Judah?" The other passages from Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, that might seem to favour the doctrine, I think, are clearly explicable upon application to the spiritual Church, or have been literally fulfilled in the Jewish history, since the return from Babylon. Haggai, in the second chapter, 9th verse, while the second temple was building, prophesied, "The glory of this latter house shall be greater than the former, saith the Lord of hosts and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts."-He could mean nothing more of "this latter house," literally, than that Christ, the Prince of Peace, should appear in it, which he did. But, in other respects, the second temple was far less glorious than the first, and the ploughshare has long since furrowed its degraded scite. In the 19th verse, he says, by the word of the Lord, "from this day,"—that is, from the day the foundation of the Lord's temple was laid,-will I bless you." This, literally interpreted, would mean that, from that period, the Jews should live in the constant experience of the Lord's blessing; but this interpretation

is negatived by the fact that the Jews are, and long have been, under the Lord's

curse.

Zechariah, who likewise prophesied during the building of the second temple, refers the Divine promises of peace and prosperity made to the Jewish nation, as applying to that period, and thus negatives any interpretation of his language that would represent him as predicting any other restoration. The angel plaintively inquires, "How long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem, and on the cities of Judah, against which thou hast had indignation these threescore and ten years? And the Lord answered the angel with good words, and comfortable words-I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies: my house shall be built in it, saith the Lord of hosts, and a line shall be stretched forth upon Jerusalem. Cry yet, saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts; My cities through prosperity shall yet be spread abroad; and the Lord shall yet comfort Zion, and shall yet choose Jerusalem. Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls, for the multitude of men and cattle therein.

For I, saith the Lord of hosts, will be a wall of fire round about, and will be the glory in the midst of her. joice, O daughter of Zion!

Sing and refor lo, I come,

and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the Lord. And many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day, and shall be my people: and I will dwell in the midst of them, and thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto them. And the Lord shall inherit Judah his portion in the holy land, and shall choose Jerusalem again. Be silent, O all flesh, before the Lord: for he is raised up out of his holy habitation. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I am returned to Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem: and Jerusalem shall be called a city of truth; and the mountain of the Lord of hosts, the holy mountain. Before these days there was no hire for man, nor any hire for beasts; neither was there any peace to him that went out, or came in, because of the affliction. But now I will not be unto the residue of this people, as in the former days, saith the Lord of hosts. For the seed shall be prosperous, and the vine shall

give her fruit, and the ground shall give her increase, and the heavens shall give their dew and I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these things. And it shall come to pass, that as you were a curse among the heathen, O house of Judah, and house of Israel; so will I save you, and ye shall be a blessing; As I thought to punish you, when your fathers provoked me to wrath, saith the Lord of hosts, and I repented not; so again have I thought in these days to do well unto Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah: fear ye not."

Here the peace and prosperity predicted by former prophets is declared by Zechariah, almost the last of the Old Testament prophets, to be realized in the return from Babylon, the building of the second temple, and the re-establishment of the Jewish polity and worship.*

"As for the Scripture, alleged by the Jews for their temporal restoration to an illustrious condition in their own country, they have found their full accomplishment in the return of that nation to their own land, from the captivity in Babylon; and, therefore, further performance of such promises is not to be expected.”—Pisgah Sight, &c. In proof of this remark of Fuller's, I may add the testimony of

In the fourteenth chapter, the 10th and 11th verses are required to be taken literally; so must the 16th, to the end, which will involve, as we noticed, under "Zion and Jerusalem," many incongruities. No other opinion need be expressed here than that the 10th and 11th verses refer to no such actual occurrence as a literal interpretation would suppose; and that, if "no more," in the 11th verse, involve the idea of perpetuity, so may chap. xi. 6, and Hosea i. 6, before considered. Of course, I might here enlarge very much; but unless you think it necessary (which I do not), in order to come fairly at a decision, I shall decline a minute examination of the whole series of predictions usually supposed to favour the contested point. The observations already made may suffice to shew the

Josephus, from whom we learn that the population of Judea, subsequent to the return from Babylon, became so overflowing that the land was too confined for them, and they swarmed in all the contiguous countries. We also learn that, from the same period, almost uninterrupted peace and prosperity pervaded Palestine for full 300 years; and this, contrasted with their previous abject condition as captives in a strange land, was quite sufficient to justify the strong metaphorical language of the prophets, consistent as such phraseology has always been considered by oriental poets.