from beyond Egypt, which is Africa; from Cush, or Arabia; from Elam, or Persia; from Shinar and the land of Babylon; from Hamath and Syria; and from Europe, Asia Minor, and, in general, the then unknown regions of the world, shall God in that day set his hand to recover his people; of whom that the remnant shall be found scattered over all the nations of the earth, hath been predicted by all the prophets from the days of Moses downwards (Deut. xxviii. 64, and Luke xxi. 24)*. But was it ever prophesied that they should be so scattered abroad, and not also prophesied that they should be gathered again? No; never. Hath not the one part been fulfilled, and shall not the other part also be fulfilled? And yet there are men who will write, at this day, that the Jews are not to be restored to their own land, but that it all means their conversion to the Christian faith! Doth their dispersion mean their denial of Christ? The greater part were dispersed before our blessed Lord was born into the world. Their dispersion means dispersion, means what we see at this day; and how their gathering unto their own land should mean any thing but gathering to their own land, is to me utterly incomprehensible. If it were one passage like this before us, it were enough: if it were ten, it were more than enough: if it were a hundred, and I dare say there are many more than a hundred, how much more than enough is it, for any one to rest his faith upon? Ah me! how glad would any sect, or schism, or heresy be, to have such and so clear Scriptures to build their error on! Woe is me! that men should be found so unbelieving as to doubt God's word concerning the restoration of Israel to their own land. If I did not know how a system of opinions will blind a man, and how ignorance rests satisfied with any or no account of a matter; if I did not know what profound ignorance there is as to the very existence of any prophecies, on this or any other subject; did I not perceive that the prophecies of God's word are in less esteem among the religious than the sibyl's books were among the heathens; did not the state of deplorable darkness and detestable schism which the church in this kingdom is brought into, affect every conclusion, I would, looking at the subject abstractly, declare that the man, who says he doubts or disbelieves the restoration of the Jews to their own land, is a sceptic or an infidel, but is not, and cannot be permitted to have the name of, a believer. A believer is one who takes God's word as true and certain; not so much of it, but all of it; not what he can credit upon other principles, but that especially which hath no probability nor possibility save in God's affirmation of it; not

*

Among other

passages, consult the following:-Jer. xxix. 14; xxx.; xxxi.; xxxii. 37, to the end: Ezek. v.; xi. ; xii. ; xx. ; xxxiv. ; xxxvi. ; xxxvii. 21, to the end Joel iii. Micah iv. 6, 7: Zeph. iii. 8, to the end: Zech. x. 9, to the end.

what will square with our system of opinions, but whatever God hath said—all, all that he hath said. There is a man who hath lately written and published twelve letters against the restoration of the Jews; and some zealots have given much circulation to his work: I would rather have had twelve religious magazines expend their monthly venom upon my poor head, than have written twelve letters against the restoration of the Jews to their own land. III. Ver. 12: "And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah, from the four corners of the earth."-In this verse, and the verses which follow to the end of the chapter, are contained the manner, the incidents, and the issues of that action of restoring Israel, which hath been just announced. That they are only the subsidiary and subordinate parts of this one action is manifest, not only from the substance of the passage itself, but also from the two songs of praise and thanksgiving which follow in chapter xii. The lifting up of an ensign to the nations, is therefore to be regarded as only an incident, however important, in the great action of recovering his people, to which it mainly contributes. There seems to me to be a contrast intended between this and the tenth verse, where the ensign set up to the Jewish people is the mortal and corruptible Man, made of the seed of David according to the flesh, the Root of Jesse. The Jews reject it and the Gentiles seek to it, and he cometh to a glorious rest. But now the ensign is set up, to the Gentiles, an ensign of glory and strength (Adonai lifts it up); which they in their turn reject; and the Jews seek to it, who are thereby gathered together and restored. These verses seem to me to contain exactly the same mystery of Providence which is in the Apostle's breast all through the xith chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, in which he foresees that the Gentiles were driving upon the same rock of unbelief on which the Jews had suffered shipwreck; that, as the one had rejected their sign when it came at the promised time, so should the other likewise do; and as God's grace had thereupon passed over to the Gentiles, in order to provoke the Jews to jealousy, so now shall it pass over to the dispersed Jews, in order to provoke the Gentiles to jealousy. His conclusion is contained in verses 30, 31: "For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief; even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy." The last clause being translated against all rules of grammar, and almost all the other versions, doth much mar the integrity of the conclusion: it should be," not now believed in [or upon] your mercy, that they also may obtain mercy;" being reserved unto that day when you, Gentiles, shall

be concluded in unbelief by the rejection of your ensign: whereby the abounding grace of God will the more mightily appear over the head both of Jewish and Gentile unbelief. Not only do I see this famous argument of the Apostle Paul's to be the expansion of these two verses of our text; but I can likewise trace the connection between the two through the quotation he makes immediately before pronouncing his conclusion, from the lixth chapter of our prophet, which contains a great light upon the subject of this standard lifted up to the Gentiles.

