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from his northern provinces of Syria and Samaria, although his empire itself lay almost directly east of Jerusalem but no invasion of his, from whatever quarter it might proceed, can have any relation to one, which Jeremiah immediately connects with the yet future restoration of Israel and Judah. The same remark applies with double force to the expedition of Titus against Jerusalem. He himself came, not from the north, but from the west: and with him he brought only a small body of troops; for the main army, of which he took the command, was already quartered in Palestine and the neighbouring provinces *.

Do we find then any mention made, in other collateral prophecies, of a furious attack about to be made upon Palestine from the region of the north, at the period of the restoration of Judah? If we do, we may reasonably conclude, that Jeremiah, treating as he does of the same period, means likewise the same northern attack.

Joel, predicting the restoration of the Jews, declares, that at the time when they are brought back to their own land they shall be violently assailed by a confederacy of many nations; but that God will remove far from them the northern tyrant, and drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east-sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea f. This northern

• Tacit. Hist. L. v. C. 1.

+ Joel ii. 20,

tyrant,

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tyrant, described by Joel, can be no other than Daniel's wilful king, the head of the Antichristian confederacy, who invades Palestine at the same era of the restoration, and who is destined to perish between the two seas*. Such being the case, if the head of the confederacy or the wilful king be infidel France, as I have elsewhere attempted to prove, he can only be styled a northern one with reference to Judèa, on account of his invading that country by land and from the north. Accordingly the infidel king, the life and soul of the whole confederacy, is plainly represented by Daniel, as conducting his expedition, not by sea, but by land.

Since then we find a northern expedition against Palestine, at the period of the restoration of Judah, clearly foretold both by Joel and Daniel with a variety of minute circumstances; and since this expedition cannot but be that of Antichrist and his associates: we must, I think, almost unavoidably conclude, that the northern invasion, so often mentioned by Jeremiah as contemporary with the restoration of Judah, is the expedition of Antichrist likewise.

The description, which Jeremiah gives of this northern invasion, perfectly accords with such a supposition. As Isaiah represents the Antichristian confederacy under the images of a bird of prey and beasts of the earth wintering and summering

Dan. xi. 45. xii. 1.

upon

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upon the mountains of Israel; so Jeremiah here beholds in his vision Antichrist or the infidel tyrant, that great destroyer of the nations, going forth from his place to desolate Palestine, as a lion cometh up from his thicket: and, as both Isaiah and Joel depict, under symbols borrowed from the universal wreck of nature, the last dreadful struggles of Antichrist, during what Daniel terms in plain language a period of unexampled trouble; so Jeremiah exhibits to us the same tremendous events, under the very same set of hieroglyphics .

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The sum of the whole prophecy seems to be this. That, although God had scattered both Judah and Israel, he would nevertheless restore both Judah and Israel. That, after their restoration, they should become one people, wor

* Isaiah xviii. 6.

+ St. Johin speaks of this same monster and his popish as. sociates, as being those who destroy the earth, but whom God was about to destroy in their turn during the blast of the third woe-trumpet (Rev. xi. 18.). Precisely the same language is used by Isaiah, in speaking of the typical hing of Babylon; by whom, as I have already attempted to shew, we must understand the great Antichrist of the last ages. "He, who smote "the people in wrath with a continual stroke, he, that ruled "the nations in anger-How art thou cut down to the "ground, which didst weaken the nations!-Is this the man, "that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms? "that made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof?" Isaiah xiv. 6, 12, 16, 17.

4

Compare Isaiah xxiv. 19-23. and Joel ii, 30, 31. with Jerem. iv. 23-26.

shipping

shipping God in spirit and in truth, remonial observances of the law.

not in the ceThat the Lord

would surely pluck them out of the hand of those, who had so long trodden their portion under foot; and, although he might suffer their enemies, the northern confederacy, to prevail for a season, he would at length overthrow that confederacy, and utterly break its strength for ever. That nevertheless, if such as escaped in the day of God's controversy with the nations would diligently learn the ways of his people, they should then be built up in the midst of his people. And that finally, when the Lord had poured out his wrathful indignation on Antichrist and his rebellious associates, Jerusalem should be called the throne of the Lord, and all nations should be gathered unto it f.

PROPHECY XVII.

The idolatry of the Israelites in the land of their dispersion-Their restoration by sea and by land -The punishment of Judah-The general conversion of the Gentiles.

Jeremiah xvi. 13. I will cast you out of this land into a land that ye know not, ye and your fathers;

Compare Isaiah lxvi. 19. and Zechar. xiii. 8.

+ Compare Isaiah ii. 3.

and

and there shall ye serve other gods day and night, where I will not shew you favour.

14. After this, behold, The days come, saith the Lord, that it shall no more be said, As the Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; 15. But, As the Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands whither he had driven them: for I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their fathers. 16. Behold, I will send unto many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them; and after that will I send unto many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and from the holes of the rocks. 17. For mine eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from my face, neither is their iniquity hid from mine eyes. 18. And first I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double; because they have defiled my land, they have filled mine inheritance with the carcases of their detestable and abominable things.

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19. O Lord, my strength, and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lyes, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit. 20. Shall a man make gods unto himself? Even they are no gods. 21. Therefore behold, I will at this time cause them to know, I will cause them

to

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