poetical imagery, the prophecy of the spiritual empire of the Son of God. Into this spiritual kingdom the Jews shall be gathered with the Gentiles-and Jerusalem, rising from her ashes, shall be surprised at the influx of new children in the converts, multiplying from among all nations, like the dew-drops of the morning.

Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains; for the Lord hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted. But Zion said, the Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me. Thy children shall make haste; thy destroyers, and they that make thee waste, shall go forth of thee. Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold all these gather themselves together, and come to thee. As I live, saith the Lord, thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all, as with an ornament, and bind them on thee as a bride doeth. For thy waste and thy desolate places, and the land of thy destruction, shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants; and they that swallowed thee up shall

be far away. The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall say again in thine ears, The place is too strait for me give place to me that I may dwell. Then shalt thou say in thine heart, Who hath begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate a captive, and removing to and fro? and who hath brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where had they been? Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people: and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders. And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers: they shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me." Isaiah xlix. 13-23. This transcendant promise introduces my last proposition.

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FOURTHLY, That they shall return, and be established as a nation, in their native land.

I confess, that after the closest attention which I have been able to pay to this subject, this is my conclusion, from what I judge the aggregate testimony of prophecy. Neither is this an opinion hastily adopted; but which has been formed expressly from the constant and private

reading of the Scriptures, consecutively, and for years, until my anticipations of the glory of the latter day in its consummation, have become identified with the re-settlement of the Jews in Canaan. If I err, I err from my own impressions, received altogether from habitual and unaided consultation of the Bible; for I have read but little, and spoken less, upon the subject. The passages which relate to the conversion of the Jews in general, appear to me to take this natural direction; but there is one especially, which alone I shall submit to you upon this occasion. "Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land: and I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions: but I will save them out of all their dwelling-places wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: So shall they be my people, and I will be their God. And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they

shall also walk in my judgments and observe my statutes, and do them. And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob, my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they and their children, and their children's children, for ever; and my servant David shall be their prince for ever. Moreover, I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. My tabernacle also shall be with them; yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And the heathen shall know that I the Lord do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore."Ezek. xxxvii. 21-28. We know who must be meant by David-so many years after the patriarch had slept with his fathers. We cannot doubt what land is intended-when it is added," wherein your fathers have dwelt." We are instructed by Jesus Christ himself to understand who is the "one shepherd;" and when this grand event shall occurwhen he has brought together all his sheep. We have the sublime close of the passage quoted by St. John, and applied to the glory of the latter day (compare v. 27, "My tabernacle also shall be with them; yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people," with Rev. xxi. 3, "And I heard

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a great voice out of heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.") We have the seal of eternity put upon the whole:-"I will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore." Now it does not appear to me, that, without violence done to this language, any interpretation can be given except that which is literal, and that, all the circumstances considered, its application must be future that, in a word, it relates to the glory of the latter day. If so, I think the return of the Jews to their native land conclusive. I entirely accord with Lord Bacon's sentiment, "As those wines which flow from the first treading out of the grapes, are sweeter and better than those forced out by the press, which gives the roughness of the husk and the stone; so are those doctrines best and wholesomest, which flow from a gentle crush of the Scripture, and are not wrung into controversies and common-place." It appears to me, that if some have separated too much the spiritual from the literal, others have separated too much the literal from the spiritual. I do not see that it is necessary to yield to all the opinions relative to the personal reign of Christ which are afloat, in order to maintain the restoration of the Jews to their own land. I do not