tichrist, to prevent the return of the rams, or the unconverted Jews.

The prophet having foretold the restoration of Judah partly in a converted and partly in an unconverted state, is now directed to set his face against Edom and mount Seir, as he had been commanded in the beginning of his prediction to set his face against the tyrannical shepherds who had scattered and oppressed God's flock. We have already seen, that Edom is used as a type of the Roman empire; and, from his immediate connection in the present instance with the restoration of Judah, we are obliged to conclude that he typifies that empire here also. Edom then is the same as the shepherds; who scattered the Jews while Pagan, and who will be destroyed in the act of fighting against them while papal. Against this Roman Edom God will stretch out his hand, and will make him a desolation and a desolation; because he has had a perpetual hatred against the children of Israel, and has shed their blood by the force of the sword, in the time of their iniquity in the end, or during the period of their last (that is, their present) apostasy and dispersion. The Jews indeed were evidently objects of the divine wrath; they were scattered throughout all countries; and were a proverb and a by-word among the nations: but that circumstance afforded no warrant for the atrocities of popish persecutors, nor did the wickedness of Judah exculpate them from blood-guiltiness. Edom therefore is prepared for blood. Since, in every period of his history from his first rise to the formation of his last Antichristian confederacy, he hath not hated blood, even blood shall pursue him*. In the pride of his political speculations he had

:

* Behold Edom in his pagan days of conquest and ambitious affectation of universal empire. "After this I saw in the night-visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth it devoured, and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it"-View him next while under the influence of his little apostate horn. "It was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them"---Consider the adulterous church, for whose polluted communion he exchanged his ancient pagan abominations, and to whom he hath ever lent himself an indefatigable tool of persecution "I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus"---See him lastly, under the united influence of Antichrist and the false prophet, introducing, as yet unsated with slaughter, new scenes of havock, blood, and desolation. His leader, the infidel king, "shall go forth with great fury to de

said, The land of these two nations Israel and Judah shall be mine: I will possess it: I will make it a province of my empire, conveniently subservient from its central situation to my future schemes of yet more extensive aggrandisement. Thus he: whereas the Lord was there. The Lord, who hath heard all his contemptuous speeches against Israel, and all his words which he hath multiplied even against the Lord, will suddenly go forth in his great wrath to judge him. As he rejoiced at the desolation of Jacob, so shall he become a desolation of desolations while the whole earth rejoiceth.

The fall of Edom shall be the rise of the house of Israel. They, who had long been scattered through all the lands, monuments of God's vengeance; they, who had profaned his holy name by calling themselves his people, when they were manifestly rejected of him: shall now be restored, though not for their own sakes; and shall be admitted into a new and spiritual covenant with the Lord. Judah and Israel shall both be brought back; but the house of Judah first. Although they have so long been politically and nationally dead, that they may be compared, not merely to putrid corpses, but to dry bones: yet they shall assuredly rise again, bone to his bone; shall resume their rank among the nations; and shall become, in the highest sense of the words, God's own people, a peculiar people zealous of good works, a people constantly living under the gracious influences of the Holy Spirit. Judah and Israel however shall be no longer, as formerly, two kingdoms. As the two sticks became one in the hand of Ezekiel; so shall the two kindred nations become one in the hand of the Lord. And, as the literal David reigned first over Judah separately, and afterwards over Judah and Israel jointly*; so shall the mystical David first reign over

stroy, and with a bitter religious anathema to devote many to utter destruction. He shall plant the curtains of his pavilion between the seas in the glorious holy mountain: and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished. And I saw the beast," and the false prophet, “and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army."

After such multiplied deeds of violence and bloodshed, can we wonder, that vengeance, however slow-footed, should at length overtake him? "He, that killeth with the sword, must be killed with the sword," Edom hath not hated blood, therefore blood shall pursue him.

* 2 Sam. v. 5.

the House of Judah for a short time separately, and afterwards over Judah and Israel now for ever united. When Judah is restored and converted, and when the confederacy of Antichrist is broken; "then shall come all the tribes of Israel unto David, and shall speak, saying; Thou wast he that leddest out and broughtest in Israel; thou shalt henceforth therefore feed the Lord's people; thou shalt be a captain over Israel; thou art the anointed king, the Messiah of God." With this united kingdom the Lord will make an everlasting covenant of peace. He will establish them, and set his sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. He will be their God, and they shall be his people.

