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cause before all nations with full success! So the heathen shall fear the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth thy glory.

The second coming of our Lord, as the king of the Jews, and his glad reception by them, and dominion over them, is not a transient appearance, but a visible and lasting glory, and a reign for ever. Luke i. 32, 33. He does not come for a day of man's time, of twentyfour hours of our life, but for a day first of a thousand years (2 Peter iii. in which the new heavens and the new earth are formed (Isa. li. 16; lxv. 17; lxvi. 22; 2 Peter iii. 13,) and then to establish his everlasting kingdom. Dan. vii. 14.

Multiplied have been the objections made to the literal interpretation of prophecies, which on the face of them favour a visible appearance and a personal reign of our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, on the earth; and the modes in which the literal meaning has been set aside, have been varied. Some have endeavoured to distinguish between a spiritual coming supposed to be intended in such passages as 2 Thess. ii. 8; Rev. xix. 11-21, xx. 1-7, and a literal coming in such passages as Matt. xxv. 31–46; John v. 28, 29; Acts xxiv. 29; 1 Thess. iv. 16; Rev. xx. 11-15. But the connection of the passages supposed to mean only a spiritual coming, is far from justifying that interpretation. How can we, for instance, without assuming the very conclusion in question, view the coming mentioned 2 Thess. ii. 8, as spiritual, while the coming mentioned just before 2 Thess. i. 10, ii. 1, is clearly literal and visible! We ought rather, therefore, from this very passage, to discern distinctly the visible return of our Lord before the Millennium. As to Rev. xix. no doubt the coming of THE WORD OF GOD there revealed, has figurative expressions joined with it. The sitting on the white horse is clearly figurative, and in harmony with a former symbol, Rev. vi. 2. The horse, in con

trast to a wild beast, or idolatrous and persecuting empire, denotes a church militant, or, in more general terms, a proselyting and aggressive community ; not lawless, but under the rule of some common faith, religion, or doctrine (Zech. x. 3. Can. i. 9.) White is the symbol of purity, joy, and victory. Hence white horses were used in triumphs. Thus the early church under the guidance of the spirit of truth was pure, militant, and triumphant. Rev. vi. 2. But in Rev. xix. the Rider and those who follow him come from heaven. v. 11, 14. The heaven had been opened to enable John to enter and to see in the spirit the inward reality and the spiritual power and glory of all that he had to foretel, (Rev. iv. 1, 2.); but chapter xix. is the only place in which we are told of the heavens being opened and THe word of God (St. John's usual title for our Lord) coming forth from heaven, attended with his glorious hosts from thence. v. 11, 14. The name of the Word of God is the real and proper name of Christ. The figure of the White Horse no more interferes with its being a literal and visible return, than the form of a dove at the descent of the Holy Spirit, or the chariot of fire and the horses of fire on Elijah's being caught up into heaven, interferes with their being literal and visible events, though joined with symbolic representations. The return of our Lord is manifestly the great subject of the Revelation. Yet this is the only chapter of the whole book in which that return with his saints is described (the heavens being opened) as then actually taking place. No such return is mentioned Rev. xx. 9-11. We may hence fully conclude that the coming in Rev. xix. is not merely a spiritual but a literal and visible advent, and that it does really take place before the Millennium, and that this coming with his risen saints in his glory, is preceded by the Jewish Alleluias. By the prophecies therefore both of the Old and of the New Testament,

we know that our Lord with all his saints (Zech. xiv.5. Jude 14.) returns to Jerusalem, and his feet stand on Mount Olivet (Zech. xiv. 4.), and then his enemies are overthrown, and he with his saints reign a thousand years (Luke i. 32. Rev. xx.) over Israel, all righteous, (Isa. lii. 1; lx. 21.) and over a subdued, though not over a universally righteous world (Isa. Ixv. 20. Zech. xiv. 17-19); but one which at the close of the thousand years is again seduced by Satan and rebels against God (Rev. xx. 7—9.) when the rebellious are finally cast out from the earth.

After the last rebellion that our earth witnesses at the close of the thousand years (Rev. xx. 8, 9), and the judgment of all the dead, who had not previously partaken of the resurrection (Rev. xx. 5, 12), the new heavens and the new earth are perfected (Rev. xxi. 1), and the saints reign for ever and ever. Rev. xxii. 5. Thus our Lord's return is not merely the termination of one dispensation, but the beginning of a new one, called in the scriptures the day of eternity (nμegav alwvos). 2 Peter iii. 18. The chief crown of glory of the Jewish nation, their future diadem of beauty, is the Lord Jesus Christ; the more precious from having been so long unknown and despised; the more beloved from having been so long in their sinful ignorance and unbelieving blindness, veiled from them, scorned, hated, and rejected by them. He is their glory, and he is the glory of his triumphant church; and for ever his name shall be to them, and to us also, David, THE BELOVED ONE. Ezek. xxxvii. 24, 25.

