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relinquished in the fullest hope of the future restoration of Israel in a yet higher glory and blessedness."-(p. xlii.)

But we must pass on to the notice of that discourse (No. xi of the volume) which formed one of the series we have been reviewing in the former part of this article. The subject is "The recovery of Jerusalem from its long desolation, and the full restoration of Judah and Israel to the land of Canaan, in connexion with their conversion." It is treated with a glowing animation and force, from Jeremiah xxxiii, 6-9, and sets before the reader a delightful picture of the glory of Israel restored, and the blessing which that event will ultimately prove to the world. The few extracts to which we must confine ourselves will be sufficient to convince the reader, that the Author handles his subject with his usual characteristic simplicity and faithfulness, mingled with those spiritual and practical remarks, which must at least edify the godly reader, even when he may not be convinced.

On the words, "I will build them as at the first," he observes

"Never have Israel and Judah thus been built together since Israel was carried captive into Babylon. Where have been the miraculous dealings since then, which have corresponded to the plagues of Egypt, the opening of a channel in the Red Sea, the feeding with manna, the fall of Jericho, the standing still of the sun and of the moon, connected with their first being built into a nation-where the united glories of the whole land as in the reign of Solomon? Surely if any future event is plainly revealed, the literal restoration of the Jewish nation to their own land is clearly revealed. If the word of God be the warrant of all faith and hope in what is to come, then have we full warrant to expect this. For my part, my brethren, I confess before you, I believe with simplicity what God has, as it seems to me, plainly spoken on this matter, and I look forward to it as an event yet to come with perfect and entire assurance. I call you also, as Jehoshaphat called the Jews of old, to Believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established. Believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper.' 2 Chron. xx. 20.”—(p. 213.)

And as he here calls upon his Christian brethren to believe the prophets in these matters, so, at page 220, he adds the following seasonable warning :

"Gentile unbelief of the Jewish Restoration is not a matter of indifference, but pregnant with many spiritual evils. It fills us with high-minded thoughts of ourselves; it clouds from us the glory of God in all his dealings with the children of men. It leads us to hard thoughts of our Jewish brethren, and is opposed to God's own thoughts of love to them. Thus we become unfitted to be full witnesses of the name and character, of the grace and righteousness of God both to Jew and Gentile.

"On the other hand, faith in God's promises to his people Israel will increase all our sympathies with his present thoughts of love to them; will stir us up to earnest intercession for them, according with the very mind and the direct command of Christ himself (Isa. lxii. 1-8), and will qualify us to be faithful witnesses to all nations of the righteousness and goodness of God." -(p. 220.)

Upon the glory to God, which will result from this restoration,-

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and which our author argues from the words-" And it shall be to me a name of joy, a praise and an honour before all the nations of the earth, which shall hear all the good that I do unto them," he makes the following remarks:-—

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The public nature of the final restoration of Israel is here made clear. It shall be before all the nations of the earth. It will not be confined to one kingdom, or interest only one nation. This publicity is often spoken of: All the 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.... In that time shall the present be brought unto the Lord of hosts of a people scattered and peeled." (Isaiah xviii. 3, 7.) It is a sign and token to all nations of the near approach of our Lord Jesus Christ and the full triumph of his kingdom. Great as was their deliverance from Egypt, it affected but one part of the earth. Every nation will be affected by their future restoration. Every nation will have a sensible and manifest witness and proof of Jehovah's faithfulness and loving-kindness to Israel. Very decided is the testimony which Micah bears to this (vii. 15-17,) According to the days of thy coming out of Egypt will I show unto him marvellous things. The nations shall see and be confounded at all their might; they shall lay their hand upon their mouth, their ears shall be deaf, they shall lick the dust like a serpent, they shall move out of their holes like worms of the earth, they shall be afraid because of the Lord our God, and shall fear because of thee.' -(pp. 218, 219.)

