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exists for such limitation. They can mean only, during the present economy of things, or while the world shall continue, or during the Jewish dispensation, where the rites peculiar to that dispensation were spoken of, or during natural life, where such was the subject of discourse. Another fact may be added here; which, with a believer in the literal restoration, will have weight. In the prophecy of Jeremiah, the people of Judea are spoken of as having slidden back with a "perpetual backsliding" (8: 5); which is about equivalent to the word everlasting; yet this backsliding is not supposed to be strictly eternal. Again, of the judgments to come upon them, it is said: "to make their land desolate, and a perpetual hissing," strictly, according to the original, "a hissing forever," is, (18: 16). And again, "to make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations," or literally, according to the original, "desolations for ever," y, (25:9). The desolations, after all, must be repaired- in fact, were repaired, after the seventy years. And if the words in question must be understood in a modified sense here, why not in the other cases? Now take the "everlasting covenant" with Abraham, giving him and his posterity the land of Canaan, “for an everlasting possession." May it not be, that this language is to be understood, after all, in a limited sense? Indeed, it must mean something less than absolute eternal duration, if the world is ever to have an end. Canaan can be enjoyed only while the world shall endure. And, if the language must be restricted, may it not be restricted to the measure of the ancient economy, meaning perpetual, a perpetual possession and home, in distinction from the wandering life which the father of the faithful was then livinga possession and home to continue through many ages, even for thousands of years, till the economy about to be there established should be needed no more in the world. This is the kind of duration which the word designates in the other cases. Why may it not designate the same here?

There is, indeed, a sense, and that a very important sense, in which the covenant with Abraham was strictly an eternal covenant, and the blessing promised,-not the earthly Canaan, but that which the earthly Canaan prefigured,—an eternal inheritance. The blessing included, and was designed more and more to unfold into, a spiritual good, that should continue, not only through the duration of earth, but through the duration of heaven itself. It was a blessing in Christ, and including Christ and his

grace, and the fruits of his grace, while eternity shall endure. So the apostle interprets it. "To Abraham and his seed were promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ," (Gal. 3: 16). Christ was the leading blessing, even in the covenant with Abraham,Christ, and the eternal heaven which he has prepared for his people. Hence it is written: "If ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise" (Gal. 3: 29); heirs of heaven according to that very promise which God made to Abraham. So Abraham himself understood it. Through those transactions, and the ordinances of his time, he "saw Christ's day, and was glad" (John 8: 56); and not only Christ's day on earth, but something of the glory of Christ's heavenly kingdom. "He looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God;" and, with his fellow-sojourners in Canaan, through faith, "desired a better country, that is, an heavenly,” (Heb. 11: 10, 15). This was the vision that filled the believing eye of the father of the faithful, and the other patriarchs who embraced the promises. The earthly Canaan,—a blessing, indeed, in itself,— was yet but a shadow of richer blessings seen through it, the kingdom of Christ, and the glory of heaven.

Now to interpret the promise to Abraham, as a mere promise of the earthly Canaan to him and his posterity, is, it appears to us, to rob it of its chief grandeur and glory. To assert that the Jews must return to Palestine, and be reörganized into an earthly kingdom, at this late day of the world, in order that God's promise to Abraham may be fulfilled, is taking the matter, we cannot resist the conviction,-altogether from the position in which the apostle has placed it. It is apparently going back to things exploded. It is coming down from heaven to earth. The promise may have had an immediate reference to the earthly Canaan, the shadow, while that shadow was needful in carrying forward the great economy of grace, and may be spoken of, in a modified sense, as “everlasting," or perpetual, in common with other things, which were ordained to continue while the dispensation then existing should endure. But when the substance shines out, and rises more and more into view, with each revolving age, till, under the present dispensation, the shadow has almost entirely sunk and lost itself in the superior glory; may not the shadow be left in its obscurity, and the substance, glorious beyond description, take its place? It is according to the economy of grace,

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that it should. The shadow, the type, when it has served its purpose, disappears, as the morning star ceases to be seen after the rising of the glorious full-orbed sun.

The argument, then, from the covenant with Abraham, in favor of a yet future earthly kingdom of the Jews, of the character and splendor for which some are looking, we cannot make seem to us otherwise than exceedingly slender. Adopted, as it has been, by excellent and learned men, we must still think it is the result of mistake in interpreting the promise, and of some failure, in this one point, to apprehend the true character of the Messiah's dispensation.

II. The argument arising from the alleged fact, that the people have never yet possessed the whole of the land promised, next claims our notice. If they have never yet possessed the whole of the land promised, the reasoning is, they must yet be literally restored, and spread themselves over the whole of it, and enjoy it through a period of long duration; for the promise cannot be broken.

The land promised, as we have seen, was the territory extending" from the river of Egypt, unto the great river, the river Euphrates," and from "the wilderness of Zin, to the entrance of Hamath." These were its borders.