Nor let us stagger in unbelief at those wonderful events yet to come, which are revealed in God's own word. There it exists, the food of faith. His whole incarnation is a mystery (1 Tim. iii. 16); his being in heaven and on earth at the same time is a mystery (John i. 18; iii. 13); his presence with his people now is a mystery (Matt. xviii. 20); his filling all in all (Eph. iv. 10.) is a mystery. But what his word has

promised, his power will accomplish, and faith alone will give us quietness in the trials that are before us.

7. SOME PARTICULARS RESPECTING THE PRESENT CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE JEWS.

We will now briefly notice some of those peculiar circumstances which, in God's providence, are taking place in the world, and calling all men's attention to the situation of this remarkable people.

With comparatively partial exceptions, they have been trodden under foot in every land for 1800 years among the Gentiles. See Discourse xiv. in this volume. An elect people has been gathered indeed from them, from age to age, and these have partaken of our privileges and mercies.* But the contempt,

* Amidst the many oppressions and spoiling of the Jews in the 13th century, in our own as well as in other countries, it is pleasing to be able to refer to a provision made for converts in the reign of our Henry the Third. Notwithstanding his various extortions from them, he founded a house and endowed it with a competent revenue. This house was usually committed, by the king, to the care and rule of some clergymen of distinction, called Custos Domus Conversorum and Gardein des Converses. See Rapin's History of England, p. 347, folio. A fuller account is given of this institution by Molloy, in his work on Maritime Law. It is referred to in a note of Discourse V. and is here added, to shew that love to the Jews was not wanting on the part of some in the time of their many sufferings, from the injustice of others :-" King Henry the Third finding that many of the Jews were converted to the Christian faith, but yet were notwitstanding persecuted by their brethren, erected a convenient house and church, with all necessary accommodations, and called it by the name of "The House of Converts;" in which place, if any would live a retired life, they had all accommodations granted them for their lives; which place continued a house of aliens and receptacle for the converted Jews, constantly down to the 18th year of king Edward the Third, and then there proved a failure of such converts, and the place became empty and ruinous; whereupon that prince, in the eighteenth year of his reign, granted the same house to other poor people who had nothing to live on, with the benefit and accommodation of the gardens and other things, and an alms of a penny a-day out of the exchequer to each poor person: of which place one William de Bunstall, being made guardian, and likewise Master of the Rolls afterwards, obtained leave of that king to annex that same

scorn, robbery, and insult, the cruelty and horrible persecutions which they have endured from professed Christians, have been a great offence and stumblingblock to Jews.

Kinder feelings are, we trust, from various causes,

house and chapel of the converts to the Master and his successors for ever. The constitution of this society, when it was in being, was pursuant to the canon law; for by that it was decreed, reciting that in regard the companions of evil men do oftentimes corrupt even the good, how much more then those who are prone to vices! Let therefore the Jews who are converted to the Christian faith have no further communion henceforth with those who still continue in their old Jewish rites, lest peradventure they should be subverted by their Jewish society. Therefore we decree that the sons and daughters of those Jews who are baptized, and that do not again involve themselves in the errors of their parents, should be separated from their company, and placed with Christian men and women fearing God, where they may be well instructed, and grow in faith and Christian manners. And further, by the same council it was decreed that if a Jew should have a wife converted to the faith, they should be divorced, unless upon admonition the husband would follow."

The Church of Christ has never wholly neglected the salvation of the Jews, though professing Christians have most atrociously persecuted them. But from age to age, from Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho to the present day, there have been efforts for their conversion, and those efforts have been more or less successful. In each age there has been gathered from the Jews as from the Gentiles, a remnant according to the election of grace, into the heavenly privileges of the kingdom of Christ. The reader will find much information on this subject in Wolfii Bibliotheca Hebræa, vol. ii. 994-1080, vol. iv. 490-505. In the "Veritas Salutifera in confutatione Chizzouk Emounah a J. Gussetio," and in the "Pugio Fidei Raymundi Martini," the Reader also will find full discussion of those texts and arguments which the Jews have been accustomed to adduce in controversy with Christians. The removing, however, of the stumbling-blocks noticed in the last discourse of this volume has hitherto been greatly neglectLuther's thoughts on the conversion of the Jews are thus expressed: "I think if the Jews were kindly used and properly instructed in holy writ, many of them would become good Christians and return to their fathers, prophets, and Patriarchs, from whom they grow more and more estranged, by being insulted, treated with superciliousness and contempt and absolutely not suffered to be any thing. If the apostles who were Jews themselves every one of them, had behaved towards us Gentiles as we Gentiles behave towards the Jews, not one Gentile would have become a Christian. Then as the Jewish apostles acted brotherly by us, it behoves us to act brotherly by the Jews. Whereas worrying them as we do, and imputing to them this and that, and heaven knows what, how can we ever expect to do any good with them."

ed.

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