detestable and How happy to inheritance with the carcases of their abominable things." Jer. xvi, 14-18. find, that as in our individual salvation the grace that blots out all our sin is the grace of him who has observed and taken knowledge of it all, and provided for its being justly and holily forgiven, in visiting it all on the head of our sinless, holy, divine Substitute, so that grace reigns through righteousness, not by setting it aside, in like manner Israel, when restored and forgiven, will have no fear of anything being called to mind or brought to light which had not been noticed when forgiveness was bestowed! "For mine eyes are upon all their ways; they are not hid from my face"! Those very principles of God's character and ways which are now known to faith (and to faith only) as the foundation of the soul's peace, and the secret of its practical victory over sin, will by and by be conspicuously displayed in the open, manifested dealings of God with Israel and with the earth. It is thus that in the words immediately following those which have been quoted, we find the Gentiles learning by this display of God's character in his ways towards Israel, to turn from their idols to the true God. "O Lord, my strength, and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit. Shall a man make gods unto himself, and they are no gods? Therefore, behold, I will thus once cause them to know, I will cause them to know mine hand and my might; and they shall know that my name is THE LORD." I am aware that in this remark I am anticipating in some degree a future branch of our present inquiry. But the remark is so naturally suggested by the passage under review, that it could not be withheld. 66 Jer. xxx, has been already quoted in proof of two points, namely, that Israel's desolations are limited in their duration, and that when they come to a close their enemies will be visited with equal, or even greater calamities. But the predictions of Israel's restoration which this chapter contains are so express, and they descend to particulars so minute, that we may well bestow upon them a little further attention. "Thus speaketh the Lord God of Israel, saying, Write thee all the words that I have spoken unto thee in a book. For, lo, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith the Lord; and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers; and they shall possess it." And as though to guard against the spiritual-izing mode of interpretation, which would explain away such prophecies in the attempt to apply them to the church and to christianity, we are told, And these are the words that the Lord spake concerning Israel and concerning Judah." They are not words concerning something else figuratively represented under the names of Israel and Judah, but words spoken by the Lord (solemn thought!) concerning Israel and concerning Judah. And what are those words? Not to cite again those previously quoted, hear what follows. "Because they called thee an outcast, saying, This is Zion, whom no man seeketh after, Thus saith the Lord, Behold I will bring again the captivity of Jacob's tents, and have mercy on his dwelling places; and the city shall be builded upon her own heap, and the palace shall remain after the manner thereof. And out of them shall proceed thanksgiving and the voice of them that make merry and I will multiply them, and they shall not be few; I will also glorify them, and they shall not be small." How precise and how emphatic is this testimony. "At the same time, saith the Lord (ch. xxxi, 1) will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people." No longer Judah owned, while Israel or Ephraim (that is, the ten tribes) is cast off, but the Lord declaring himself the God of all the families of Israel. No longer "Lo Ammi, not my people," written upon them: "they shall be my people." God remembers his ancient love to Israel. "The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.' It is in all the freshness and unfailing power and constancy of this love, that the Lord now takes up Israel again. 'Again I will build thee, and thou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel: thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets, and shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry. Thou shalt yet plant vines upon the mountains of Samaria: the planters shall plant, and shall eat them as common things." And when Israel, even the ten tribes, are thus restored, there is none of the old hostility to Judah, none of the old reluctance to own Jerusalem as the place where God has put his name. "For there shall be a day, that the watchmen upon Mount Ephraim shall cry, Arise ye, and let us go up to Zion, unto the Lord our God." The chief of the nations are called on to sing with gladness 66 : for Jacob, and to publish the praises of the Lord who restores them. For "Behold," says the Lord, "I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coast of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child, and her that travaileth with child together a great company shall return thither. They shall come with weeping, (all their hardness of heart will then have been removed) and with supplications will I lead them I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble; for I am a Father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn." Nor let it be supposed that these touching declarations of God's interest in his people, and care over them, at this epoch of their approaching restoration, are