ate control, for the purpose of bringing them back in 'an unbelieving state to their own country: but whether he, or whether the maritime power, will absolutely begin the work of restoring the ancient people of God, cannot, I think, be certainly gathered from Scripture*. His plan will be a plan of pure Machiavelian policy: and consi, dering the frailty of human nature, it is much to be feared that the plan of the maritime power, strenuously as that power will exert itself in converting no less than in collecting the Jews, will be somewhat alloyed by worldly motives, and will not be adopted simply from a desire to promote the glory of God. Most probably politics will have taken such a turn at that eventful period, as to make it seem to be the interest of both those great powers to attempt the restoration of the Jews. At this time, namely at the close of the 1260 years, and when the last vial begins to be poured out, Europe will be agitated by the storms of war. The symbolical earthquake of some extensive political convulsion will divide the great city, or the Roman empire, into three parts; and the cities, or kingdoms, of the nations will fall, when the mystic Babylon is now about to come in remembrance before God to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. The division of the great city into three parts seems to denote a triple division of the federal empire of Antichrist, not improbably made in imitation of the three prefectures of the ancient Roman empire; for Zechariah mentions three such parts as being engaged in the last

*That the maritime power, mystically termed by Isaiah the ships of Tarshish, will be the first, or (as the original expression is rendered by the LXX. and in the Latin translation of the Arabic version) among the first, to attempt the conversion of the Jews; and that they will afterwards bring back to Palestine such as shall be converted by their instrumentality, seems to be revealed with sufficient plainness: but it is no where, I believe, positively declared, that they shall begin the work of restoring the Jews. Since part of them are to be brought back by Antichrist in an unconverted state, and part by the maritime power in a converted state, it certainly is possible that Antichrist may begin to restore the one division previous to the restoration or even the conversion of the other division. Most probably however the two events will be nearly, if not altogether, contemporary. The prophecy contained in Isaiah lx. 8, 9, relates solely to the restoration of the converted Jews, because they are declared to be brought unto the name of the Lord; and we are taught that the ships of Tarshish shall be among the first to undertake this great enterprize.

. war in Palestine *. In the midst of these wars and revolutions, Antichrist will begin his grand expedition for the purpose of conquering Egypt and the Holy land, and of restoring his vassal allies the unconverted Jews. Uniformly successful in the beginning of his project, he will apparently reach the place of his destination and fix the apostate Jews in Jerusalem, before the maritime power shall have been able to convert, to collect, and to bring by sea to their own land, the other great body of the Jews; although that power is represented as being foremost in the work of converting certain members of Judah, and as afterwards restoring them when they have been so converted. Thus doubly brought back by two mighty contending nations, and thus plunged into the midst of perils and of war during the space of thirty years (for so long a period will probably intervene between the first effusion of the seventh vial at the close of the 1260 years when they begin to be restored, and the destruction of Antichrist. at Megiddo), the Jews must inevitably suffer many calamities; and we are taught accordingly by Ezekiel, that such will assuredly be the case. The whole of this is perfectly consonant with the ordinary course of the divine justice. National wickedness can only be nationally punished: and the long impenitence of the Jewish people will not at the last, even during the very time of their restoration, be either overlooked or unrequited.

When the army of Antichrist is miraculously overthrown, the Lord, who forgetteth not mercy even in the midst of judgment, will not make an entire end; but will spare some of the least guilty of his enemies, reserving them for the noblest purposes. Zechariah teaches us, that even so much as a third part shall be spared. These may be supposed to be less hardened in wickedness than their associates; and to have engaged in the expedition, either through the inveterate prejudices of a Popish education (the expedition having been blessed and sanctified by the false prophet), or through the tyrannical compulsion which we have already beheld Antichristian France

* I of course wish this to be understood as a mere conjecture. It is very possible, that the three parts engaged in the Antichristian war may have no connection with the three divisions of the great city.

begin to exercise over her degraded federal allies. Nor will they only be spared: plucked as brands out of the burning, they will likewise be converted by the mercy of God to a zealous profession of genuine Christianity. When two parts are cut off, and die, in all the land; the third part shall be left therein. And the Lord will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried. They shall call on his name, and he will hear them. He will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The Lord is my God.

