The history of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity to the present time

Front matter

PRES REA S

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Preface

TO THE SECOND EDITION,

No one, I think, who has experienced upon his own heart the influence of divine truth, as derived from the holy Scriptures, will hesitate to form his estimation of men according to the sacred standard. And his taste, hallowed and sanctified by piety, will give to the subjects of revelation their just weight and importance—which can be no other than the highest.

In contemplating, therefore, the nations of the earth, whatever regard he may have for classical antiquity, and whatever interest he may take in the lives, characters and pursuits of the great men of Greece and Rome, he will yet be willing to turn from them, and dwell with a far higher interest on the Hebrew nation. For its worthies he will feel an attachment he cannot feel for others. ‘Their characters are blended with the great articles of his faith, and their lives illustrate the volume which is his guide to eternity. Their history will be to him the most important. For he cannot forget that to them God was pleased to reveal Himself and His will; that of them were “the fathers ;” and that, above all, they were separated from the rest of the nations of the earth, for the special purpose, that of them should be born the Messiah, ‘‘the Desire of all nations,” as well as “the glory of God’s people, Israel.”

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It was an eminent Jew who declared, publicly and solemnly, when questioned concerning his professed faith in Jesus Christ as this Messiah of his nation, that he taught ‘‘none other things than Moses and the prophets did say should come.” Let this ‘Hebrew of the Hebrews” be heard and believed by his ‘‘ kinsmen according to the flesh,” whose reverence for their Master, Moses, is so great; and they will find that even Moses will rise in their estimation, when it is perceived and felt that ‘“‘the law,”? of which he was the chosen promulgator, is ‘‘a schoolmaster to bring them to Christ,” their own Messiah, for eternal salvation.

The Gospel honors the founder of the Hebrew faith, then, as it does the founder of the Hebrew nation ; making Abraham “the father of the faithful,’? and Moses, his distinguished descendant, the most eminent type of the Messiah, who was also “of the seed of Abraham according to the flesh,” in whom God has united the human nature with the divine; “for in him,” as was foretold by Isaiah, in His appropriate name of ‘‘ Emmanuel,” ‘ dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” |

When Christ, then, is accepted, it is, virtually, but the fulfillment of the prediction of the Jewish prophet, that ‘<men ” of all nations ‘‘ shall take hold of the skirt of Him that is a Jew, saying ‘We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’ *? And hence it actually is, that, although, on account of their unbelief and sin, as Moses himself asserts, the Jews, as a people, have failed to be what their God graciously declared He was ready to make them, ‘a nation of priests, a holy nation,’ they have, nevertheless, even as it is, become the instruments of enlightening the world. For the apostles of Christ, the first preachers of the Gospel, were, as well as their Lord and Master, of this highly favored race.

Now such a consideration is conciliatory. It disarms the spirit of persecution, if a real Christian can feel that spirit. And it can, at the same time, cause the reflective Jew to forgive the indignities and injuries his nation has unhappily suffered. Yet it is not to be forgotten on either side, that

PREFACE, 13 the Holy Book they both believe predicts these very sufferings—a prediction confirming in its fulfilment the solemn truth of God.

The spirit of the Gospel is love. And it contains the memorable assertion, ‘If a man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of His.” It therefore reproves, and consequently disowns, every unfriendly, hostile feeling, except against sin. It seeks the good, spiritual and temporal, of all mankind—particularizing “ first the Jew,” and then the Greek or Gentile. This is its golden key to open the hearts of all men. And its spirit is manifesting itself in those numerous associations which have been formed for persuading the Jews to embrace their own Messiah, I repeat this name, their endeared ‘‘ Emmanuel.” The professions which these associations make are substantiated by the real benefits they have conferred, and are not empty words. Actions have shown, that many Christians are desirous of wiping away the blot which for many an age disgraced the name they bear, in reference to treatment given the Jews.

This book is a proof. It appears to be written in a good spirit, friendly, loving, Christian. It manifests a kind regard to the House of Israel, in the earnest desires which breathe throughout it, that Jews may embrace their promised Shiloh, as many Gentiles do agreeably to Jewish predictions, and be happy in Him kere, and forever!

A Jew, who sincerely yields himself to these benevolent desires in his behalf, and receives in faith the New as well as Old Testament, as his ancestor Abraham would have “rejoiced”? to do, must truly look on Jesus Christ with feelings far more keen than can be experienced by mere Gentile believers. Christ is literally to Jews their “ bone and flesh ?—their countryman—the Hope of their illustrious fathers, on whose account themselves are ‘‘ beloved ? —predicted by their own David, Isaiah, and other holy prophets of their nation—and “ precious,” not to them alone, but to “be for salvation to the ends of the earth *—the Grand Medium of union.to the whole human family.

The writer of these few prefatory remarks has had, com-

14 PREFACE.

paratively, but little intercourse with Jews. Yet such as he has known, who have manifested a serious piety, and professed a belief in Christ, have justified, he must say, the views now expressed, and the character just described. And his earnest wish is, and his prayer, that the re-publication of the present volume, enlarged and enriched by his Judszo- Christian friend, Mr. Berk, may be blessed “ of the God of Israel,”? not only to excite an enlarged affection toward the Jews, and an interest in their highest welfare, among Christians themselves, which is greatly desirable ; but also to attract the descendants of Abraham to the faith of the Gospel, and a trust in their Messiah and King, agreeably to the cheering prophecies of their own divinely inspired Scriptures.

WituutiaM JENKS.

Boston, January li, 1843.