from the east, and Saracens from the south, waging war for the possession of the Holy City, according to the predictions of the sixth trumpet, Rev. ix.

But still Jerusalem continued to be trodden down, and is still trodden down of the Gentiles, and will be so till the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. The Prophet Micah foretold this, saying (iii. 12), Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field; and Jerusalem shall become heaps; and the mountain of the house as the high · places of the forest.

The grand cause of this desolation is explicitly stated by our Lord. When the husbandmen slew the son of the lord of the vineyard, they brought destruction upon themselves. (Matt. xxi. 37-41.) When the servants sent to invite the guests to the marriage feast were slain, the king sent forth his armies and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. (Matt. xxii. 6, 7.) It was the persevering rejection of Christ, joined to the opposition which they made to the Gospel's being sent to the Gentiles (1 Thess. ii. 16), that brought these fearful judgments on the Jews.

But our Lord expressly limits their continuance to a certain period, the close of which is marked by the completing of the times of the Gentiles, and his welcomed return in glory. (Luke xxi. 24 ; Matt. xxiii. 39; xxiv. 30.) Till that time their

temple is desolate, and their city is trodden down ; but then they are restored, and the glory returns to Zion.

ITS FUTURE RECOVERY is as distinctly predicted and revealed in the Holy Scriptures as its present desolation. The testimonies of the Holy Ghost to this recovery are very numerous.

It is to be restored LOCALLY, Zech. xii. 10: Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, even in Jerusalem. Jer. xxxi. 16: The city shall be builded upon her own heap, and the palace shall remain after the manner thereof. (So ver. 38—40.)

It is to be restored POLITICALLY, Isaiah i. 26, 27: I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness, the faithful city. Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness.

It is to be restored SPIRITUALLY, Jer. xxxiii. 15, 16: In those days, and at that time, will I cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David; and he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land. In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, The Lord our right

eousness.

It is to be restored GLORIOUSLY. sixtieth of Isaiah is of this glory!

How full the

Take one or

two expressions. The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir tree, the pine tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary ; and I will make the place of my feet glorious....... they shall call thee, The city of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel. God himself thus further describes it in Ezek. xliii. 7, The place of my throne, and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for ever. In its future restored state, the name of the city from that day shall be, The Lord is there; its highest and its everlasting glory is, that our Lord Jesus Christ there manifests his glory. It is to be the city of the great King of the whole earth, the metropolis of the nations, and the centre of God's visible kingdom here below (Isaiah lx.), for the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.

JUDAH is another object of this prophecy. Judah comprehends the two tribes of Benjamin and Judah. On the schism of Jeroboam, and under the common sins of both Judah and Israel, the ten tribes were severed from the two. Judah maintained longest the pure worship of God, and was longest spared from those judgments which sin brought on the land. Judah was also partially restored after the seventy years' captivity in Babylon, as Jeremiah had predicted. By this

reviving in the bondage under the Gentile kingdoms, God again tried and proved his people, marked the distinctness of that tribe from which our Lord was to spring, accomplished his prediction of the sceptre not departing from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet till Shiloh come, (Gen. xlix. 10,) and secured all the unspeakable mercies of our redemption. The restoration from Babylon was but a partial and temporary return even of Judah, for a period at the most of 600 years, and those years often full of difficulties, oppressions, and arduous conflicts. Ezra's words are plain to this effect: Now for a little space grace hath been showed to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a nail in his holy place, that our God may lighten our eyes, and give us a little reviving in our bondage. (ix. 8.) Nehemiah's description is similar, (ix. 34—36,) and St. James considers the twelve tribes as even in his day scattered abroad, (ev тη diaσπopa.) Hence, Zechariah, who prophesied after the restoration, explicitly predicts the future salvation and glories of Judah: I will make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf. The Lord also shall save the tents of Judah first. We have a similar prophecy distinctly referring to a future salvation of Judah in Joel, iii. 20, 21: But

Judah shall dwell for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation, for I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed, for the Lord dwelleth in Zion. Besides the results of Judah's temporary and partial restoration which have already been noticed, God has so wonderfully in his providence overruled all things, and grace has so abounded over sin, that all their conduct in rejecting Christ, and all their sufferings for it, have become a deep and enduring means for the bringing forth hereafter all the full and abundant spiritual fruit in them, which shall yet glorify God and benefit the whole world, at their future and glorious final redemption.

Dispersed then as Judah now is, east and west, north and south, through the whole earth, Judah in its distinctness is yet an object of glorious hope and promise, and by its preserved distinctness, a larger foundation is laid for the more clear and exact fulfilment of the restoration of the whole nation.

ISRAEL is a third object here brought before us; that which is elsewhere emphatically called Joseph, Ephraim, and all the house of Israel his companions, in contrast with Judah, and the children of Israel his companions. (Ezek. xxxvii. 19.) The combining of the return of the captivity of Israel with that of Judah, clearly excepts this prophecy