nected with this Zion, the city of God, out of which God then clearly shined, and shineth for evermore. As already stated, I will begin the examination with a glance at the wonders which were revealed on the day of Pentecost. This glance will suffice to prove the great object now in view, and that is, that the ministry of this Mount Zion state was prophesied of in the Old Testament, and that, as we have seen in preceding ministries, these prophecies were all fulfilled.

This position is proved at once from the opening words of the history of the Pentecostal day. We read, "There was a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting." This is an exact fulfilment of what was predicted in Psalm civ., "He maketh his angels winds, and his ministers a flame of fire." We say, a fulfilment of this prophetic verse, not from our own fallible interpretation, but because the Holy Ghost so speaks in Heb. i., when treating of the kingly pre-eminence of Christ in that day of the Apostolic dispensation, "And unto the angels (or messengers) he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire." The Apostles, these angels of the churches, are at least numbered in this company, as is evident from the following question, "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be (are about to inherit) heirs of salvation?" And again, " Unto angels he hath not put in subjection the world to come (about to come) whereof we speak." (Heb. ii. 5.)

The like prophetic announcement of the Apostolic baptism with the Holy Ghost and fire, is given in 1st and 10th of Ezekiel, where, I conceive, the members of the Apostolic Church are shadowed forth under the figure of wheels. I will quote the 13th verse of chapter x., in connexion with verse 17, "It was cried unto them in my hearing, O wheel! - for the spirit of life was in them." Now what we are to understand by the spirit of life, we are informed in the following chapter, which is only a continuation of the same subject. We read in chapter xi., concerning the house of Israel, "Although I have cast them far off among the heathen, and scattered them among the countries, I will even gather you from the people, and assemble you out of the countries where ye have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel, and I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you, and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God." (Ezek. xi. 16-20.) There is so much important matter in this connexion of the chapter, that I will, for clearness' sake, discuss this connexion at some length. And first, I would observe, that the wheels are addressed in a collective form, as constituting one wheel, "It was cried unto them in my hearing, O wheel!" Now I conceive that we have here a beautiful prophetic figure of a glorious reality under the gospel dispensation. Christ prayed for the eleven before his passion, and not for them only; Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one." From this I might call you again to notice how sound and scriptural is the view which we take of prayer, in its dispensation character. Christ petitioned

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for a oneness; and to this oneness, to the prevailing power of Christ's petition, the Apostles, in their Epistles, bear abundant witness. Paul writes, "As the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body; so also Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body; baptized, as on this pentecostal day, with the Holy Ghost and fire." This This passage is in 1 Cor. xii. When we read, so also Christ," we see an emphatic meaning in Paul's question, in the first chapter of this Epistle, "Is Christ divided ?" When we read, "we are all baptized into one body," we cease to marvel at an otherwise very marvellous scripture, “In Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female." And when we understand Paul's argument, in this chapter, we recognize the magnificent series of oneness which he lays before the Ephesian believers, "There is one God and Father of all; one Lord, one Spirit, one faith, one baptism, one body," the church, of which this one resurrection Lord was the head and Saviour; a temple for a habitation of God, through the Spirit; and yet in that body, temple, or church, there are many members, just as Ezekiel's one wheel was yet many wheels.