Thus wonderfully preserved and converted, they will become proper instruments to accomplish the yet unfulfilled purposes of the Most High. Scattered over the face of the whole earth, they will carry every where the tidings of their own defeat, of the marvellous power of the Lord, and of the restoration of Judah. Meanwhile we may suppose the awful apparition of the Shechinah still to remain suspended over Jerusalem, visible from its stupendous height to an immense distance, and bearing ample attestation to the veracity of the fugitives *. Nor will they carry their message in vain. Judah is indeed restored: but the lost ten tribes of Israel are still dispersed through the extensive regions of the North and of the East. These, according to the sure word of prophecy, however they may be now concealed from mortal knowledge, will be found again, and will be brought back into the country of their fathers. All nations, and all tongues, shall come and see the glory of the Lord; for he will set among them a sign, even the sign of the Son of man, the sign of the illuminated Shechinah; and will send unto them those that have escaped from the slaughter of the Antichristian confederacy, that they may declare his glory among the nations. Convinced by ocular demonstration that God doth indeed reign in Zion, and at once divinely impelled and enabled both to seek out from among them and to find the long-lost sheep of the house of Israel, they

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I apprehend it was from passages of this import, that Mr. Mede supposed that the fetus would be converted by a supernatural manifestation of Christ. Had he said the ten tribes, instead of the Jews, I believe he would have approached very near to the truth.

Then

will bring by land, in vast caravans, all the brethren of Judah for an offering unto the Lord, as the great maritime power had already brought the converted Jews for a present unto the Lord to his holy mountain. shall the stick of Joseph be united for ever with the stick of Judah: Ephraim shall be no more a separate people: but the whole house of Jacob shall become one nation under one king, even the mystic David, Jesus the Messiah.

The various prophecies, which speak of the restoration of the ten tribes, certainly cannot relate to the restoration of those detached individuals out of them, who returned with Judah from the Babylonian captivity. This is manifest, both because their restoration is represented as perfectly distinct from the restoration of Judah, and because it is placed at once subsequent to that event and to the overthrow of Antichrist. In fact, the converted fugitives from the army of Antichrist are described as being greatly instrumental in bringing about the restoration of the ten tribes. Hence their restoration is plainly future: and hence we cannot, with any degree of consistency, apply the predictions which foretell it to the return of a few individuals from Babylon with Judah. "It is surprizing," says Bp. Horsley, when treating of one out of the many prophecies, that explicitly declare the future restoration and union both of Judah and Israel; "It is surprizing, that the return of Judah from the Babylonian captivity should ever have been considered, by any Christian divine, as the principal object of this prophecy, and an event in which it has received its full accomplishment. It was indeed considered as an inchoate accomplishment, but not more than inchoate, by St. Cyril of Alexandria. The expositors of antiquity, in such cases, were too apt

* Hosea i. 10, 11. "Nevertheless the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured, and cannot be counted; and it shall be, that, in the place where it was said unto them, No people of mine are ye, there it shall be said unto them, Children of the living God. And the children of Judah shall be collected, and the children of Israel shall be united, and they shall appoint themselves one head, and come up from the earth. For great shall be the day of Jezrael"-That is to say, as Bp. Horsley remarks very justly, "Great and happy shall be the day, when the holy seed of both branches of the natural Israel shall be publickly acknowledged of their God; united under one head, their king Messiah; and restored to the possession of the promised land, and to a situation of high pre-eminence among the nations of the earth."

to take up with some circumstances of general resemblance, without any critical examination of the terms of a prophecy, or of the detail of the history to which they applied it. The fact is, that this prophecy has no relation to the return from Babylon in a single circumstance. And yet the absurd interpretation, which considers it as fulfilled and finished in that event, has of late been adopted. But what was the number of the returned captives, that it should be compared to that of the sands upon the seashore? The number of the returned, in comparison with the whole captivity, was nothing. Then Judah and Israel shall appoint themselves one head-Zorobabel, says Grotius. But how was Zorobabel one head of the rest of Israel, as well as Judah? A later critic answers, After the return from Babylon, the distinction between the kingdoms of Israel and Judah ceased. But how was it, this distinction ceased? In this manner, I apprehend, The kingdom of Israel had been abolished above 180 years before; Judah alone existed as a body politic; and the house of Judah returned under their leader Zorobabel, with some few stragglers of the captivity of the ten tribes. And no sooner were the returning captives settled in Judea, than those of the ten tribes, joining with the mongrel race which they found in Samaria, separated themselves from Judah, and set up a leader and a schismatical worship of their own. Was this any such incorporation, as the prophecy describes, of Judah and the rest of Israel under one sovereign? To interpret the prophecy in this manner is to make it little better than a paltry quibble; more worthy of the Delphic tripod, than of the Scripture of truth t."

Of the Jews, who were carried away captive to Babylon, only a very small part, according to Houbigant ‡ not more than a hundredth part, returned to their own country. Those, who were left behind, will doubtless, at the time of the second advent, be brought back along with their brethren of the ten tribes; just as those individuals of the ten tribes, who returned with Judah from Babylon,

This two-fold return and incorporation of Judah and Israel is yet more definitely predicted by Ezekiel than by Hosea. See Ezek. xxxvii. 15–28. † Bp. Horsley's Hosea, p. 59, 60. Cited by Bp. Horsley.