from satisfactory to any candid mind who will take the pains to read carefully the 15th chapter of Luke in connection with the 25th chapter of Genesis, and 25th verse; and I think the whole will yet be made plain to the astonishment of Esau, (i. e. the Gentiles,) upon the younger brother's return to his father's house; for they will be "much offended, and will not come in, when the fatted calf is killed," and the best robe of the Shechinah Glory is put upon him.

Who will say in that day, when out of the glorious Shechinah the Lord sends out voices, and lightnings, and thunderings, and hail-stones, and all-devouring fire, "What doest thou?" Yea, before the day was, I am he; and there is none other that can deliver out of my hand: I will work, and who shall let it?" (or, as the margin reads, "turn it back.") See Isaiah xliii. 21, "This people have I formed for myself; they shall shew forth my praise." And this explains the prophecy of aged Simeon, by the Holy Ghost: "A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the Glory of my people Israel," (Luke ii. 32); and this aged saint did not stop here, but says, "Behold this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel." But mark, it is the fall first; and then, and not till then, the rising again. Israel must have fallen once, or else there would be no pro

priety in saying, the "rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against." Take care how you speak against this sign. I have identified, in my remarks on the Shechinah, the standard and ensign mentioned in the Old Testament, with the sign mentioned in Matthew xxiv. 30. Take great care how you speak against this sign for your own sakes.

Thus saith Zechariah concerning this sign or ensign, ix. 13-17: "When I have bent Judah for me, filled the bow with Ephraim, (i. e. the ten tribes,) and raised up thy sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece, and made thee (children of Judah and of Zion) as the sword of a mighty man. And the Lord shall be seen over them, (in the Shechinah Glory,) and his arrow shall go forth as the lightning: and the Lord God shall blow the trumpet, (the seventh and last trump,) and shall go forth with whirlwinds of the south. The Lord of hosts shall defend them; and they shall devour, and subdue with sling-stones; and they shall drink, and make a noise as through wine; and they shall be filled like bowls, and as the corners of the altar. And the Lord their God shall save them in that day as the flock of his people: for they shall be as the stones of a crown, lifted up as an ensign upon his land. For how great is his goodness, and

how great is his beauty! corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new wine the maids."

"That glorious day is drawing nigh,

When Zion's light shall come;
She shall arise and shine on high,
Far brighter than the Sun.

The north and south their sons resign,
And earth's foundations bend;

A bride adorned, Jerusalem,

All glorious shall descend.

When Zion's bleeding, conqu'ring King,
Shall Sin and Death destroy,

The morning stars shall join and sing,
And Zion shout for joy."

Isaiah declares (lxii. 3), "And thou shalt be a crown of glory and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God." We well know what these would be upon the head and in the hand of an earthly monarch; and take heed how you spiritualize these things away by saying they are only figurative or allegorical, and thus apply them to this present christian dispensation or church; for by so doing, ye will prepare a snare for your own feet. "Now therefore be ye not mockers, lest your bands be made strong: for I have heard from the Lord God of hosts a consumption, even determined upon the whole earth. For the Lord shall rise up as in mount Perazim,* he shall be wroth as in the

* 2 Sam. v. 20.

valley of Gibeon,* that he may do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act. Give ye ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech." (Isa. xxviii. 22, 23, 21.) And one thing ought to convince us that these predictions will be as literally fulfilled as they were spoken, and that is, that every prophecy hitherto, or thus far, has been literally fulfilled, as I have shown in my forth-coming work upon "Prediction and Prophecy Fulfilled." But a very strange thing has taken place among modern Christians, and in modern Christians, and that is, to spiritualize the prophecies all away, or test their truth by the New Testament. Jesus and his Apostles constantly referred to the testimony and writings of the prophets and the Old Testament, not only to prove his Messiahship, but to prove all they said and taught. But now it is reversed, and Christians prove the Old Testament true from the New, when it has certainly never been once doubted by Christians that the Old Testament was true, and consequently the impropriety of spiritualizing it all away. But now Satan is transformed into an angel of light, and nothing he dreads so much as the literal fulfilment of prophecy; for well he knows that no sooner are they fulfilled, than his kingdom is for ever broken and destroyed.

* Josh. x. 10; and 1st Chron. xiv. 16.

There are so many plain and clear prophecies that have no reference to the present suffering dispensation of the Christian; that have no reference whatever to this age of bloodshed and war,of toil, labour, and pain-of the antipathy and hatred that exists among the brutes,-of the dispersion and captivity of God's literal Israel. No, there are glorious and blessed promises, which are the life and food of the Christian's faith and hope; and blessed be God! neither Satan, nor Satan's agents, can ever, by all their subtlety, artifice, and cunning, deprive God's dear children of them-for they are "Christians' and Christiana's shield" and coat of armour, whereby they are and will be able to quench the fiery darts of the wicked one; and these believe and know there is beyond this present dispensation* another, and far better, not only in state and condition, but in place and literality, which all the spiritualizers and German Neologists can never destroy. And then there will be a fulfilment of God's written word to every jot and tittle. There will be no more Christian suffering-no more war and bloodshed-no more toil, labour, and pain-no more hatred, cruelty, and antipathy amongst the irrational animals but the "lion will lie down with the

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* "The future dispensation," expressly mentioned by the Apostle Paul," (Eph. i. 10,) and called The Dispensation of the fulness of times."