a thousand years with his saints. This must necessarily take place on his own account, that he may be recompensed for all his disgrace and reproach, sufferings and pains endured at his first coming. It is suitable to the righteousness of God, that his humanity should be rewarded on earth even as it was subjected to such woe on earth, and that that same body which bore so much humiliation should be highly exalted. They who do not believe this are (in Me. B.'s opinion) as criminal as the Jews who rejected Christ coming in lowliness and shame. The Jews shall at that time be exalted above other nations; Christ will converse with them in a bodily, visible manner, eating with them, and drinking the new wine of which he spoke. Ere Christ come, ungodliness shall be rooted out of the earth by all sorts of terrible judgments, such as wars, hunger, and pestilence. Antichrist shall at last appear in the person of one individual, and the devil in him shall rule the world visibly and openly. God will shew the saints a place of refuge in that evil time-a time which she hesitated not to say was close at hand, confirmed as she was in her views by the rise among the Jews at that time of Shabbatai Zevi, the famous false Messiah, of whom most exaggerated reports were daily received in Europe.

Madame Bourignon believed the world was to be renewed by fire, and so made fit for the dwelling of God and of Christ. She thought she had got deep insight into the earth as it was before the Fall, and as it is to be again. Her glowing fancy conjured up an ideal world such as she chose to wish for. Moral beauty produces physical beauty; this doctrine of the Theosophists is a favourite dogma with her, as with most fanatics, and it lies at the foundation of several of her theories of future development:

"In the beginning all was good, made beautiful by the will of God. The fire had neither burning heat nor smoke; the waters were not stormy nor ever drowned ought; the air was not made unpleasant by boisterous winds nor by dark clouds; the earth was not hard; the beasts injured no one by poison or bite. God cannot have made the elements in the condition in which we now see them, for they are neither beautiful nor good; and could God make anything that is either bad or ugly? Must we not believe, as naturally following from this, that the sky was (before the fall of Adam) bright, pleasant, and lovely, without storms, just as the water was clear and pure, assuming a firm and solid form for the purpose of bearing up those who trusted themselves to that element. And so it is to be when God renews the earth. All things must obey men as the servant does his master. Before the Fall there was no evil in the world; men were little gods who ruled over all things, and all would have remained thus had not man sinned. The elements, the beasts, the plants, and all creatures of earth would have obeyed him; the angels themselves would have served him, had he remained subject to the Divine will. The air would have borne him whithersoever he wished to go;

the water would have assumed a solid form to carry him; the fire would have given light and warmth; the stars would have shone upon him; the sun would never have been dark, but would have stood still if necessary for man; the world would have served man for enjoyment and pastime; especially the serpent, whose form was for the most part like the beautiful form of man, would have sported with him; the trees and plants would have refreshed him with fruits of whatever taste he craved; the hills would have dropped honey without causing him the smallest labour. All this is to be again in the renewed earth."

She tells us that the human body before the Fall was quite transparent; the flesh was like crystal, the veins like brooks of rubies, the sweat like diamonds; in short, all was shining and lustrous. Man could see through earth, clouds, fire, water, just as through the air. But sin brought in another state of things, which shall again be rectified at Christ's coming; at which time our body shall get back its lost glory, bright rays of light and splendour bursting out of every pore, numerous as the little hairs that may at present be traced there. Already is this new heavenly world in existence, but is seen only by the saints, and by them only when God opens their eyes. eyes. She she had got a discovery of it :

She says

"I see the earth like crystal, and I descry through its surface what is in it. The plants, stones, metals, all are visible as if in water. There are under the earth as many kinds of beasts and men as are upon it. The fire appears to me like pure gold, and quite transparent. I see the air full of splendid lights, which I consider to be the bodies of dead saints, whom I can recognise in my still corrupt condition. But especially, I see through all the bodies of men I see their veins, their nerves, their bones, their bowels; inside and outside is so bright, and shining, and skilfully made, that beyond dispute man is the masterpiece of nature. The sun, the streams, the rocks, the beauties of the whole earth, are as nothing compared with the smallest beauty of the human body. No wonder it is called the temple of the Holy Ghost." And then, speaking of the surpassing glory to be manifested in the renewed body, she adds

"The finger of such a man surpasses a thousand diamonds, and sparkles with a thousand colours of like transparency and clearness; the dullest is like crystal. The veins contain a fluid which moves through them like little streams; the nerves sparkle with manifold rare colours, while their working is visible to every eye; and from these movements proceeds a delicious, ravishing smell, to which all sweet smells of earth are but as stench. But the eye is the greatest beauty and rarity," &c.

The serpent is a favourite with her. This creature had hands and feet; was the most perfect of beasts; was, in short, like man; but, since it had more share in the sin of our first parents than any other of the beasts, God wrapped it up in its skins, so that its hands and feet can no more be used, since by these he pulled the forbidden fruit and handed it to Eve. It is thus swathed in its skin like a child in its swaddling-bands.

But when all things are renewed, this serpent is to be restored to its original form and beauty. As to the world in general after that time of renewal, and as to the general aspect of that time

"Earth shall be eternal; nothing shall be annihilated but the evil. Since man is composed of both body and soul, Paradise must be material as well as spiritual; for God has fitted men for enjoying bodily as well as spiritual delights. God will dwell with men on the new earth. The evil which God will extract from the earth shall form hell, which does not yet exist, but is to be formed then in this manner :-There will be a material fire in the hell of the damned; darkness, also, thunder, lightning, the bites of wild beasts, the fury of water, storms of wind, poison, the gnawing of worms, stings of insects, thorns; blindness of eyes, deafness of ears, leprosy of body, poison of serpents, scorpions, and other venomous creatures, the madness of bulls and lions, the ravening of wolves, the sickness and diseases of all bodies of men and beasts. All this after the judgment, when evil is taken out of earth and accumulated here."

