Charles Simeon on the Conversion of the Jews
Charles Simeon (1759 – 1836) exercised an influtential evangelical ministry centred on Cambridge, England.
‘The Conversion of the Jews was perhaps the warmest interest of his life, in the way of extended religious enterprise.’ He actively promoted the work of the Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews. On hearing of a Jew who had recently embraced the Christian faith, he wrote, “O that the whole nation might remember themselves, and turn to the Lord!”
‘Literally to the last the thought of the recovery of Israel to the divine Messiah was on Simeon’s heart. As he lay on his death-bed, in 1836, the annual Cambridge meeting of the Society drew near, and he resolved to deliver his “dying testimony to the immence importance of the cause,” in a paper to be read at a gathering of undergraduates.. “I wish to show you,” so the brief document ran, “what grounds we have for humiliation, in that we have been so unlike to God in our regards towards His fallen people. See Jer 12:7; and again Rom 11:28. And to bring you into a conformity to God in relation towards them, so far as it respects your efforts for their welfare, and your joy in their prosperity, see Ezek 36:22-24. And again Jer 32:41. And lastly see Zeph 3:17.”‘
Handley Moule, Charles Simeon: Biography of a sane saint, 95f.