seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and forever." "I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth, in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall swear. Surely, shall one say" (they shall say surely) "in the Lord have I righteousness and strength; even to him" (Christ) "shall men come-In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified and shall glory." Psalm xxii. 27. “All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord, and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee." Is. lii. 10. The Lord hath made bare his arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God." See also, Is. lvi. 6 -8. Hab. ii. 14. Zech. xii. 10—14.

3. The kingdom of Satan will be totally destroyed, his head bruised, and his power and influence effectually restrained. The reign of popery shall forever be hissed out of the world; the delusions of Mahomet shall be done away; and idol worship and all kind of idolatry shall forever cease; and the true worship of God, in spirit and in truth, in the name of Jesus Christ, shall prevail over the world. Rev. xviii. 2, 21. "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen. And a mighty angel took up a stone, like a great millstone and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all." 2 Thess. ii. 3-8. "That man of sin, the son of perdition-whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming." Rev. xix. 20, 21. "And the beast was taken, and the false prophet: These both were cast alive into a lake of fire, burning with brimstone. And the remnant were slain with the sword of him who sat upon the horse, which proceeded out of his mouth." Chap. xx. 1-3-And he laid hold on the Dragon, and bound him a thousand years," &c. See chap. xi. 18. "And shouldest destroy them who destroy the earth;" not only papists but also Turks and Mahometans. Is. ii. 17-21. "The Lord alone shall be exalted in that day, and the idols he shall utterly abolish. In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made, each for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats; to go into the clifts of the rocks-for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his Majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.."

Jer. x. 11. "The gods that have not made the heavens, and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens." Zech. xiv. 20, 21. "In that

day shall there be on the bells of the horses, HOLINESS unto the Lord. Yea every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be, Holiness uuto the Lord of Hosts," &c. Ezek. xxxvii. 21-28. "Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions; but I will save them-so shall they be my people, and I will be their God; And David my servant shall be king over them-and they shall walk in my judgments and observe my statutes to do them. And they shall dwell in the land-Even they and their children, and their children's children forever, and my servant David shall be their prince forever," &c. See Jer. xxxiii, 5, 6. Hos. iii. 4, 5. Luke i. 32, 33. Is. ix. 6, 7.

4. The light of the gospel will become very great and glorious. Believers will see and understand the glorious doctrines of the bible, with clearness, even those doctrines which are mysteries to us. How easily the apostles, under the direction of the Spirit, could apply the dark prophecies of the old Testament to the establishment of the gospel. So no doubt it will be with the millennary inhabitants of the New Jerusalem; they, under the clear sunshine of the gospel, will see clearly, and understand with ease and perspicuity, the hidden mysteries of religion, of which it costs us hard study and labour to have even a glimmering view. The prophets have set this matter in a very striking, and beautiful light, and have given it very sublime and high colouring indeed. See Zech. xiv. 6, 7. "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark-not day nor night; but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light." When Christ was crucified, it was indeed a dreary time in the view of the church; yet it was a day well known, or appointed to or by the Lord. The fight began to dawn at the resurrection; on the day of pentecost it began to shine more clearly; and it has been increasing ever since, but still it is misty and cloudy; the sun does not shine clearly, nor will it until the evening of the gospel. Even christians with all the spiritual light they have, can only see darkly, as through a glass. How little do we know of the gospel plan? How darkly

can we understand the dispensations of God towards ourselves, or towards the church? How often do doubts and fears prevail in our minds, notwithstanding all that Christ has said and promised in his word? How weak our faith, how low and grovelling are our affections notwithstanding all our light? But the evening time will soon be here, when the gospel sun will not be set; but when it will break forth from behind the eclipse, and shine out with resplendent lustre, and completely dispel all mists and clouds, and clearly illuminate all the regions of the earth, from east to west, and from pole to pole.

If the reader will read Ezek. xlii. 1-5, he will find a very beautiful representation of the gradual increase of the gospel under the figure of a stream of water. When the prophet first crossed it, the waters were to the ancles; a thousand cubits lower down, the waters came to his knees; a thousand cubits farther, they were to his loins; but a thousand cubits farther, they became a river that could not be passed without swimming. The light and effects of the gospel, from the fall to Abraham, were to the ancles; from Abraham through the Jewish dispensation to Christ, they were to the knees; from Christ under the christian dispensation, they are to the loins till the. commencement of the Millennium; but through the Millennium they will be as an unfordable river. Is. xi. 9.

