their calamities, they would at length be reformed,
and restored to the divine favour, and that then (as in the quotation)
in the latter days they would be gathered from all nations, and
restored to their own country, when they would observe all the
laws which were then prescribed to them. Past history, and present
appearances, correspond with such wonderful exactness to what
has been fulfilled of this prophecy, that we can have no doubt with
respect to the complete accomplishment of what remains to be
fulfilled of it.�
What was first announced by Moses, is repeated by Isaiah and
other prophets, assuring them of their certain return wherever
dispersed, to their own land in the latter days; and that they should
have the undisturbed possession of it to the end of time.
It has been objected, that the term "for ever" is not always to be
understood in its greatest extant, but is to be interpreted according
to circumstances. This for the sake of saving time I will
acknowledge. But the circumstances in which this phrase is used in
the passages already adduced, and in a number of others of similar
import which might be adduced, clearly indicate, that it is to be
understood in those passages to mean a period as long as the
duration of the Israelitish nation, which elsewhere is said to
continue to the end of the world.
For this reason, among others, this final return of the Jews from
their present dispersed state, cannot at any rate be said to have
been accomplished at their return from the Babylonish captivity.
For that captivity was not by any means such a total dispersion of
the people among all nations, as Moses, and the later prophets
have foretold. Nor does their possession of the country subsequent
to it, at all correspond to that state of peace, and prosperity, which
was promised to succeed this final return.
Figures of speech must, no doubt, be allowed for. But if the whole
of the Jewish polity was to terminate at the destruction of
Jerusalem by Titus, (as is maintained by Christians,) while the
world is still to continue, the magnificent promises made to
Abraham, and his posterity, and to the nation, in general,
afterwards, have never had any proper accomplishment of all.
Because with respect to external prosperity, which is contained in
the promises, many nations have hitherto been more distinguished
by God, than the Jews. Hitherto the posterity of Ishmael has had a
much happier lot than that of Isaac. To say, as Christians do, that
these prophecies have had a spiritual accomplishment in the spread
of the Gospel, when there is nothing in the phraseology in which
the promises are expressed, that could possibly suggest any such
ideas, nay, when the promise itself in the most definite language
expresses the contrary, is so arbitrary a construction as nothing
can warrant. By this mode of interpretation, any event may be said
to be the fulfillment of any prophecy whatever.
Besides, it is perfectly evident, that these prophecies, whether they
will be fulfilled, or not, cannot yet have been fulfilled. For all the
calamity that was ever to befall the Jewish nation is expressly said
to bear no sensible proportion to their subsequent prosperity:
whereas, their prosperity has hitherto borne a small proportion to
their calamity; so that had Abraham really foreseen the fate of his
posterity, he would on this idea, have had little reason to rejoice in
the prospect.
It may be said, that the prosperity of the descendants of Abraham,
was to depend on a condition, viz., their obedience, and that this
condition was not fulfilled. But, besides that the Divine Being must
have foreseen this circumstance, and therefore must have known
that he was only tantalizing Abraham with a promise which would
never be accomplished; this disobedience, and the consequences of
it are expressly mentioned by Moses, and the other Prophets, only
as a temporary thing, and what was to be succeeded by an effectual
repentance, and perpetual obedience, and prosperity.
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