LIV.

RESTORATION OF THE JEWS

[The annexed documents have just appeared in a periodical entitled _Memorials concerning God’s Ancient People of Israel_, and are probably as yet but little known to the world at large:――]

MEMORANDUM.

To the Protestant Powers of the North of Europe and America――Victoria, by the grace of God, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland; Frederick (William) III. King of Prussia; William (Frederick), King of Netherlands; Charles (John) XIV., King of Sweden and Norway; Frederick VI., King of Denmark; Ernest Augustus, King of Hanover; William, King of Wurtemberg; The Sovereign Princes and Electors of Germany; The Cantons of the Swiss Confederation professing the Reformed Religion; and the States of North America, zealous for the Glory of God; grace, mercy and peace from God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ!

“High and Mighty Ones,

“The Most High God, who ruleth in the kingdoms of men (Dan. iv. 32), by whom kings reign and princes decree justice (Prov. viii. 15), having in these days granted a season of repose to his witnessing church (Acts ix. 31; Rev. xii. 16), planted in the lands whereof ye are kings and governors (Isaiah xlix. 23); the vine of His planting among the Gentiles (Acts xxviii. 28) hath extended her boughs unto the seas and her branches unto the rivers (Isa. xlix. 6), that now in nearly all the world the gospel of the kingdom is being lifted as a witness unto all nations (Matt. xxiv. 14), and in the isles afar off. The days are drawing near (Rev. xxii. 20) when the dominion, and the glory, and the kingdom, with all people, nations and languages, shall serve Him, who cometh in the clouds of heaven (Dan. vii. 14, Rev. i. 7), whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom that shall not be destroyed (Psalm xlv. 6). Blessed be He! He hath given his waiting people to hear the sound of His approaching footsteps, and to mark the signs of His drawing near (1 Thess. v. 4). The fig-tree putteth forth her leaves again (Matt. xxiv. 32). Israel’s sons are asking the way to Zion, by which we know that summer is at hand. Blessed are all they that wait (2 Thess. iii. 5), and hold fast (Rev. iii. 11), for quickly He cometh. Amen.

“In the prospect of the Christian Church, of the speedy appearing of her glorified head, the zeal of the Lord’s servants hath been stirred up (Rev. iii. 2) to a multiplied diligence in those labours of faith and love which were devolved upon her (Matt. xxviii. 19), when the Son of God, as a man taking a journey into a far country, bade his servants occupy, until he returned again (Luke xix. 13). With other responsibilities, the circumstances of one peculiar people, whom the Most High hath separated (Gen. xii. 1) and taken into covenant with him (Gen. xvii. 7; Exod. xxxiv. 7), and which covenant no act of theirs, however iniquitous or rebellious, can repeal or destroy (Mal. iii. 6), whom he hath scattered in all lands as witnesses of his unity and power (Isa. xliii. 9), connected with whom the welfare of mankind is bound up, and in the lifting up of whose head the most stupendous consequences are made to depend (Rom. xi. 15), are presented at this eleventh hour for the repentance and faith of Christendom, that the blood of our brethren of circumcision which has been unjustly shed may be atoned for in the blood of the Lamb (Isa. i. 18), and the fruits of forgiveness be manifested (Matt. iii. 8) in presenting the children of this people continually at the throne of grace (1 Pet. ii. 5; Ps. cxxii. 6) for the atoning sacrifice of Christ to cover them (Joel ii. 17); and as the Almighty, in his providential appointments, shall make the way plain to present the children of Israel who may be willing to go up (Ps. cx. 3) as an offering to the Lord of Hosts in Mount Zion (Isa. xxviii. 7).

“For 300 years the testimony of the churches, planted in the lands over which Almighty God hath made you rulers, hath been lifted up against that apostacy which hath usurped the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ in the earth (Rev. xxii. 5, and xxiii. 5) daring presumptuously to assert power over nations (Rev. xviii. 7), and over kingdoms, to root up and to pull down, to build, to plant, and to destroy (Dan. vii. 20, Rev. xiii. 2, 7). The millstone which shall sink the Great Babylon in the abyss of an unfathomable perdition (Rev. xviii. 21) when her hour arrives (and it is very near!) with the judgment under which she hath long lain, for being drunken with the blood of the saints and of the martyrs of Jesus (Rev. xvii. 6), shall include the avenging of the wrongs of God’s ancient people (Isa. li. 22, 23), and a terrible account it is; and the issue shall be joy and gladness to the whole earth, for it is written, ‘Rejoice, O ye nations, with His people; for He avengeth the blood of His servants, and shall render vengeance unto his adversaries, and will be merciful to His land and to His people’ (Deut. xxxii. 43). ‘Happy art thou, O Israel; who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord, the shield of thy help and the sword of thy excellency? and thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee, and thou shalt tread on their high places’ (Deut. xxxiii. 29).

“In the events, on which the eyes of nations are fixed, taking place around, whilst the continuance and stability of your thrones and sway, O kings, is the earnest prayer of the Christian church (1 Tim. ii. 2), she cannot but uphold the witness that the days draw nigh, when, under the hallowed sway of Messiah the Prince, the now despised nation of the Jews shall possess the kingdom (Dan. vii. 27), and she directs, with reverential awe, your eye to that mighty empire in the east which is crumbling to dust, and drying in all her streams (Rev. xvi. 12) to make way for the event. Palestine hath been a burdensome stone (Zech. xii. 2) unto the followers of the false Prophet (Rev. xvi. 13), as it was to the ancestors of many of you, O Princes, when, under the banner of the Popish Antichrist, their mistaken zeal sought to recover the Holy City from the Saracen’s grasp. But the fulness of the Gentiles is at hand (Romans xi. 21) and unto Israel the dominion shall return (Micah iv. 8).