We have seen the restoration of Judah partly in a converted and partly in an unconverted state, the destruction of the mystic Edom or the Roman Antichristian faction, the political resurrection of Judah and Israel after their long national extinction, their coalition into one people under one king the Messiah, and their unexampled prosperity and happiness in the land of their fathers while living in covenant with God and beholding his sanctuary in the midst of them: we have seen, in short, the commencement of that season of blessedness, which is usually denominated the Millennium. The prophet now directs our attention to a new enemy of the Church, whom he styles Gog and Magog. That this new enemy cannot be the same as Edom or the Roman confederacy, is plain, both from the time when he makes his appearance, namely at some indefinite period after the commencement of the Millennium; from the countries whence he draws his forces, which are without the limits of the papal Roman empire; and from various circumstances in his prophetic history, which do not accord with the prophetic history of the Roman Antichristian confederacy as elsewhere detailed: to all which may be added the improbability, that Ezekiel, after he has described the downfal of that confederacy under the mystic name of Edom exactly at the era where other predictions had taught us to look for it, the era of the restoration of Judah; should now afresh describe its downfal under a different mystical

* 2 Sam. v. 1, 2, 3.

same not used by any one of the ancient prophets, and that too at an era where no other predictions had taught us to look for it, an era posterior to the restoration of the house of Israel and the commencement of the Millennium. Ezekiel only teaches us, that the expedition of Gog and Magog should be undertaken, when the united Jews and Israelites were dwelling in careless security under David their king in their own land, when they had spread themselves through all the unwalled villages, when they had become rich in cattle and goods, and when living under the immediate protection of heaven they little expected any assault from man; in other words, that it should be undertaken at some indefinite period after the commencement of the Millennium: but St. John is more explicit; he fixes this period to a thousand years, either natural or prophetic, after the season of great blessedness has commenced. The confederacy however of Gog and Magog 'will be even less successful than that of Antichrist. While these apostates surround the beloved city, fire from heaven will descend upon them; God will rain upon them an overflowing rain, a rain of hail-stones, fire and brimstone; and, agitated with the madness of terror, those, who escape the devastating tempest, will turn every man his sword against his brother. Yet even of these incorrigible offenders will God mercifully spare the sixth part*, as he had already spared the third part of the Antichristian confederacy. Thus magnifying his great name, will the Lord shew to all nations, that, as he scattered the children of Israel for their sins, so, after he has restored them at once to their own land and to the privileges of his covenant, he will cause them to dwell in confident security, and will suffer none to make them afraid.

Thus, it appears, that Ezekiel arranges the events which are to take place during the latter days †, in the

I have already stated the uncertain meaning of the word sew; and have observed, that, however it be translated, the present argument will not be at all affected. Whether Gog and Magog be totally destroyed, or whether a sixth part be left, there will be no correspondence between their fate and that of the Antichristian confederacy; of which Isaiah teaches us that a considerable number shall be spared, while Zechariah more definitely limits that number to a third part of the whole. See Isaiah Ixvi. 19. and Zechar. xiii. 8.

The latter days, or the end of the days, denotes in the Old Testament that portion of time, which begins at the termination of the great Apostasy of 1260

following order: 1. The restoration of Judah partly in a converted and partly in an unconverted state, and the contemporary war between the two parties supported by their several allies the maritime nation and Antichrist; 2. The destruction of Antichrist and his Roman colleagues under the general mystic name of Edom, and the Lord's vindication of himself for restoring so stubborn a racé as that of the Jews; 3. The national resurrection of Judah and Israel to which the overgrown power of Antichrist was the only impediment, and their everlasting union under the mystic David their prince; 4. The commencement of the Millennian season of blessedness and tranquillity; 5. The destruction of Gog and Magog.

Precisely the same order is observed by St. John, with this only difference, that, treating of the Church at large, he does not particularly notice the restoration of Israel, but contents himself with only obscurely intimating that the exhaustion of the symbolical Euphrates, or the overthrow of the Ottoman empire, should prepare a way for the kings from the east: 1. The gathering together of the Antichristian confederacy to Megiddo in the land of Palestine, the country which extends 1600 furlongs, the region between the two seas; 2. Its overthrow in that country by the miraculous intervention of the personal Word of God; 3. The first resurrection, either literal or symbolical*, of the saints, and their reign with Christ during the period of the Millennium; 4. The expedition and destruction of Gog and Magog.

It is impossible to avoid being struck with the exact correspondence between Ezekiel and St. John, in the order of their respective details. If then the arguments, which I have already adduced, be well-founded; and if this correspondence be allowed to exist: we must come to the conclusion, that the Gog and Magog of Ezekiel are the same as the Gog and Magog of St. John; and consequently that their expedition will take place, not before the commencement, but at the end of the Millen

nium.

years, and which expires at the end of the Millennium and at the consummation of all things. See the meaning of this phrase discussed in my Dissert. on the 1260 years, Chap. iii.

* See my Dissert. on the 1260 rears, Vol. I. p. 56. Note* (2d Edit.)

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