These observations will lead us into a large field of enquiry. Suppose that we put on one side the comparison of spiritual things with spiritual just instituted, we are not left without abundant proof that the inference drawn from it is correct, viz., that Ezekiel's prophecy respects the Apostolic dispensation and ministry. In chapter xi., verse 15, we read, "All the house of Israel wholly are they unto whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, Get you far from the Lord; unto us is the land given in possession." Now I remember that Ezekiel prophesied among the first-fruits of the captivity of Judah, the body of the nation being yet in their own land, and therefore I conceive it is this body, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who are thus taunting the captives. But is there no meaning in the word "wholly," attached to the house of Israel? It matters not for our present purpose, whether there be or no, only if there be—if the word wholly extend the persons spoken of beyond the tribe of Judah, then we conclude that the promises in the two following verses must be taken in their most comprehensive application. The promises read thus: "Although I have cast them far off among the heathen, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall come. Therefore say, thus saith the Lord God, I will even gather you from the people, and assemble you out of the countries where ye have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel." (Ezek. xi. 16, 17.) Now, as I have said, I conceive this to be prophesied of the whole family of Jacob, and the promise annexed to the above, in the 19th verse, strengthens this view; "I will give them one heart, (here is the one wheel,) and I will put a new spirit within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh." I take this to be a New Testament promise. Though we could allow, for the sake of argument, that this new heart and new spirit might receive a fulfilment at the end of the seventy years' captivity, yet other portions of Ezekiel's prophecy are decisive as to its being a New Testament blessing; and, above all, being here connected with the wheels, it must of necessity be carried

to New Testament times, as we shall show when discoursing of the wheels, from Daniel's prophecy. To prove what is meant by a new spirit, in Ezekiel's prophecy, I quote a passage from his 37th chapter; "I shall put my spirit within you, and ye shall live, and I will place you in your land." Now concerning whom the prophet is here speaking, is evident from the verses immediately following; "Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel, his companions; and join them one to another, into one stick, and they shall become one in thine hand." Then we read, verse 18, "When the children of thy people shall speak unto thee saying, Wilt thou not shew us what thou meanest by these? say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God, Behold I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand. And the sticks whereon thou writest shall be in thine hand before thine eyes. And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God, Behold I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land; and I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel, and one king shall be king to them all, and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all." (verse 18-22.) Evidently this is a prophecy of the restoration of the ten tribes. That such restoration is to be found in the sacred records is universally admitted; there are, however, great differences of opinion as to the time when the restoration should be brought about. The subject is vastly important in a proof of the past second advent; and as it now occurs in the course of that proof, I shall consider it with somewhat of the attention which is due. Omitting the history of the cutting off of the ten tribes in the reign of Rehoboam, I shall quote a prophecy of the rejection of these tribes; "Within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people." (Isaiah vii. 8.) Ephraim is here mentioned as the head of the ten tribes, as also in the prophet Hosea. This prophecy records that Ephraim, or Israel, should, within sixty-five years, be no more a people, i. e. should be cut off from the privilege of the Jewish covenant, should be no longer recognized on the earth as the favoured portion of the Lord, the people of God. When Judah was sent into captivity, it was not so. At the expiration of the seventy years, they were brought back to their own land, to the rebuilding of the temple, and the re-establishment of their worship; so that it was true of these in Christ's ministry, They sit in Moses' seat.' The tribes given to Jeroboam (who made Israel to sin,) were never designed of God to be restored to the privilege of being his people, under the Jewish economy. They never have been so restored. We believe, and we shall prove from Scripture, that the restoration was to be, and did come to pass, under the power and glory of the house, not of Moses, the servant, but of Christ, the son; that along with that restoration were fulfilled all the promises made to Abraham, the heir of the world, made in connexion with a spiritual

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land, flowing with milk and honey, the glory of all lands, even this, Thy land, O Immanuel!”

