No.16.]Plain Papers on Prophetic[ April, 1854.

and other Subjects.

THE SPARED REMNANT.

The word "remnant" is well known to signify "the residue," or, "that which remains," of anything with regard to which it is used. In scripture it is very frequently employed to designate the faithful, godly portion of a people, more especially of the Jewish people, or nation of Israel, after the nation generally had apostatized from God. Prophecy leaves no room for doubt, that there will be such a portion, or remnant, amid the scenes of matured evil and terrific desolation in which the nation at large will yet be involved, ere the moment of final deliverance arrives.

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Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah." Is. i, 9. Such is the prophet's acknowledgment, in view of the unnumbered calamities which even in his day had overtaken the nation on account of their sins. Still "the Lord of hosts had left a very small remnant.” "The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God. For though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant of them shall return: the consumption decreed shall overflow with righteousness." Is. x, 21, 22. Here it is evidently of "the remnant" in yet future days that the prophet speaks. It is as obviously to a yet future "remnant" that the following passage refers. "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people which shall be left, from Assyria, from Egypt...... and from the islands of the sea.' Is. xi, 11. The same may be said of Joel ii, 32,-iii, 1, 2. "For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord

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hath said, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call. For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel." It is here in manifest connection with the last great crisis in the land of Israel, that mention is made of "the remnant whom the Lord shall call." "And I will make her that halted a remnant, and her that was cast far off a strong nation; and the Lord shall reign over them in Mount Zion from henceforth, even for ever." Mic. iv, 7. This passage depicts to us the triumph of the remnant, when the crisis of their sorrows and of the nation's final calamities is past. "The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies." Zeph. iii, 13. Here it is their moral character which is the subject of the prophetic pen. In the New Testament the apostle quotes Isaiah's words: "Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved;" and there can be no question that he refers these words for their fulfilment to the brief coming crisis in Israel's history. "For he will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth." Rom. ix, 27, 28. He owned, however, the existence of a remnant in his own day. "Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace." Rom. xi, 5. These passages may suffice to shew the sense in which the appellation"the remnant" is ordinarily used in scripture. It is occasionally applied to other nations than Israel; as, for instance," the remnant of Syria," "the remnant of Ashdod," "the remnant of the Philistines;" and it is sometimes applied to other subjects. Matt. xxii, 6, is an instance of this kind; "And the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them." In the vast majority of cases, however, the phrase denotes the godly, repentant part of Israel, when the nation at large has utterly departed from God, and especially such a portion of that race in days yet to come. Many scriptures treat of "the remnant," thus understood, where the expression itself is not used. Indeed, when once the mind is awakened to the fact, it is surprised to find how large a portion of scripture is occupied with our present subject.

As long as the nation itself so far maintained the testimony and worship of Jehovah, as that he could own

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it as a whole, we hear nothing of " a remnant." But when the ten tribes had quite abandoned the worship of Jehovah, and established that of Baal, the Lord not only raised up Elijah as a public testimony to his power and Godhead, but in answer to the complainings of this distinguished prophet, who spake of being left alone, the Lord assured him, "Yet I have left me (reserved unto myself, see Rom. xi, 4,) seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him." The 66 seven thousand" were the remnant of that day. In Judah, in like manner, when Uzziah and Ahaz had so grievously departed from God, Isaiah's prophecy began to recognize the existence of a remnant, in passages we have already quoted. was in the year that king Uzziah died" that the prophet had the vision of the glory of the Lord, recorded by him in chap. vi and it is in that chapter, after hearing the sentence of judicial blindness upon the nation,-a sentence to be fulfilled throughout the period of their long dispersion, he is told "But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten; as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them when they cast their leaves, so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof." It is thus during the nation's long, dreary winter, that the remnant-the holy seed-are to the nation, what the sap of the tree is to its leafless, withered stump. The sap rises afresh as spring advances, and new verdure appears where nothing has met the eye but the barrenness of death; so will the remnant ere long become the living nucleus of the restored and happy and prosperous nation in millennial times. Sad, however, are the scenes, and deep the trials, which await both the remnant and the nation ere that day arrives.