Our limits warn us that we ought to refrain from further extracts; but we cannot forbear setting before the reader our author's just remarks upon the time when the Lord will accomplish these events: in doing which we must further indulge ourselves by bringing forward also an appropriate passage or two from another discourse in the same volume:

"If you yet farther ask when shall these things be realized in the literal Israel, through their also saying, 'Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord!' I reply, a certainty as to the time is not, I apprehend, to be attained. Our Lord, before his ascension, thus met this most interesting question, 'It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in his own power.' He had, however, afterwards, as we see in the Revefation, the sealed book given to him to unloose the seals. And we may have, I doubt not, such an approach to just anticipation as may very greatly strengthen faith, and guard us against the infidelity of the world, saying, Where is the promise of his coming, and the procrastinating and deferring spirit of the formal church, saying, My Lord delayeth his coming. This I believe to be the very object and design of those numerous prophecies which have been called chronological from the dates intermingled with them, and which we are assured, at the time of the end shall no longer be sealed up, but the wise shall understand.'

"I would guard, however, here, both you and myself, most expressly against positively fixing dates, the exact knowledge of which God has purposely left in obscurity; lest we should rest in a mechanical fixing of dates, and be ensnared by a spirit of fatalism, and not attain that spirit of dependence, watchfulness, and preparation of heart, with which our safety and spiritual prosperity are so much connected. Yet while I do this, I am convinced, and I wish to spread the conviction, that prophetical dates are given for the use of the Church of Christ, and are to be unsealed in the latter days; and I add, that as far as I can judge by those dates which are given to us in the

Scriptures, to show the length of Israel's captivity, the time of their scattering to me appears to be just closing."-(pp. 215, 216.)

The other passages to which we adverted are in Discourse vii., upon Acts i. 7, 8, "It is not for you to know the times and the seasons," &c.; in regard to which, Mr. Bickersteth gives, among others, the following reasons, why he thinks the knowledge of the time of the restoration of Israel was kept back. For it was in reply to a question of the disciples on this point, addressed to Jesus on the day of his ascension, that he spake the words adopted by our author as his text:

"Look back. You stand on the eminence of eighteen centuries. See what these centuries have been. Generation after generation, apostles, martyrs, fathers, confessors, and reformers, have lived and died. Mark all the conflicts through which the early Christians attained their triumphstheir labours, sufferings, persecutions, and martyrdoms. Go on to the rise of Popery and Mahomedanism,-see the dark ages,-mark the struggles of infant Protestantism and its subsequent decay,-look at the present spread of infidelity among professedly Christian nations. Had the apostles been told all this must previously take place,-all this corruption must spread over the world, O what needless despondency and heart-sinkings must have overwhelmed them? Eighteen hundred years of deferred expectation,-eighteen hundred years of Israel's dispersion and desolation-eighteen hundred years yet to remain of the Gentile monarchies, and eighteen hundred years the treading under foot of Jerusalem;-with that wisdom and love which marks all His providence to his church, this dark scene was kept back!”—(p. 128.)

We cannot bring this article to a conclusion without adverting to another important topic connected with the restoration of Israel, viz. the declaration of God's wrath against those nations, which, whilst employed by Him as instruments to punish his people for their sins, have added wanton insult and malice to their calamities, and thus "helped forward the affliction." Isaiah xlvii. 6-11, and Zechariah i. 15-24, are remarkable proofs of God's jealousy in their behalf, even whilst chastising them; and history testifies that a severe retribution has sooner or later overtaken those who have exulted over or trampled upon them: all which are but as occasional warnings, to admonish mankind from time to time of the certainty of that greater day of vengeance which is denounced against the enemies of his people;-insomuch that it is difficult to meet with a passage in the prophets, declaring the future glory and consolation of Israel, which is not coupled with some intimation of wrath against their enemies.