intended for their own comfort alone. Universal attention is called to the subject. All nations have witnessed Israel's downfall, and long and complicated afflictions, and all nations are called on to observe God's mercy in their restoration. "Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock. For the Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he." Then, let me ask my reader, whether anything can surpass the beauty of the description which follows-a description of the results of this restoration of Israel? Ah, when God does in his word condescend to sketch a scene of earthly prosperity (connected, of course, with spiritual blessing) none can group the objects, or combine the colours, or mingle the light and shade, as he does! "Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the Lord, for wheat, and for wine, and for oil, and for the young of the flock, and of the herd: and their soul shall be as a watered garden: and they shall not sorrow any more at all. Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, both young men and old together: for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow. And I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness saith the Lord." What a picture! The full heart overflowing in songs of praise, where praise has so long been silent, in the height of Zion-the goodness of the Lord the attractive centre around which all are gathered, and to which all flow together-every expression of this goodness even in present plenty-the good things of this life no longer a snare to the heart, but the possession of them combined with spiritual fertility to the full-sorrow excluded for ever-young and old, virgin and married wife, joining to evince their cheerfulness and delightsorrow and mourning only mentioned as being past, and mentioned thus to mark the contrast between past and present the whole picture closing, as it begins, with the goodness of the Lord-there as recorded in songs of praise here as satisfying the souls both of the people and of the priests! It is in Israel, restored Israel, that this picture is to be realized, and more than realized. Israel's is an earthly calling. When under law they failed to fulfil the conditions on which was suspended the continued enjoyment of earthly blessing, and hence they failed to retain possession of it, even when in Joshua's and Solomon's day God had bestowed it so largely upon them. When, in days to come, grace shall restore and save them, and when they shall stand in grace, no longer holding their blessings on the tenure of their own obedience, their blessings,—the blessings distinctive of their calling and position-will still be earthly. Ours is a heavenly calling. The church is blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. Saints now have no portion on earth save to share the rejection of their Lord; and the proximate object of our hope is not Christ's coming to gather Israel and restore all things, but to receive us to himself in glory; in which glory we shall appear with him when he appears, and reign with him when he reigns, Israel and the earth being happy and at rest under the joint reign of Christ and his glorified saints-his body-his Bride. This is our hope. May our hearts be true to it! If they are, everything that God has been pleased to reveal as to the scene of glory and blessing which heaven and earth united shall present to his eye, in the coming "dispensation of the fulness of times," must be interesting to our souls. May we indeed find it so. Further inquiries as to Israel and the millennial kingdom demand our attention: but they must be reserved for our next. LONDON PARTRIDGE AND OAKEY, Paternoster-Row. (Price One Penny.) No. 9.] Plain Papers on Prophetic [Sept. 1853. and other Subjects. ISRAEL'S RESTORATION INTRODUCTORY TO MILLENNIAL BLESSEDNESS. Ere we enter on the direct consideration of this subject, it may be well to remark, that there are predictions in the Old Testament of an event long since accomplished, viz., the return from Babylon of a remnant of the Jews after a captivity of seventy years. Some who have not examined the subject suppose that all the predictions of Israel's return refer to this event: or if they meet with any which cannot possibly be so explained, they interpret them as applying in a spiritual sense to Christianity, or to the Church of the present dispensation. For the sake of any of my readers who may be perplexed by these thoughts, I would here mention a number of marks by which the student of the prophetic word may distinguish the predictions which relate to Israel's future restoration, from those which were fulfilled in the return from Babylon in the days of Cyrus, Ezra, and Nehemiah, 1. There are many passages which predict the restoration of all the tribes of Israel, as well as of Judah—and the union of the whole in one nation, in their own land. At the return from Babylon it was but a few Jews, properly so called, who were restored. The ten tribes have never returned; and the vast majority even of the Jews remained in the places where they had been carried captive. All predictions, therefore, of a universal restoration, must yet remain to be fulfilled. 2. One passage at least, Is. xi, 11, speaks of a "second" restoration of Israel. This could not be the return from Babylon, which was but the first restoration. What other has there been since that time? Must not then the second restoration be one yet to come? 8. Where miraculous events are foretold in connexion K |