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mountains like chaff; while he shall arise and thresh

Mede, that the threshing is considered as a part of the harvest and that they both alike typify God's vengeance upon Babylon? But, however this may be, there is another passage, in which both the reaping and the in-gathering of the harvest are de cidedly used to symbolize an act, not of mercy, but of judgment, Speaking of the dispersion of the whole house of Israel, and of the very small remnant that should be left in the land, Isaiah uses the allegory both of the harvest, and of the conclusion of the vintage and olive-season. "In that day it shall come to 46 pass, that the glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the "fatness of his flesh shall wax lean: and it shall be, as when "the harvest man gathereth the corn, and his arm reapeth "the ears; and it shall be, as he that gathereth ears in the "valley of Rephaim. Yet gleaning grapes shall be left in it, "as the shaking of an olive-tree, two or three berries in the top "of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outmost branches "of its fruitfulness” (Isaiah xvii. 4, 5, 6). In what his Lord, ship says respecting the harvest mentioned by Joel, I believe him to be perfectly right: that harvest is plainly a harvest of grapes, not of corn; and the vintage of Joel undoubtedly relates to the same period as the vintage of the Apocalypse: they both equally typify the overthrow of the Antichristian confederacy.

Thus, I think, it appears, that a harvest symbolizes the two opposites of judgment and mercy. How we are to understand it in any particular passage, must be determined by the context. Now the context of the apocalyptic harvest seems to me most definitely to teach us, that a harvest of judgment is intended. Throughout the whole book of Revelation, with the exception of a few places which sufficiently explain themselves (such as Rev. xx. 8, 9, 11-and xxi, 1, 24.) the earth is used as a symbol of the Roman empire pagun and papal. Upon this earth all the vials of God's wrath are poured out, whatever subsequent distinction may be made in their effusion (Rev. xyi, 1.). It is the

thresh the enemies of the Lord with a horn of iron, and

vine of this earth that is to be gathered, when her grapes are fully ripe and it is the ripe harvest of this self-same earth that is to be reaped, when the time for reaping is come (Read aftentively Rev, xiv. 14-20). Here we may note, that it is not, as in our Lord's parable (Matt. xiii. 24, 38), said to be the harvest of a field, which is afterwards formally explained to mean the world: but, as the sickle is thrust into the earth to gather the vine of the earth, so is the sickle likewise thrust into the earth to reap the harvest of the earth. If then the earth mean the Roman empire in the case of the vintage, which cannot reasonably be doubted, since those that are cast into the wine-press are the Roman beast, the false prophet, and the kings of that same earth, and since (according to the acknowledged principles of symbolical imagery) the vine of the earth must denote the corrupt church of the mystic Babylon, whose abominations, whose ripe clusters of iniquity, will eventually occasion. the ruin of its supporter the secular beast (Dan. vii. 11.) if, I say, the earth mean the Roman empire in the case of the vintage, must we not cons clude, from the almost studied similarity of phraseology used by the prophet, that the earth means likewise, the Roman empire in the case of the harvest? And, if this be allowed, what idea can we annex to a reaping of the harvest of the Roman empire, which, like the grapes of that same empire, is declared to be ripe, except an idea of some tremendous judgment that should precede the vintage and more or less affect the whole empire? In such an opinion also we shall be the more confirmed by finding, that a judgment about to befall Babylon, the constant apocalyptic type of the Roman church and empire, is by Jeremiah expressly termed a harvest. This difference indeed there is between the two prophets, that Jeremiah dwells upon the third part of the harvest, the threshing; while St. John selects the imagery of the first part, the reaping: yet I cannot but think, that the context of both passages sufficiently shews, that a harvest of judgment,

not

and with hoofs of brass*: he shall, on the other hand, become in an eminent manner the seed of

