The History of the Ten "Lost" Tribes/Part 2/Chapter 6
A SOLEMN WARNING.
My last words on this subject must be those of warning and entreaty. Do not think, as so many do, that Anglo-Israelism, even if not true, is only a harmless speculation. I consider it nothing short of one of the latter-day delusions by which the Evil One seeks to divert the attention of men from things spiritual and eternal. Here are a few of its dangers:—
I. It goes, sometimes to the length of blasphemy (as shown in the extracts I have copied for you at the beginning of this letter), in misinterpreting and misapplying Scripture. One of its foundation fallacies is that it anticipates the Millennium, and interprets promises—which will only be fulfilled in that blessed period, after Israel as a nation is converted—to the British nation at the present time. But by this process it distorts and confuses the whole prophetic Scripture.
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 future by applying them to the British race in the present time, but it diverts attention from them as the people in whom is bound up the purpose of God in relation to the nations, and whose "receiving again" to the heart of God, after the long centuries of unbelief, will be as "life from the dead to the whole world."