We have now given a sufficient specimen of the prophetical writings of Madame Bourignon. We see in them a skeleton of truth clothed by human fancy in flesh and skin. The lesson taught us, by the review of writings like these, is the duty and the wisdom of scrupulous adherence to the letter of the Holy Scriptures. We rise from the perusal of such a history, and such writings, warned of the folly of attempting to be wise beyond what is written, and impressed more than ever with the dignity of the calm Word of God, which refuses to gratify morbid curiosity, and yet tells whatever is needful, and whatever is fitted to sanctify. The connexion between Bourignon's other writings and her views on prophecy is simply this:-she gave reins to her fancy alike when she read the prophets and when she read the apostles. Satan, no doubt, thought by the vagaries of this enthusiast to prejudice sober-minded men against the prophetic Word. But though an idiot pointed to the starry heavens, and uttered some of his incoherent thoughts as to these heavenly bodies, would the true astronomer be deterred from directing his telescope thither and exploring infinite space and recording its wonders? Who that is not ignorant of Satan's devices will be prejudiced against "the light that sbineth in a dark place, till the day dawn" (2 Pet. i. 19), by finding that some have used it to cast a glare around themselves, or have even rushed toward it bewildered, as the moth into the blaze of the flame? Prophecy is not a meteor; it is not an uncertain glimmer; it is "the light" shining in this dark world for us, till "the day dawn." And it remains true beyond contradiction, that the Holy Ghost has written regarding that light, "To WHICH YE DO WELL THAT YE TAKE

HEED."

ART. II. THE RESTORATION OF JUDAH AND ISRAEL.

THE belief in the literal restoration, at some future time, of the descendants of Abraham to the land of Palestine, and its metropolitan city of Jerusalem, is gaining ground in the present day, although not a few still deny that such an event will ever take place.

There are certain extreme views on this subject which it is surprising that any careful reader of the Old Testament historians and prophets should have brought himself to embrace. It is not long since that statements like the following were made before the members of an important popular association,* and afterwards published :-" Whatever might be the worldly motives of Cyrus in releasing the captives (Jews, and such Israelites as accompanied them), . . . it is certain that he extended to them extraordinary favours. In his reign, and also under his successors in carrying out the same policy, were then fulfilled the promises made to the Israelites by the mouth of Isaiah, long before the Babylonian captivity— They shall bring thy sons in their arms, and their queens shall be thy nursing mothers.'" (xlix. 22, 23).

...

The writer would surely have been led to suspect the correctness of his views, if he had also transcribed the concluding portion of the 23d verse: "They shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord; for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me." The feeblest interpretation that we can put upon this language would denote the manifestation of a most profound respect (not to say the payment of homage) on the part of the Gentiles and their kings and queens to the Jews, when the Lord shall again graciously (yet in covenant faithfulness) lift up the light of his countenance upon them. The only approximation (and that but faint and temporary) to such a public display of Gentile deference and homage after the return from Babylon, was at the victory of the Jews over their deadly enemies, in the days of Mordecai and Esther. But the special scene of triumph on account of this victory was at Shushan, in Persia, and not at Jerusalem.

in

* The British Association at Liverpool, in September 1854. The paper question probably originated in a feeling of impatience and displeasure, caused by that extreme futurism of some interpreters of prophecy, which is so justly discouraged in this Journal (July, p. 302). Yet the author of the paper has erred as greatly in history as have others in prophecy. He assumes that Hezekiah's great passover, which was certainly celebrated in the first year of his reign, was not held until after the capture of Samaria by Shalmaneser.

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Nor was there at that time any manifest putting forth of the power of Jehovah to fulfil his own glorious prophetic promiseBehold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the peoples; and they shall bring (to Palestine and Jerusalem) thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders."

And what was the condition of the Jews who were living in the then Persian province of Judea, and its provincial city of Jerusalem, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes Longimanus, and about ninety years after that return from Babylon, which is thought by some to be the only literal fulfilment that the Jews, as Jews, will ever receive of those glorious predictions of a restoration of Israel from heathen lands to Palestine, which are found in the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel? We can answer this question from the sacred historical records, which tell us, that in the twentieth year of this Persian sovereign, certain persons from Judea met Nehemiah in Shushan. On being asked by him concerning the Jews that had escaped, which were left of the captivity there in the province, they replied, "They are in great affliction and reproach: the wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire." And when Nehemiah very shortly after received a commission from Artaxerxes to complete the restoration of the holy city, under what circumstances did he accomplish his task? The Gentile colonists who were in possession of that portion of the land divinely promised to Jacob, which had been assigned to Ephraim and Manasseh, opposed Nehemiah so bitterly, that, while one part of the builders and assistants were occupied in building the walls, the others held the spears, shields, and bows, in order to repel at once any attempts at violence on the part of the malignant

enemy.

Let us seriously and patiently meditate upon such predictions as those by Ezekiel in his thirty-sixth and thirty-seventh chapters, and shall we not find it very difficult, or rather impossible, to believe that they received at, or shortly after, the return from Babylon, all the literal fulfilment which the descendants of Jacob are warranted to expect? What hath the Lord there said by his servant? "Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will take the children of Israel [surely not Judah and Benjamin only, but Ephraim also, and all the house of Israel] from among the heathen whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and will bring them into their own land: and I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them