their "ignorance of this mystery ;" and will perhaps continue," until the fulness of the Gentiles be come "The olive-tree which is wild by nature," has

in." been " graffed into the good olive-tree; "—yet shall these, also, be ultimately "graffed into their own olive-tree; "-" and so, all Israel shall be saved." "For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance." (Rom. xi. 24-26.) Thus, " shall enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews, from another place, though they and their Father's house may have been destroyed." (Esther iv. 14.) The temple, which the Angel, who held "a line of flax and a measuring reed in his hand," described to the prophet Ezekiel, was not a building of contracted dimensions. "There was an enlarging, and a winding about, still upwards to the side chambers: for the winding about of the house went still upward, round about the house; The breadth of the house was still upward, and so increased from the lowest chamber, to the highest." (Ezek. xli. 7.)

So, also, Isaiah calls on Israel to prepare ample space and room for that prodigious congregation, which shall attend the Lord, the messenger of the covenant, when he shall suddenly come to his temple." (Mal. iii. 1.) "Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations. Spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes; For thou shalt break forth on the right

hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles." (Is. liv. 2, 3.)

Here then we find the true inheritance of the younger sons of the patriarchal stock, born of the barren mothers. This is their birthright-They shall inherit the Gentiles! The barrenness of Sarai, of Rebekah, of Rachel, was typical of the desolate condition of the heathen world, lost in ignorance and dark idolatry.

But the reproach of these favoured women was taken away-" "the barren woman was made to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children." (Ps. cxiii. 8.) God chose their sons, though second-born, that He might "set them with the Princes-even with the Princes of his people. (v. 7.) As the sterility of the mothers was a symbol of the barren state of the heathen world, which travailed not with the children of God, until that Light arose, which lightened the Gentiles; so was the absence of primogeniture in the selection of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, a symbol of the secondary position of the Gentile world in point of time, compared with that of God's first chosen people Israel. The realisation of these two significant and prophetic symbols, is nothing less than the calling of the Gentile world to the knowledge and worship of the one only true God, by the Gospel of Jesus Christ." The Messiah"-" His Anointed,")—" the Shiloh," (whom he "sent.") This is the accomplishment of the grand and universal

scheme of redemption: it is the consummation of the Almighty's gracious dispensation of salvation towards all his human creatures.

The birthright of Isaac ;-the birthright, which Esau sold to Jacob;-the birthright, which was transferred from Reuben to Joseph; was their spiritual representation of Almighty God's free and gracious acceptance of the wild olive which he has grafted on the true olive.

Judah, as the genealogical root, represented God's eldest people the Jews; and he was the stock from whence the Redeemer came according to the flesh; "and this genealogy is not to be reckoned after the birthright." (1 Chron. v. 1.) Joseph, as one of the two youngest sons of Jacob, by the barren Rachel, possessed the spiritual birthright, for he was the representative of God's younger family, the countless congregation of true believers in Christ Jesus, from all nations, which, in times of old, constituted the barren heathen world. In him, therefore, has his father Jacob's prophecy been fulfilled. For "is God the God of the Jews only? Is He not also of the Gentiles? Yes! of the Gentiles also." (Rom. iii. 29.)

Ezekiel in the clearest terms applies to Joseph the glories of that birthright, which vested in him the privilege of being spiritually, by figure and type, the appointed stock, from which the blessing on Abraham should proceed, in its most extended sense;

namely, in its application to "all the families of the

earth."

B.C. 587.

"The word of the Lord came unto me, saying,―Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, 'for Judah and for the children of Israel his companions."" This stick represented the "tribe of Judah and his companions," namely the Benjamites, the Levites, and all who accompanied Judah after the Babylonish captivity; and who constituted the Jewish nation until the final destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by Titus, at which period, in accordance with the prophecy of Jacob to Judah, "Shiloh" must have come. But the prophet was ordered to take another stick -one of a far more extensive signification.

"Then take another stick, and write upon it, 'for Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions.' The first stick was exclusively for "Judah and his companions "-solely for the Jews, the stock from whence Messiah was to be born according to the flesh. The second stick was for Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions. Who then are

"ALL the house of Israel?"

Are they merely the dispersed of the ten tribes ? In this, as in many prophetic passages, the prophet was not, probably, himself aware of the full scope

and intent of that, which, under divine inspiration, he was commissioned to announce. The words, which he uttered, seemed perhaps, even to himself, to have no reference beyond the tribes of the dispersion. "The stick of Joseph," "and the tribes of Israel his fellows," who were to be "taken from among the heathen, whither they had gone," and to be "gathered on every side, and brought unto their own land," and to be "made one stick, with that of Judah, and to be made one nation in the land, upon the mountains of Israel, under one king;" (Ezekiel xxxvii. 1622.) this stick of Joseph, thus destined to be again joined to that of Judah, seemed, probably, to the limited vision of the prophet, to have no wider signification, than the restoration of that chosen people, who were then in a state of apparently hopeless dispersion, and abandonment. It may be, that he did not consider, or comprehend the words, which Isaiah pronounced more than a hundred years before. "The Lord God, which gathereth the outcasts of Israel saith, yet will I gather OTHERS to him, besides those that are gathered unto him "-therefore-" let not the stranger that hath joined himself to the Lord speak, saying, the Lord hath utterly separated me from his people; neither let the Eunuch say, behold I am a dry tree." "For thus saith the Lord unto the Eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant,”

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even unto them will I give in mine house