But

These highly figurative passages seem to allude to the march of that whole nation, as in the original Exodus, out of the countries where, previously to this divine proclamation, they had endured a rigorous captivity. now, by the secret moyements of God's mer ciful providence preparing events in secret, and the altered state of the world in consequence thereof, producing the immediate causes of their emancipation, they seize upon the defiles and strong passes, or gates, and find the impassable and rough places made smooth as a military road; and above all, the great stumbling block, which for ages had stood in the way, now broken down and levelled with the earth. For "the BREAKER is come up before them. They have broken up, and have passed through the gate, and are gone out by it; and their kings shall pass before them, and the Lord on the head of them." Micah ii. 13.

* The rise of the Breaker, and the work appointed for this great instrument of Providence to accomplish, are treated of at large in a future section.

To this tremendous crash the inspired psalmist seems (in Ps. cxlix. 5, &c.) to al lude. "Let the saints be joyful in glory, let them sing aloud (Rev. xv. iii.) upon their beds.* Let the high praises of God be in their mouths, and a two-edged sword in their hand.t To execute vengeance upon the

Upon the couch of repose, after the fatigues of the suċa cèssful contest against their persecuting enemies. This Psalm is such another song of triumph, composed in the spirit of pros phecy for the occasion of Israel's second Exodus, as that in the fifteenth chapter of the book of Exodus, which Moses and the army sung upon their escape from Pharoah. Bishop Horn, spiritualizing on this occasion rather too much, says, “How obvious is it, that the scene, of which we have here a prophet ical exhibition, is one that cannot take place till after the resur rection? because the followers of the Lamb have nothing to do with vengeance in this world."-Perhaps not, yet they may, even against their will and design, be made instruments in the hand of God, to execute "the judgment written" against his and their enemies. (Isa. xiii. 3.) The circumstances enume rated do agree much worse with the state of the blessed in hea ven, than with that of the converted jews, previous to their re-settlement, and the holy and peaceful millennium which is

to ensue.

"The hebrew verbs in the preceding verse are in the future tense. In this, the original hath no verb at all." Horn's Comment, The "two edged sword in their hand," if we may borrow for once the above-named author's stile of inter

heathen, and punishments upon the people: to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron: to execute upon

them the judgment written. Such honor have all his saints." This vengeance upon their enemies, and the enemies of the christian name, "the worst of the heathen," (Ezek. vii. 24,) who have trodden down Jerusalem, and spoiled and desolated the "glory of all lands," for many ages:-those enemies also, of the Lamb and his followers, which have, rioted in the blood of the saints for an equally long term: the honor of this final triumph is reserved for all his saints;-and is declared to be the execution of the judgment written, and

pretation, may perhaps signify the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament and the New, a sword which cuts with two edges the anti-christian enemies of the reformed christians and converted jews; and of which the jews themselves will then no longer disdain to make use, against the adversaries of Christ and his truth.

The word of God is often compared to a sword, (Ephes. vi, 17,-Rev. xix. 15,)-and to a two edged one, (Heb. iv. 12. Rev. i. 16: ii. 12.) If we suppose the vengeance of the saints to be executed chiefly with this sword, and their chains (of iron strength) to be fabricated out of the same metal; it will take off the edge of the Bishop's criticism in a former note.

the punctual accomplishment of the ancient prophecies.*

Thus I have endeavoured to shew at considerable length, the harmony and consistency of the most remarkable prophecies that relate to the day of the Lord, or the COMING OF CHRIST in his threatened judgments upon the jews; to the entire overthrow of their religious and civil polity:-the miseries that unbelieving people have in consequence endured, for a period of nearly 1800 years, since the commencement of their captivity by the romans, as the prophets, in figurative stile and by anticipation of history, have exhibited the INDIGNATION upon Israel:†-and lastly, the repentance and conversion, the emancipa

Psalm cii. 16-23. Isa. xliii. 5, 6: xxx. 30, to the end.

From the long duration and great misery of the Roman, or last captivity of the Jews, it is distinguished in prophecy both by great peculiarity and minuteness of description, and also by the peculiar names of the indignation-the decisive consumption that determined to be poured upon the desolate and with respect to this pre-eminent desolation, the roman eagles are called the abomination of desolation. This captivity com

A A

tion and happy state of uninterrupted favor with God and man; which, by the sure mercies of the God of Israel, are in reserve for his long forsaken people.

menced under the emperor Vespatian, about the year of our Lord 80.

In all the prophecies that refer to this event, modern of papa! Rome is considered as the image and representative of an cient pagan Rome; and as I have endeavoured to make it appear in the following sections, her spiritual subjects are de scribed by epithets appropriate to the original romans, and considered as the captors and persecutors of the people of God. This observation is necessary to the right application and apprehension of these prophecies.

The ensign upon the mountains and the great trumpet are, it seems, signals of such a nature, that they may be overlooked, or misunderstood, in an age more ashamed of the imputation of fanaticism than of infidelity, and more devoted to philosophy than to religion. “The natural man," as the apostle asserts, (and the philosophical man too, as has been shrewdly suspected,) "percieveth not the things of the spirit of God, for they are spiritually discerned." Hence it came to pass that the great majority of these two descriptions of mankind paid not a due regard to these two signals of the Deity speaking to the world, when, in the most amazing manner, they were both displayed at the commencement of the gospel age, with "signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds :-their sound went forth unto all lands, and their words unto the ends of the world." (Psalm xix. 4; Rom. x. 16; Isa. liii, 1.)