Page:David Baron – The History of the Ten "Lost" Tribes.djvu/52

 II. It fosters national pride, and nationalises God's blessings in this dispensation, which is individual and elective in its character.

Its proud boastful tone, its carnal confidence that Britain, in virtue of its supposed identity with the "lost" tribes, is to take possession of all the "gates" of her "enemies" and become practically mistress of the whole globe, is enough to provoke God's judgment against the nation, and to make the spiritual believer and every true lover of this much-favoured land tremble. It diverts man's attention from the one thing needful, and from the only means by which he can find acceptance with God. This it does by teaching that "a nation composed of millions of practical unbelievers in Christ, and ripe for apostasy, in virtue of a certain fanciful identity between the mixed race composing that nation and a people carried into captivity two thousand five hundred years ago, is in the enjoyment of God's special blessing and will enjoy it on the same grounds for ever, thus laying another foundation for acceptance with God beside that which He has laid, even Christ Jesus."

After all, in this dispensation it is a question only as to whether men are "in Christ" or not. If they are Christians, whether Jews or Gentiles, their destiny is not linked either with Palestine or with England, but with that inheritance which is incorruptible and undefiled and which fadeth not away; and if they are not Christians, then, instead of occupying their thoughts with vain speculations as to a supposed identity of the British race with the "lost" Ten Tribes, it is their duty to seek the one and only Saviour whom we must learn to know, not after the flesh, but in the Spirit, and without whom a man, whether an Israelite or not, is undone.

III. Then, finally, it not only robs the Jewish nation, the true Israel, of many promises in relation to their