"The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." See Sol. Songs, vi. 10. In Is. xxx. 26, we have a noble description of the glorious light of the gospel in the latter day." "Moreover, the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be seven fold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound." Compare this with chap. xxiv. 23. "Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously." This is a bold figure indeed; the sun and moon are here personified and represented as blushing, and ashamed when their feeble beams are compared with the more refulgent rays of the gospel, when God shall bring in the Jew, with the fulness of the Gentiles, and reign gloriously over his ancient people whom he had long rejected. See also Is. lx. 19, 20. Zech. xii. 8. Rev. xxi. 22, 26.

5. The kingdom of the Messiah shall extend all over the world, and Christ, the seed of Abraham, shall be, a blessing to all the nations and families of the earth. All the kindreds, tongues and nations in the world, shall be given to him, and his salvation shall extend to the utmost bounds of this lower creation, and Jesus our adorable Savior, who was lifted up on the cross, shall draw all men unto him. Thus, as St. Paul says, Rom. x. 18, alluding to what the Psalmist said, when he compared the word of God to the luminaries in the firmament, (Ps. 19) "Verily their sound" (to wit, the sound of the preachers of the gospel) "went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world," as the light of the sun and moon and the glory of the starry firmament proclaim, by day and by night, the glory of the Lord. Īs. xxvii. 6. "Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit." Is. xlix. 6. "I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the ends of the earth." Zech. ix. 10. "He shall speak unto the heathen and his dominiou shall be from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth." Mal. i. 11. "From the rising of the sun, even to the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles. And in every place incense shall be offered to my name and a pure offering; for my name shall be great among the heathen saith the Lord of hosts." Is. xi. 9. "For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." Dan. vii. 14. "And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages should serve him."

6. The Jews shall be converted to christianity, and all the tribes of Israel will be brought into the church of Christ. Whether the Israelites will be literally brought to their own land, or whether those numerous prophecies which predict their return, are to be understood in a metaphorical sense, is a question, which the fulfilment can only determine. It is sufficient for our present inquiry to know certainly, that they will be brought to embrace the christian religion. This we are sure of, whether they will actually return to Jerusalem or not; and this will be a glorious fulfilment of the promises of God relative to their restoration. We have demonstrated, that while the church is in the wilderness, and the witnesses are pro

phesying in sackcloth the Jews will not be brought in; for they are to be brought in with the fulness of the Gentiles. But this cannot be, while the church is in the wilderness, and the witnesses are clad in mourning. If, then, the gospel will be at an end when the Millennium commences, the Jews will never be converted, and this would falsify hundreds of passages in the word of God where God has solemnly pledged his eternal veracity that he will gather them from among the nations and bring them to their own land. This abundantly demonstrates that that unhappy sentiment is not only false but dishonoring to God and derogatory to the mediatorial glory of Christ. See Hosea iii. 4, 5. Zech. ii. 4, 5, and viii. 3 -6. Ezek. xxxvi. and many other places.

7. The kingdom of Christ will be vastly numerous in the Millennary state. Christ's flock is now and ever has been, a little flock, few in number, scattered up and down through the world, in the midst of prowling wolves, to wit, the Devil's seed, who have ever been engaged in Satan's cause and always up in arms against the poor disciples of Christ. All the world lieth in wickedness, and the enemies of Christ are spread all over the face of the earth. Is it nothing for the numbers of Satan's kingdom to be incalculable? and even incalculably greater than the numbers of the kingdom of Christ? Can we feel it no dishonor to Christ or his gospel, that but few will be saved, notwithstanding the agonies of his death, and the infinite merits of his blood, and the ample provision that was made for the redemption of sinners? and that the greater part of mankind, nevertheless, will be forever lost? We ought to be cautious of indulging such sentiments, lest we dishonor our glorious Redeemer, and trample upon the dignity of his cross. I confess I feel the salvation of my own soul a great prize indeed; but it is not enough for me to glory over my own salvation, and the salvation of a few more scattered here and there through the world. The gospel presents an infinitely higher object before us than this. The honor and glory of our Redeemer is at stake, and the respectability of the gospel, and the dignity of the church are all deeply concerned in this matter. But it is impossible for Christ, as a Redeemer, his gospel, or his church to be glorious, unless he destroy Satan's kingdom, which never can be done by suffering him to lead the greater part of mankind