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in reference to the few years that intervened between the period of their writing and the destruction of Jerusalem, and the instruction of the church is sacrificed to this punctilious regard for critical correctness, throughout the many centuries that have succeeded.

"But if it were allowed (which it cannot be) that the mention of Israel's restoration, previous to their dispersion, would have been unnatural, a parallel strain of reasoning will not explain why the apostles did not refer to their future temporal prosperity, supposing such prosperity to be a subject of correct expectation. We have before glanced at their temporal abasement beneath the Roman yoke, which was a matter of obvious, bitter, and confessed experience by the Jews themselves; the departed glory of their religious character and polity, and their national rejection by God, were, as noticed, the subjects of New Testament announcement and lament; and their conversion the delightful theme of apostolic anticipation, as their restoration to national dignity was the subject of Jewish expectancy; and yet the New Testament contains not a sentence to confirm the hope of their future re-instatement in national importance and temporal dignity and honour. No glory is referred to but that which shall encircle, not only the remnant according to the election of grace' of the house of Israel, but all the elect,' of every name with equal radiance, and shine on every land alike. Duly weighing these considerations, it is presumed, that no one could reasonably persist in the objection, that it would have been unnatural, or premature, in the New Testament writers, to refer to the restoration, before the dispersion had taken place, provided such restoration were an object of justifiable prospicience. Should any one, however, thus persist, he must admit, as fair reasoning on the same principles, what is palpably false, viz., that the apostles did not refer to the future prosperity of the

Jews BECAUSE the Jews were not yet in circumstances of adversity. We know they were in adversity, and most eagerly desired a better state of things."*

II. The cessation of prophecies, giving any countenance to the theory, with the reformation of the Jewish polity under Nehemiah.

"After the last reformation recorded by Nehemiah," observes the writer just quoted, "there was only one prophet (Malachi) until the Christian era, and he does not predict any future deliverance of the Jewish nation; thus leaving us to conclude, that the predictions of former prophets were fulfilled, as to their literal import, on the return from Babylon and the subsequent prosperity, and had no reference to the present dispersion.

"Yet the Seer still predicts the universal spread of truth, and the world's oblation of a pure offering. (Chap. i. 11.) He beholds the Sun of Righteousness approaching,' but its rising beams make no fresh discovery of Judea's future temporal prosperity. He foretels the coming of Elias,' and the triumphs of Messiah, who will purify the sons of Levi,' or, as John afterwards announced, 'whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor.' 'Then,' says the prophet, shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in former years; and I will come near unto you in judgment,' &c. And how fully was this realized when the pure spirit of Christianity breathed forth, and testified against the works of darkness! How truly

did the Lord come nigh to judgment, when the imprecated blood of Jesus involved Jerusalem in unutterable woe!

Every one who admits that prophecy has often a

*Letters on Objections to the doctrine of Israel's Restoration to Palestine.

double reference, an immediate and a more remote one, will perceive the force of the objection now advanced; for admitting the principle of a double reference, or a primary and secondary meaning, which the second and sixteenth Psalms, Zech. vi. 9, &c., and many other passages abundantly establish, the silence of prophecy after the reformation of Nehemiah is very strong presumptive evidence, that the return from Babylon, and the subsequent reformation and prosperity, were the temporal events chiefly referred to in preceding prophecies."

III. The application made of some of these prophecies, by Old Testament writers, to the return under Cyrus, and of others, by New Testament writers, to the reign of Christ.

Moses had predicted of the Israelites, that, if they disobeyed God, they should be scattered among the heathen, (Lev. xxvi. 33; Deut. iv. 27;) and among all people, from one end of the earth, even unto the other, (Deut. xxviii. 64;) but if, in this state of dispersion, they should repent and turn to God, they should be gathered, even from the utmost parts of heaven. (Deut. xxx. 4.) As the state of dispersion here described would not appear to accord with that of which the Jews were the subjects in Babylon, the gathering of them that is promised would appear to be some other and more magnificent event than their return under Cyrus. And yet Nehemiah explicitly applies the threatened dispersion and promised gathering together to their captivity in that country, and their release by that monarch. "Remember, I beseech thee, the word that thou commandedst thy servant Moses, saying, If ye transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations; but if ye turn unto me, and keep my commandments, and do them; though there were of you cast out unto the uttermost parts of the heaven, yet will I gather them from thence, and will bring them unto the place that I

have chosen to set my name there. Now these are thy servants and thy people, whom thou hast redeemed by thy great power and by thy strong hand." (Neh. i. 8-10.) Zechariah evidently applies these predictions of Moses to the same events, when he says:

Ho!

ho! come forth, and flee from the land of the north, saith the Lord; for I have spread you abroad as the four winds of the heaven, saith the Lord. Deliver thyself, O Zion, that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon." (ii. 6, 7.)

Zacharias, while full of the Holy Ghost, prophesied, saying "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people, and hath raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David; as he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began; that we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us; to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant; the oath which he sware to our father Abraham, that he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life." (Luke i. 68-75.) Now what were the prophecies which this priest of the Most High, by inspiration, thus declares to have received their accomplishment in the advent of our Lord, but the long series of prophecies which seemingly warranted the Jews to hope that, under the reign of the Messiah, they should be gathered together in Palestine, whence they were scattered, and there enjoy uninterrupted national prosperity, and on which the advocates of a literal restoration found their theory? In exact accordance with the terms of this series of prophecies, also, are those of the salutation of the virgin by the angel: "Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the

Son of the Highest and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: and he shall reign over the house of David for ever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end;" (Luke i. 31-33;) but of this declaration, who will give any but a spiritual appli

cation?

By the mouth of the prophet Amos, (ix. 11-15,) God says, "In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old; that they may possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the heathen, which are called by my name, saith the Lord that doeth this. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the ploughman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt. And I wili bring again the captivity of my people Israel, and they shall build the waste cities and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord thy God." To this prophecy the apostle James thus refers: (Acts xv. 16, 17.) "After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David which is fallen down, and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up: that the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things;" on which reference, the historian Fuller, in his work, entitled, “A Pisgah sight of Palestine," makes the following observations : "Here the apostle James, more following the sense than the words of the prophet, as an expositor, rather than translator, renders the possessing of the remnant of Edom, to be, by seeking after the Lord; by which

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