Both by the prophecy itself (ver. 20), and by the Apostle's use of it (Rom. xi. 26), it is certain that the main drift of the fiftyninth chapter of Isaiah is God's future act of grace to Mount Sion and all Israel; and being a passage full of warlike vengeance, it denotes fierce wrath to their enemies. It is Israel's redemption out of the hand of the nations which is spoken of there, as in our text; and in both places the islands are mentioned by name (xi. 2; xlix. 18). All the other countries mentioned in our text, are in the passage under consideration included in the general name of God's adversaries and enemies, being those nations of the earth which at sundry times had oppressed and led captive his people. The islands having been mentioned in both places, we have in the very next verse the lifting up of the standard; then the complete redemption of his people; and then the everlasting covenant of peace and holiness. So exactly parallel are the passages to one another, that we need not wonder how St. Paul, being by the Spirit enabled from the one to see the judgment of the Gentiles in the day of Israel's restoration, should bring out substantially the same conclusion which is contained in the other. St. Paul was not at this moment looking to our text for light, but to a passage exactly parallel, and almost identical with it. Moreover the standard is lifted up against an enemy who comes in like a flood: to this standard they who fear the name of the Lord from the west and his glory from the rising of the sun, do gather themselves; and the Redeemer of Israel comes to Sion, and delivers all Israel from transgression. Using this light, we are led to the general conclusion, that as the sign which the Jews rejected was the Root of Jesse, the Root out of a dry ground without form or comeliness, which they had been taught to expect, and which indeed they were preserved as a nation to produce; so the sign which the Gentiles are to reject is that which they are believing in-namely, a glorified Christ-and of whose coming in his glory they are set for the witness. That the coming of the Son of Man in his glory is the sign lifted up to the Gentiles, as his coming in his humility was the sign lifted up to the Jews, I do not yet present as a thing established, but barely mention, as resulting

from the general drift of the Apostle's collateral argument and quotation. It will require a more patient research to establish this point conclusively.

To one or two passages of our prophet we must give attention, in order to come at the true import of the sign lifted up to the Gentiles. And first to chap. xviii., which treats of the restoration of Israel by means of one particular nation there described to whom God gives a commission to go to his people (verse 2); and who do (verse 7) bring him the present of his scattered people, as a jubilee-offering to mount Sion, the place of his name. Who the honoured nation is we inquire not critically, but with Bishop Horsley believe, and on additional grounds to those which he hath so well presented, that it is the nation in whose language and to whose people one of the ministers of the church sends these interpretations Now no sooner is the subject propounded in verse 2, than, in verse 3, we have mention made of the lifting up of the ensign and the sounding of a trumpet, whereto the eyes and ears of all nations are summoned: "All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye, when he lifteth up an ensign on the mountains; and when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye." That this is the same ensign, subordinate and preparatory to the gathering of Israel, which is mentioned in our text, there can be no doubt: and to the trumpet we do not at present give more heed than to observe that it is a contemporary event, which we find frequent mention of on the same occasion; as, for example, chap. xxvii. 13: "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the Lord in the holy mount at Jerusalem." This trumpet having been blown and this ensign having been lifted up, behold what follows in verse 4: "For so the Lord said unto me, I will take my rest, and I will consider in my dwellingplace like a clear heat upon herbs, and like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest." Horsley makes this alteration upon our version: I will keep my eye upon my prepared habitation, as the parching heat just before lightning.' This refers, as it seems to me, to the stillness and peace which in Scripture are foreshewn to be immediately before the judgments of the Lord; yet with such a conscious dread as all creation laboureth under immediately before the bursting forth of the lightning in the sultry heat of harvest. I am on my guard against interpreting similitudes as realities, but much study of the Prophets has taught me to look narrowly into the similitudes used by God; and this expression, "clear heat before lightning, and a cloud of dew," doth suggest to me, I confess, the combination of fire and cloud in which Jehovah's glory heretofore appeared unto the children

of Israel in the wilderness, and that the re-appearance of this glory is indeed the standard which shall be lifted up; but more of this hereafter. And for the time of God's stillness for a season with his eye upon Jerusalem, we have it thus expressed in the fifth verse: "For afore the harvest, when the bud is perfect, and the sour grape is ripening in the flower, he shall both cut off the sprigs with pruning-hooks, and take away and cut down the branches." This is evidently the pruning of the vine, that is, the church, from all the incumbrances which might drain off the sap from nourishing, or prevent the sun from reaching, the ripening fruit. This the labour of the vine-dresser immediately before the vintage, answers to that gathering of the tares into bundles which is referred to Matt. xiii. 40; and likewise to that excision which, though it be always going on, according to the parable of the vine, hath its accomplishment finally in the treading of the wine-press of the Apocalypse (Rev. xiv. 20; Joel iii. 14). And what is to be made of these fruitless branches is declared in verse 6: "They shall be left together unto the fowls of the mountains, and to the beasts of the earth and the fowls shall summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them :" which, being compared with Ezekiel xxxix. 17-20, and with Rev. ix. 17, 18, shews it to be the same mystery of Divine providence as the battle of Armageddon.

From this brief consultation of the xviiith of Isaiah, we discover concerning the lifting up of the ensign and the sounding of the trumpet, that they are immediately before the harvest of the church, which (Matt. xiii. 39) is declared to be the end of the present age; and that the lifting up of this ensign is attended with judgment upon the nations, and ends in the restoration of the Jews to Mount Zion, the place of the name of the Lord of Hosts. Carrying this information with us both into the Gospels and the Apocalypse, we shall obtain some more distinct information upon the nature of the sign. In Matt. xiii. 39, "the harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are the angels," who gather the tares and cast them into a furnace of fire; after which "the righteous shine forth in the kingdom of the Father," like the sun, for ever and ever. All this takes place upon this world, where the tares and the wheat grow together; for the harvest field is declared to be the world. There is no mention made of the sign in this place ;; but in the corresponding place, of Matt. xxiv. 30, it is written, that the sign of the Son of Man shall then appear in heaven: "And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn; and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory." Here, again, the sign is connected with his coming in the clouds of heaven. In the corresponding passage