“The apostate Julian sought to plant the children of this people in the seats of their fathers, in despite of the holy faith, one of the external evidences of whose trust was, that their house was left unto them desolate, until they should say ‘Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord’ (Matt. xxiii. 38, 9). But is it anywhere declared in the word of our God, that the children of Israel, scattered and peeled, humbled and dispirited, impoverished and broken down, should not be presented as an offering in faith to Jehovah of Hosts in Mount Zion? that there they may be pleaded with face to face by the God of their fathers (Ezekiel xx. 13), that there the veil may be rent (Isaiah xxv. 7) which is over their hearts (2 Cor. iii. 15), that there they may look on him whom they have pierced (Zech. xii. 10). Your attention, high and mighty ones, is directed to the recorded fact that such an offering is expected. And before that full and final gathering which follows the judgments poured out on all the earth (Isaiah lxiii. 15, 16, 20), a power, and that power a northern one (Jer. iii. 12, xxxi. 6, 9, xxxiii. 7, 8――Isaiah xliii. 6, xlix. 12), shall be employed to lead a people wonderful from their beginning hitherto――a nation expecting and trampled underfoot――whose land rivers have spoiled, unto the name of the Lord of Hosts in Mount Zion (Isaiah xviii.). These designs and purposes of the Lord God of Israel, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, are declared unto you, high and mighty ones, his servants (Dan. v. 23), that you may ponder them, and know His will, from the voice, with which He is about to speak unto nations and unto men (Haggai ii. 6――Isaiah i. 10), for the time is at hand (Rev. i. 3).

“Your wisdom hath been exercised to mark the boundaries of kingdoms, and to define the limits of empires; and has not the aggressor overleaped all barriers, and the strength of treaties snapped asunder as tow? And why? Because when the Almighty awarded to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel (Deuteron. xxxii. 7, 8). By an unrepealed covenant, the Lord God declared unto Abram, concerning the land of Palestine, ‘Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates’ (Genesis xv. 18). This gift was ratified unto him for an everlasting possession, and to his seed after him, when the Almighty gave him the covenant, and changed his name to Abraham (Genesis xvii. 4, 8) . For the purposes of infinite wisdom fast hastening to maturity, the Lord God hath scattered his inheritance to the four winds of heaven. But hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off. He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him as a shepherd doth his flock.

“As the spirit of Cyrus, King of Persia was stirred up to build the Lord’s Temple, which was in Jerusalem (ii Chron. xxxvi. 22, 23), who is there among you, high and mighty ones of all the nations, to fulfil the good pleasure of the holy will of the Lord of Heaven, saying to Jerusalem, ‘Thou shalt be built’ and to the Temple, ‘Thy foundation shall be laid’? (Isaiah xliv. 28). The Lord God of Israel will be with such. Great grace, mercy, and peace shall descend upon the people who offer themselves willingly; and the fire offerings of their hearts and hands shall be those of a sweet-smelling savour unto Him who hath said, ‘I will bless them that bless thee (Genesis xii. 3), and contend with him who contendeth with thee’ (Isaiah xlix. 25).

“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen. Signed and sealed in London, 8th of January, in the year of our Lord, 1839, in the name of the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, on behalf of many who wait for the redemption of Israel.”

(Copy 1.)

“LONDON, January 22nd, 1839.

“May it please your Majesty,――I have the high honour of laying at your Majesty’s feet the accompanying memorandum relating to the present condition and future prospects of God’s ancient people, the Jews. Your Majesty’s pious feelings, I doubt not, will be excited to give the Scriptural hopes and expectations therein set forth your earnest attention, considering the high station it hath pleased Almighty God to call this Protestant land to, as the great seat of the church.

“According to the petitions of this peculiar people at a throne of grace, that in your Majesty’s reign ‘Judah may be saved and Israel dwell safely,’ is the prayer of your Majesty’s dutiful subject and servant.

“Her most Gracious Majesty Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland.”

(Copy 2.)

“January 19th, 1839.

“MY LORD,――I have the honour of transmitting through your Lordship a document which it is the desire of some of her Majesty’s subjects should be laid at her Majesty’s feet, relating to the Scriptural expectations of the church, connected with the restoration of the Jews to Palestine, the land of their fathers.

“I am induced to solicit your Lordship’s good offices in being the medium of communicating this document to her Majesty, as the substance of it relates to the present rights of an ally of this country――namely, the Sublime Porte.

“But I would respectfully press upon your Lordship’s attention, that, in holding forth the Scriptural hopes of God’s ancient people, those who emanate the accompanying document never for one moment dream of political force to accomplish the end desired. When the hour comes of Israel’s planting in, doubtless Almighty God will not fail to raise up chosen instruments, who, with willing hands and hearts, shall accomplish the good pleasure of His will.

“If we are wrong in the course we have taken to bring the memorandum before Her Majesty, we will be happy to be set right. Should your Lordship undertake the duty, desiring the glory of God in this matter to be furthered, the Lord God of Israel will not be slack to reward the labour of faith and love proceeding from a desire to honour His name.

“I have the honour to be, &c.,

“THE RIGHT HON. LORD VISCOUNT PALMERSTON.”

Lord Palmerston’s Answer.

(Copy 3.)

“FOREIGN OFFICE, March 14, 1839.

“I have to acknowledge your letter of the 19th January, enclosing a letter and a memorandum from some of Her Majesty’s subjects, who feel deeply interested in the welfare and future prospects of the Jews; and I have to acquaint you that I have laid those documents before the Queen, and that Her Majesty has been pleased graciously to receive the same.

“I am, &c., “PALMERSTON.”¹

¹ _The Times_, Wednesday, August 26, 1840, _pp._ 5‒6.