The momentous question however arises, Which are the nations likely to suffer in this respect? To which we reply by another question: Where is the nation that has not wantonly imbrued its hands in the blood of Israel, and defrauded, oppressed, or persecuted them? Certainly England cannot plead not guilty in this respect, as the massacres of London, Lincoln, and York, and the

various acts of spoliation perpetrated by our early Norman kings, witness against us. Nor has there been, as yet, anything like a national act of humiliation or of expiation, in this or any other country, for such wrongs; whatever feelings of commiseration or sympathy, or of religious concern for them, may now be experienced in their behalf by individuals. We must not conclude that God has forgotten to punish, because we have ceased to remember, our guilt. Rarely do we find in the Scriptures, that judgment immediately overtakes a people for their national iniquity. God is long-suffering: He has his elect to gather out from the nations: and it is only when they are ripe for judgment in other respects also, and have filled up the measure of their iniquity, that Jehovah pours out the vials of his wrath upon them. The Amorites were not visited until several centuries after their sins had provoked a denunciation of wrath against them. The Amalekites were not finally visited until the days of Saul, for injuries against Israel committed in the time of Moses. Many of the woes declared against Babylon and other cities were not accomplished until ages after the generation that first offended had passed away; and even that tribulation which fell on the Jews themselves in the time of Titus, was declared, by infallible lips, to be an accumulation of vengeance brought upon them for all the righteous blood shed from Abel to Zecharias; and they had, moreover, a wonderful visitation of mercy, in the ministry of our Lord and his disciples, previous to the cloud bursting upon them.

It behoves England, therefore, as well as other Gentile nations, to walk softly in this matter. Awful fruits of apostacy and ungodliness are daily developing themselves among us, which look as if the Lord were already about to give up the mass of the nation to hardness; whilst the signs of the times portend that clouds are gathering, which may soon fall with terrific fury on the world. As individuals we may still propitiate the Lord; and there is no surer mode of securing for ourselves impunity in the dark and cloudy day, than in showing favor and mercy unto Israel. Though Jericho was not spared, yet because Rabab did good unto Israel, she was remembered, and obtained loving-mercy and kindness, even in the midst of the wrath; and whilst the battlements of the city were laid low, and the fury of the Lord of Hosts was being poured out upon her countrymen and neighbours, she was delivered in the hour of danger, and numbered among the Lord's triumphant people.

AN EXPOSITION OF THE BOOK OF REVELATION. By the REV. WILLIAM BURGH, A.B. Dublin; R. M. Tims; 1839.

A QUESTION which at first sight may appear an almost unimportant one, but which lies, in fact, at the very foundation of every attempt to understand the prophetic portions of scripture, has been started, within the last ten years, by Mr. S. R. Maitland, late of Gloucester, and Messrs. Todd and Burgh, of Dublin. It concerns the meaning to be attached to the words day, month, year, &c., in the writings of Daniel and St. John. For centuries, at least,-perhaps we might truly say, from the beginning, the Church has interpreted these words according to the rule laid down in Ezekiel iv. 6, "each day for a year." The catalogue of eminent writers who have so understood scripture, would certainly include nearly every distinguished man in the Church of England for the last three hundred years. Disregarding this concurrent judgment, however, in the middle of the nineteenth century two or three objectors have appeared, who take no pains to conceal their dislike of much of the language heretofore used towards Popery, and who, as the most efficient step they can take, towards accomplishing a re-union of the western Churches, have endeavoured to prove that all the interpreters of prophecy for the last three centuries have been in error;

that there is no authority for supposing "a day" to mean anything else than a day; and, consequently, that the belief in a 1260 years' reign of the Man of Sin, is a gratuitous and wholly unjustifiable fancy. In the work now before us this sort of literalism is the governing principle; upon it Mr. Burgh's system is reared, and if this be shown to be utterly indefensible, his whole interpretation of the Apocalypse goes to the ground. We purpose, therefore, to devote a short time to the question. And we select Mr. Burgh as the more respectable of the three writers whom we have named. Dr. Todd's work appears to us to be constructed in such utter disregard of all logical consistency, as to be scarcely a fit subject for grave consideration. We can only describe it as a heap of self-contradictory absurdities; and to a serious investigation of such we have no inclination. Mr. Maitland is a less vicious reasoner, but we can feel no respect for a man who spends his whole life in fault-finding. The construction of an original work appears to be a task for which this gentleman has no relish. He apparently intends to go down to posterity with nothing more than the reputation of a critic, leaving that of an author to men of

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