the mystic babylon or the Roman empire. Yet this king shall not be able to repair their damages, nor to make a cure of their corrupted sore. For the Lord will arise as a lion in his wrath, and will execute vengeance both upon them and their presumptuous ally,

This king exactly answers to the description of Antichrist, who will then be the last head of the Roman beast, as the Assyrian was the head of the Babylonian beast: and such accordingly I take him to be. Certain of the unconverted Jews will accept his offer to restore them to their own country; and it appears likewise from the prophecy (what indeed is highly probable in itself), that several members of the kingdom of Ephraim or the ten tribes, now scattered through the east, will be both invited and induced by him to join themselves to his confederacy. Such however is not the way, in which God has decreed to restore the main body of his ancient people. The king shall be utterly overthrown; and many of his Israelitish allies shall perish with him*.

Yet the rest of these misguided wretches, when distress is upon them, will rise early to seek the

This passage can only relate to certain individuals of the kingdom of the ten tribes; for the main body of the ten tribes will be restored after the overthrow of Antichrist, and in consequence of the fugitives from his army being scattered through all countries. Isaiah Ixvi, 15-24,

the

the Lord. They will look upon him whom they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one that mourneth for an only son. They will join their believing brethren, who had been restored by the instrumentality of the great maritime power s and with them will say, Come, and let us return unto the Lord.

To express the political revivification of the house of Israel, Hosea, like Isaiah and Ezekiel, uses the allegory of a resurrection*. After two days God will bring life into them; yea, in the third day he will raise them up, and they shall live in his presence. These three days mean, I appre hend, the three great days of Patriarchism, Judaism, and Christianity; that is, according to the tradition of the house of Elias, the day before the law, the day under the law, and the day of the Messiah. After the two first, and in the evening of the third, immediately before the commencement of the Millennium, the resurrection of the whole house of Israel will take place; first the resurrection of Judah, and afterwards the resurrection of Ephraim. Then the ancient people of God shall know, and pursue after the knowledge of the Lord: for his coming forth is sure as the return of the morning; and he shall abundantly water with his Spirit that

+ "The restoration of the Jewish nation is often described, as "if it were a new life from the dead." Mr. Lowth in loc.

Church, which has long been a waste and desolate wilderness*.

Horrible

Bp. Horsley interprets this passage somewhat differently from what, upon an attentive consideration of it, I have ventured to do: we both however make the period of this figurative resurrection to be the same. "Jehovah, who had departed, "will return; and again exhibit the signs of his presence "among his chosen people. So the converted and restored Jews “wil live in his presence. The two days and the third day seem to denote three distinct periods of the Jewish people. The "first day is the captivity of the ten tribes by the Assyrians, and of the two under the Babylonians, considered as one judgment upon the nation; beginning with the captivity of the ten, "and completed in that of the two. The second day is the

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whole period of the present condition of the Jews, beginning with "the dispersion of the nation with the Romans. The third day "is the period yet to come, beginning with their restoration at "the second advent. R. Tanchum, as he is quoted by Dr. « Pococke, was not far, I think, from the true meaning of the "place. The prophet, he says, points out two times,—and those "are the first captivity, and a second. After which shall follow a

third time; Redemption: after which shall be no depression or servitude. And this I take to be the sense of the prophecy "in immediate application to the Jews. Nevertheless, whoever "is well acquainted with the allegorical style of prophecy, "when he recollects, that our Lord's sufferings were instead "of the sufferings and death of sinners; that we are baptized into his death; and by baptism into his death are buried with with him; and that he, rising on the third day, raised us to "the hope of life and immortality; will easily perceive no very obscure, though but an oblique, allusion to our Lord's "resurrection on the third day since every believer may #speak of our Lord's death and resurrection, as a common

"death

- Horrible indeed have been the spiritual fornis cations both of Judah and Israel; yet, when the Lord shall bring back the captivity of his people, great will be the harvest-work appointed for Judah*. While

* death and resurrection of all believers." Bp. Horsley in loc.

My objection to his Lordship's interpretation is this: the Jews indeed have gone into two captivities, which might in some sort be termed two days; but the ten tribes have gone only into one from which they have never yet returned. Now, since the prophet directs us jointly to consider the captivity both of Judah and Israel, are we warranted in dividing the unbroken captivity of Israel into two days, merely because Judah has twice been led away captive?

*« Harvest-work is cut out for Judah at the season of bringing back the captivity. The tribe of Judah is in some extraordinary way to be an instrument of the general restoration "of the Jewish people" (Bp. Horsley in loc.). The Bishop adds, what I cannot refrain from esteeming rather too sweeping a clause, " Observe, that the vintage is always an image of the

season of judgment; but the harvest, of the in-gathering of the "objects of God's final mercy. I am not aware, that a single "unexceptionable instance is to be found, in which the harvest

is a type of judgment. In Rev. xiv. 15, 16. the sickle is "thrust into the ripe harvest, and the earth is reaped; that is,

the elect are gathered from the four winds of heaven: the wheat of God is gathered into his barn (Matt. xiii. 30.). "After this reaping of the earth, the sickle is applied to the

clusters of the vine; and they are cast into the great wine-press of the wrath of God (Rev. xiv. 18, 19, 20.): this is judgment. “In Joel iii. 13. the ripe harvest is the harvest of the vine, that "is the grapes fit for gathering, as appears by the context. In Jerem. li. 33. the act of threshing the corn upon the floor, not **the harvest, is the image of judgment. It is true, the burning

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While he shall be made, on the one hand, a sharp threshing instrument having teeth to thresh the mountains

of the tares in our Saviour's parable (Matt. xiii.) is a work of ❝ judgment, and of the time of harvest, previous to the binding up of the sheaves. But it is an incidental adjunct of the "business, not the harvest itself. I believe the harvest is never primarily, and in itself, an image of vengeance."

Notwithstanding the deserved high authority of Bp. Horsley, I still rest in my former opinion, that the apocalyptic harvest is a harvest of judgment, not of mercy (see my Dissert. on the 1260 years, Vol. II. p. 312, 313. 2d edit. p. 345–348); in which I am supported by Bp. Newton, Lowman, Bengelius, Doddridge, and particularly Mede, who has elaborately and minutely discussed the point, He observes that the idea of a harvest includes three things; the reaping of the corn, the gathering of it in, and the threshing of it: whence it is made a type in Scripture of two direct opposites; of destruction, when the reaping and the threshing are considered; of restitution and salvation, when the in-gathering is considered (Mede's Works B. III. p, 520). Bp. Horsley separates the threshing from the harvest in Jerem. li. 33; allowing that the threshing denotes judgment, but denying that the harvest has ever such a signification. I cannot think, that the text in question warrants this separation. "The "daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor, it is time to "thresh her; yet a little while, and the time of her harvest "shall come," Here. the time of her harvest seems manifestly to be used as synonymous with the threshing of her; and, if this be the case, her harvest must be a harvest of wrath. Or, if we deny that they are synonymous, and separate them from each other, shall be authorized by the plain import of the text to say, that the threshing of Babylon denotes indeed a signal judgment about to befall her; but that her harvest, which in a little while is coming, means some signal mercy about to be vouchsafed to her? Does not the text, on the contrary, force us to think with

Mede