"be delivered, every one that shall be found "written in the book." Several prophecies, which have formerly been noticed, shew that the great conversion of the Jews will be by the manifestation of Christ at the period of the battle of Armageddon; of whose miraculous conversion that of St. Paul was considered by Mede to have been but a type. The standing up of the Archangel Michael in their behalf refers to their restoration as a nation, or to the re-establishment of their civil polity; nations being represented in the early part of this prophecy as under the guardianship of particular Angels. The time of trouble succeeding to the battle of Armageddon is that during which we are told by the prophet Zechariah*, as is confirmed by other prophets, that the discord amongst the nations shall be universal; in which the Jews also "shall fight at Jerusalem," and in which St. John informs us that "the remnant," or those of the nations of the western Empire who may not have been present at the battle of Armageddon, shall also be slain " with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceedeth out of his mouth;" or by the * Chap. ix. 13-15. x. 5—7, and xiv. 13, 14. † Obadiah, ver. 18. Micah, v. 4-9. Isaiah, xi. 14. righteous indignation of his law, executed, in this case, by the northern armies.-And if that which is about to take place be indeed the great manifestation of the holiness of God, and of his long-delayed wrath, how hardly shall the righteous be saved in these times of trouble, and where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? When it is said to Daniel, in reference to this period of trouble, "at that time thy people shall be delivered," " every one that shall be found "written in the book,;" as referring to the Jews, it seems to imply, as is apparently intimated by other passages of Scripture*, that not all of that nation then living will be immediately admitted to the great privileges prepared for them, but that there will be an election according to grace, and that their wickedness and hardheartedness will be purged out from amongst them by many and severe trials before they are resettled in their own land. But this passage is equally applicable to us Gentiles, who should watch and pray, that in the awful and trying days here described, we may be found to have faith in Christ, and to be amongst the number of those who are "written "in the Lamb's book of life." And hence * Isaiah iv. 2-4. Jer. xxx. 7. Ezek. xx. 33-44. 66 66 the importance of that previous warning and exhortation, which is, through the Apostle John, addressed by Christ to his Gentile Church, at the period when the Sixth Angel pours out his Vial:-"Behold I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked and they see "his shame." Blessed is he that has `renounced his own righteousness, and is clothed with the perfect righteousness of Christ, with which he may appear with boldness in the presence of God, and who, when Christ saith, "Surely I come quickly," is able to reply with the apostle, "Even so; come, Lord Jesus." The prophecy concludes in Chap. xii. 5–7, as it opened in Chap. x. 5-9, with a glorious revelation of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ; and the appointed periods of the depressed and afflicted state of the Gentile and Jewish Churches are revealed from his own mouth; the afflictions of the former being limited by a solemn oath to the period of "a time, times, and an half," and those of the latter to the time of the battle of Armageddon, when all things mentioned in this prophecy shall be finished.-In the same manner as we find in the Revelation of Saint John, (at the conclusion of the Trumpet history, chap. x. 5 -7,) the affliction of the Gentile Church is limited, by the solemn oath of our Lord, to the period of the sounding of the seventh Trumpet: We also find that the coincidence, thus announced, of the restoration of the Jews with the battle of Armageddon, is confirmed in the prophecy itself, by the standing up of Michael nationally in their behalf immediately following, in chap. xii. 1, the account of the fall of Antichrist, or his coming to his end in the glorious holy mountain of Jerusalem. way On Daniels seeking from the Angel Gabriel, who was commissioned to make known to him this prophecy, farther information concerning it; saying (in the same form of address as in Chap. x. 16, 17,) "O my Lord, what shall be "the end of these things?" he is directed to go his for that "the words are closed up "and sealed till the time of the end" (which "time of the end," we learn from Chap. xi. 40, indicates the period of 45 years now just commenced;) two other important epochs in the history of the Church, the end of the 1290, and that of the 1335 years, are however made known to him by the Angel; and he is finally dismissed with the assurance that he should stand in his lot at the end of the 1335 days, or should have a part in the first resurrection, and in the blessedness of the Millennial reign of Christ with his saints upon the earth. THE END. |