Jeremiah prophesied on the eve of the Babylonish captivity-an event which he lived to witness and record. The sins of Manasseh, who had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, having rendered it impossible for the sentere long before passed on the guilty nation to be repealed, oy even to be much further put off, Jeremiah is commissioned to declare the irreversibleness of their doom. Space had been given for repentance. The Lord had again and again, on some signs of contrition being shewn, deferred its execution, but now he declares himself "weary with repenting," and the prophet is charged with the message, Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my

mind could not be toward this people; cast them out of my sight, and let them go forth." Should they ask, Whither? they were to be told, "Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for the captivity, to the captivity." The judgment was inevitable, and no intercessions, as of Moses or of Samuel, could turn it aside. The prophet bemoans his lot, to be charged with such a message. It is then that he is comforted by the assurance of mercy to the remnant. Though the sentence against the nation could not be reversed, "The Lord said, Verily it shall be well with thy remnant; verily I will cause the enemy to entreat the well in the Jer. xv, 11. time of evil, and in the time of affliction." Jeremiah and "the remnant" of which he was thus distinguished from the wicked, apostate nation. were to go into captivity, indeed, and be subject stranger's yoke, but the Lord would cause the enem "entreat" them "well."

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Ezekiel, who prophesied a little later than Jeremi bears distinct testimony to the preservation of a remna in those days of retribution for Judah's sin. In vision sees six men with slaughter weapons in their hands, an another clothed with linen, and a writer's ink horn by h side. To the latter it is said, "Go through the midst o the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh, and that ery, for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.' The others were to go after him, and smite, and not spare; but they were expressly cautioned "not to come near any man upon whom was the mark." The remnant was to be spared.

We are not to suppose, however, that all who survived the overthrow of Jerusalem, and went into captivity, sus tained this remnant character. Some who survived th destruction of the city were Jeremiah's worst enemies, a perished in their sins by other and subsequent calamitie and as to those who reached the land of the Chaldeans, were not like Ezekiel, and Daniel, and Shadrach, Meshac and Abednego. These, and all who were like-minded with them, formed the true remnant, during the seventy years captivity. How interesting to observe that these men, though not exempted from the general lot of the nation as to subjection to a Gentile yoke, were yet ho

noured of God, as the depositories of his secrets, and the confessors of his name.

At the expiration of the seventy years assigned to the captivity in Babylon, a number of the Jews returned to Jerusalem. There we find the remnant in such men of God as Ezra, Nehemiah, Zerubbabel, Joshua, Haggai, and Zechariah. How touching the language of Ezra, when confessing his sin and the sin of his people, in respect to the unholy alliances which had been made with Gentile strangers, he "And now for a little space grace says, hath been shewed from the Lord our God, 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." Ez. ix, 8. Both in Ezra and Nehemiah, as well as in the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah, we have full proof even as to the few returned captives in Judea, that "all were not Israel who were of Israel." It was but in a few that the true, remnant spirit and character were found; and ere the voice of prophecy was entirely hushed, we find Malachi in the most solemn way distinguishing between the true remnant and the mass of the nation, whether people or priests. As to the latter, the greater part of his prophecy is occupied with detecting and denouncing their wickedness of the former-the true remnant-he speaks as follows. "Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another; and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.” Mal. iii, 16, 17. It is important to bear in mind, that however this may apply, as it surely did, to the remnant in Malachi's day, it is connected in the prophecy with anticipations of "the great and dreadful day of the Lord." The reason of this is obvious: the remnant have one character throughout. Humble, obedient, separate from abounding wickedness, and heart-broken on account of it, they are comforted whether in past or yet future times by the prospect of that great interposition of God in judgment, which will at once and for ever break down and set aside the power of wickedness, and which, in so doing will accomplish the deliverance, and usher in the full blessing of the faithful remnant. "For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven: and all the proud, yea,

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