That the restoration was promised under a spiritual covenant, is evident from the quotations which have already been made out of Ezek. xi. and xxxvii., respecting the new heart and one spirit. This will appear further, if we connect these scriptures in Ezekiel, with their parallel passages in Jeremiah xxiii. and xxxi., where we find that this one heart and one spirit is attached to an everlasting covenant; " Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah ;" and writes Paul, "In that he saith a new covenant, he hath made the first old;" so that there are but two covenants. What, then, is the tenor of the new? "This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be my people." (Jer. xxxi. 31-34.) The everlasting property of this covenant is expressed (as religious systems must say,) by the everlasting continuance of this visible system of things. "If those ordinances, the sun for a light by day, and the moon and the stars for a light by night, if these depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever." (verses 35-6.) Will all religious systems agree with this statement of the restoration of the tribes, so far as we have now proceeded? No, for they believe that the sun, and moon, and stars will depart from before the Lord; therefore they believe that the new covenant is everlasting, and yet not everlasting; or, in other words, religious systems do not believe in a new covenant at all. They will admit, in words, that the covenant which the Lord made with his chosen people, when he brought them up out of the land of Egypt, hath long since disappeared, and is no longer, as in Paul's ministry, "waxed old, and ready to vanish away." (Heb. viii. 13.) They will admit in words, to which they can attach no meaning, that all restoration expected belongs to a new and better covenant-words, we repeat, to which they can attach no meaning; for what, in wonder, it is asked, do they mean, by asserting that the land of Israel, so often mentioned, as in the passages above quoted, is literal Palestine; how can they believe such contradictions, except they take the new covenant to be another appearance of the old? But this by the way. We have seen, from Jeremiah xxxi., that the restoration was to be, not according to the covenant that God made with the fathers of the house of Israel and Judah, when he brought them out of Egypt. I will parallel that scripture with another out of the same prophet, in his 23rd chapter, 5th and following verses; "Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a king shall reign, and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days, Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely." This is the restoration of the tribes, without a doubt, even if we had not the 3rd verse, which plainly declares that event; "I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all countries whither I have driven them, and will set up shepherds over them, which shall feed them," &c. And what follows after the promise of a righteous Branch ? "Therefore, the days come, saith the Lord, that they shall no more say, The Lord liveth,

which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, but the Lord liveth which brought up and which led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all the countries whither I had driven them, and they shall dwell in their own land." If I were to linger for a moment, for the purpose of illustrating this passage out of the New Testament, I would offer the following: The days come when they shall no more talk of the glory of the old covenant, which was but a ministration of condemnation and death, but of the glory of the new covenant, which is a ministration of righteousness and life, the rather glorious; so that that which was glorious had no glory, by reason of the glory which excelled. Now here is great mention of days," the days come,' ," "in those days," and so forth; but observe, all the days of the Bible have an appointed time; all the days of the Old Testament Scriptures have their bounds, which they cannot pass. "These be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled." O if objectors to the past second advent could but blot that faithful saying out of the Bible, or if they could but twist and turn it as they think they can other scriptures, what a relief it would be. But "litera scripta manet." There the record is, and, there remaining, the days in which the Lord God would make a new covenant must be sought for prior to Jerusalem's desolation. The days when the Lord would bring his people, as he did some time, from the depth of the sea, and cause them to dwell in their own land, must also be sought for on the other side of the year 70, and not, as is the fashion, on this side.

But further: we will examine the Scriptures, and see whether or no they fix any temporary epithet to these days, by which to determine their fulfilment. I open the prophecy of Hosea, and refer to his third chapter; "Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king; and shall fear the Lord and his goodness, in the latter days." Here, again, is the restoration of the ten tribes, a restoration after having been many days without a king, or prince, or sacrifice-image, ephod, and teraphim: and, if modern doctrines are true, when their still future restoration takes place, it will be to sacrifice, ephod, image, and teraphim, to the old covenant of beggarly elements and carnal ordinances. To the restoration, in this passage of Hosea, there is a time fixed,-the latter days.* I cannot here stay to examine minutely into the scriptures connected with the last or latter days; to do this would require a volume. I should have to begin with Jacob's dying address to his twelve sons, "Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you what shall befall you in the last days;" (Gen. xlix. 1) and proceed from this to what Balaam said unto Balak, "Come, and I will advertize thee what this people shall do to thy people in the latter days;" and so on throughout the whole Bible. Sufficient for our present purpose, to have discovered that the return of the captivity of Israel was to be in the latter days; for, having discovered this, I think we may find the restoration in Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost. How read we? "This is that which was spoken of by the prophet Joel, and it shall come to pass in the last days, saith the Lord, I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.” Peter fixes the date of the last days to the time when he was thus

* See Note H.