not of mercy, is intended. The apocalyptic harvest, by being confined to the earth or the Roman empire, cannot denote either the general in-gathering of Judah and Israel, or the universal in-flux of all nations to the Millennian church: and since, like the vintage, it is exclusively confined to the idolatrous and persecuting Roman empire, since in both cases the sickle is equally thrust into this empire; I feel myself compelled to conclude, that, like the vintage, it denotes some signal judgment. This judgment. I have supposed to be the first part of the third woe; a woe, which must be expected to mark a period in history no less striking than the successive founding of the Saracenic and Turkish empires; a woe, which is ushered in by an event no less singular than definite, the fall of a tenth part of the great Roman city or of one of the ten original Gothico-Roman kingdoms by an earthquake. This judgment in short I have supposed to be the horrors of the French revolution, commencing on the 12th of August 1792, and ushered in by the fall of the monarchy both arbitrary and limited which at that time was the only one that remained of all the ten original kingdoms; a revolution, which in its consequences, or (to adopt the prophetic phraseology) during the reaping of the harvest of the earth, has been felt to the remotest parts of the Roman empire: and as yet I have seen no reason to alter my opinion.

To return from this not unnecessary digression: the harvestwork, appointed for Judah, may be either of mercy or of judgment, .perhaps of both. At least we find, that, as Judah will probably be made an instrument of turning many to righteousness, so he will likewise be made a sharp threshing instrument to thresh all the enemies of God. His harvest-work will be double and op-posite. It will consist both of an in-gathering of the good, and of a threshing of the wicked even with hoofs of brass.

* Isaiah xli. 45—Micab iv. 13-See also Zechar. xii. 2—6.

the

the Church, and shall be peculiarly instrumental in gathering the great harvest of God's elect into the granary of the millennian church.

PROPHECY XXIX.

The successive restoration of Judah and Israel.

Hosea xi. 8. How shall I give thee up, O Ephraim; abandon thee, O Israel? How shall I make thee as Admah; place thee in the condi tion of Zeboim? My heart is turned upon me; my bowels yearn altogether. 9. I will not execute the fury of mine anger; I will not return to make destruction of Ephraim. For God I am, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee, although I am no frequenter of cities t. 10. They shall walk after the Lord.

*

* I will not return.] "When I come a second time, it will "not be to destroy. An indirect promise of coming again, not "for judgment, but for mercy." Bp. Horsley in loc. + I am no frequenter of cities.] "Dwelling with thee, but "in a peculiar and extraordinary manner, net after the man"ner of men. I am no frequenter of cities in general." Bp. Horsley in loc.

Like a lion he shall roar*: verily he himself shall roar; and children shall hurry † from the

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west.

* Like a lion he shall roar.] I fully agree with Bp: Horsley, that the prophet speaks of two distinct successive roarings of the Lord and that, as the first roaring brings, children from the west, so the second brings them from Egypt and Assyria. But I cannot think, that the one relates to the first advent of our Lord and the conversion of the Gentiles; and the other, contradis tinctively to his second advent and the conversion of the natural Israel. When Hosea is predicting that the whole house of Israel shall walk with the Lord, it seems both unnatural and unnecessary to suppose that he suddenly digresses to the con version of the Gentiles at the first advent. And, when we find it repeatedly declared by the prophets, that the house of Israel shall be restored in two grand divisions, first the house of Judah from the west, and afterwards the house of Joseph from the east and the north; I cannot but think it most natural, and most consonant with the tenor of the present prediction, to apply the two roarings with their respective effects to the two-fold and successive restoration of the whole house of Israel.

↑ Children shall hurry.] Bp. Horsley argues, that, since the expression is neither their children nor my children, but simply children, the natural Israel is thereby excluded, and the Gentile converts at the first advent are pointed out, as those that hurried from the west. This argument seems to me to destroy itself by proving too much. Some children of the same family, that hurry from the west, hurry likewise from Egypt and Assyria: for to whom can the they, which is the subject to the second verb shall hurry, relate, except the children, which is the subject to the first verb shall hurry? Children then equally hurry from the west at the first roaring, and from Egypt and Assyria at the second roaring. But, if children simply cannot mean the natural Israel in one case, neither can they mean the natural Israel in the other case. His Lordship however maintains, that they

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