Now, is it a fact, that this territory never was wholly possessed by the children of Israel? This is a question of no small interest. Even, indeed, if the people never did possess the whole land promised, God might still excuse himself, from the fact, that they had broken the covenant with him, and this released him from his obligation to them. As it was expressly said, at an early date, respecting driving out the corrupt pations from before them: "The anger of the Lord was hot against Israel; and he said, Because that this people have transgressed my covenant which I commanded their fathers, and have not hearkened unto my voice; I also will not henceforth drive out any from before them, of the nations which Joshua left when he died.-Therefore the Lord left those nations, without driving them out hastily, neither delivered he them into the hand of Joshua," (Judges 2: 20-23). Such might have been the proceeding of God wholly and finally, without any breach of integrity or veracity on his part. The covenant broken by the people, he was not holden; he was free. But not to rest the matter on this ground, as God is always better to us than our deserts, let us see, whether, in

fact, there was any such failure, in the sequel, to possess the whole of the promised land.

In the book of Joshua it is said, toward the close of the book, and after the conquests by Joshua had been narrated: "And the Lord gave unto Israel all the land which he sware to give unto their fathers; and they possessed it, and dwelt therein. And the Lord gave them rest round about, according to all that he sware unto their fathers; and there stood not a man of all their enemies before them; the Lord delivered all their enemies into their hand. There failed not aught of any good thing which the Lord had spoken unto the house of Israel," (21: 43-45). Now here is an assertion, that the people had been put in possession of " all the land which God sware to give unto their fathers." It may be, indeed, that this was spoken only in a looser sense, as denoting merely a general triumph of the arms of Israel, various tribes remaining still within their borders not wholly subdued. The book of Judges shows such to have been, in fact, the case. But the triumph was signal, insomuch that the sacred writer declared that God had fulfilled his promise: "There failed not aught of any good thing which he had spoken; all came to pass." Is not this rather a stumbling-block to those who would lead Israel back to Palestine, lest the promise fail? So again, Joshua in his farewell address said: "Ye know in all your hearts, and in all your souls, that not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spake concerning you; all are come to pass unto you, and not one thing hath failed thereof," (23: 14). This would seem as though, in a general sense at least, the land God had spoken of to them, had become their possession. We may admit, as before, that the possession was not entirely complete and unmolested. Remnants of the nations within their borders were still unsubdued. But there was a general triumph, a general and glorious fulfilment of the promise, or it could not have been spoken of in terms like those here employed.

At a later period it is said of David, that he "smote Hadadezer, the son of Rehob, king of Zobah, as he went to recover his border at the river Euphrates," (2 Sam. 8: 3). Or, as expressed in another place: "David smote Hadadezer king of Zobah, unto Hamath, as he went to establish his dominion by the river Euphrates," (1 Chron. 18: 3). These passages show that the dominion of David did extend to the Euphrates and to Hamath. Whatever dispute there may have been in those quarters, he

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marched his armies thither, and "recovered" to himself what belonged to him, and "stablished his dominion" there. The Euphrates, we have seen, was the eastern border of the promised land,—and Hamath was the northern border of the promised land; the most distant borders in these directions ever mentioned. The dominion of David, therefore, did extend over the whole territory in these directions, as it is known to have done in others.

In the time of Solomon, the extent of Israel's dominion is still more particularly mentioned. "Solomon," we are told, "reigned over all kingdoms, from the river," [Euphrates, the meaning is,] "unto the land of the Philistines, and unto the border of Egypt; they brought presents, and served Solomon all the days of his life," (1 Kings 4: 21). See also 2 Chron. 9: 26. At the dedication of the Temple, it is said: "Solomon held a feast, and all Israel with him, a great congregation, from the entering in of Hamath unto the river of Egypt, before the Lord God," (1 Kings 8: 65). See also 2 Chron. 7: 8. At a little later period, it is said: “ Solomon went to Hamath-Zobah, and prevailed against it. And he built Tadmor in the wilderness"-Palmyra, far eastward towards the Euphrates,-"and all the store-cities, which he built in Hamath," (2 Chron. 8: 3, 4). Signifying that, however occasional disturbances might occur, his dominion extended over these realms.

Of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, more than two centuries after Solomon, it is said: "he restored the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain," or Dead Sea, (2 Kings, 14: 25). Invaders were expelled, or the remnants of former tribes who had occasioned trouble, were overpowered. The border was maintained; and three hundred years afterwards, when the captivity came up from Babylon, under Nehemiah, they gave thanks to God for his covenant with Abraham, granting him the land of Canaan, and add: "And hast performed thy words; for thou art righteous," (Neh. 9: 8). They considered the covenant as having been fulfilled. God had given them what he promised them.

Now, what is the amount of the argument for the literal restoration of the Jews, that they must go back in order to possess the whole land included in the covenant with Abraham, and that unless they do thus the covenant of God fails? Is it not a slender argument, on which to hang so important a conclusion? Even allowing that, sometimes, Israel did not enjoy, in the land, the VOL. IV. No. 14.

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