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"faith the Lord God, I have lifted up mine "hand, Surely the heathen that are about you,

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they fhall bear their fhame. But ye, O moun"tains of Ifrael, ye fhall fhoot forth your "branches, and yield your fruit to my people "of Ifrael; for they are at hand to come." Ver. 7. 8,

SECTION III.

The great Body of the Jewish Nation expelled from their Dwellings by the Perfecution, are gathered together in the Deferts of Curdistan.

THE effect of this perfecution is to expel the Jews from their refidence, in the feveral countries where it rages, to feck fecurity for their lives. By this means, the bulk of the nation is collected together into one place. In that fituation, their condition is deplorable, the fword behind, famine before, nothing but inevitable deftruction in their view. But the defign of this diftrefs in the fecret council of God, is to bring them to a sense of their great national fin, as the brethren of Joseph in Egypt, when threatened with imprisonment and death, were made to cry out, "Verily we are guilty concerning our brother;" to induce them likewife to have re

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courfe to the God of their fathers for deliverance, by fincere and ardent fupplication. So God intimates by the prophet Isaiah, chap. xxvi. 16. "Lord in trouble have they visited thee; "they poured out a prayer when thy chaftening was upon them." And by Hofea, chap. v. 14, "I will be unto Ephraim as a lion, and as a young lion to the house of Judah; I, even "I will tear and go away; I will take away, " and none shall rescue him. I will go and re"turn to my place, till they acknowledge their "offence, and feek my face: in their affliction "they will seek me early." In a word, his defign is to convert them to the Christian faith, and bestow a fpiritual deliverance from infidelity and delufion, as a prelude to a temporal deliverance. So God afferts by the prophet Ezekiel, in the most explicit manner: "As I live, "faith the Lord God, furely with a mighty

hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with "fury poured out, will I rule over you: and I " will bring you out from my people, and will

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gather you out of the countries wherein ye "are fcattered, with a mighty hand, and with "a ftretched out arm, and with fury poured "out. And I will bring you into the wilder"nefs of the people, and there will I plead with you face to face. Like as I pleaded "with your fathers in the wilderness of the

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"land of Egypt, fo will I plead with you, faith "the Lord God. And I will caufe you to "pafs under the rod, and I will bring you in"to the bond of the covenant;" Ezek. xx. 33-37. The prophet reprefents them here, as" gathered from the countries with fury "poured out;-brought into the wilderness;"there made to "pafs under the rod," the correction of their own confcience, convincing of fin; then admitted into the bond of the co"venant;" not that covenant made with their fathers, but a "better covenant, established on "better promises ;" Heb. viii. 6;—That mentioned by the prophet Jeremiah, chap. xxxi. 31-34. "Behold, the days come, faith the Lord, "that I will make a new covenant with the " house of Ifrael, and with the house of Judah; "not according to the covenant that I made "with their fathers, in the day that I took "them by the hand, to bring them out of the "land of Egypt; (which my covenant they "brake, although I was an Husband unto them, "faith the Lord:) But this fhall be the cove"nant that I will make with the house of "Ifrael, After those days, faith the Lord, I "will put my law in their inward parts, and "write it in their hearts; and will be their "God, and they fhall be my people. And "they fhall teach no more every man his

"neighbour,

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"neighbour, and every man his brother, fay" ing, Know the Lord : for they fhall all "know me, from the leaft o. them unto the "greatest of them, faith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember "their fin no more."

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The fame circumftances of bringing them into the wilderness, in confequence of diftrefs, and then converting them, are represented by the Prophet Hofea. "Therefore, behold, I will al"lure (perfuade ') her, and bring her into the "wilderness, and fpeak comfortably unto her. "And I will give her her vineyards from thence, “ and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; "and fhe fhall fing there, as in the days of her "youth, and as in the day when the came up " out

(1) The word patach fignifies in general to perfuade or induce another to do what we defire, whether this is effected by promife or by threatening, by reward or by punishment, whereas the word allure limits the sense to a perfuafion by promife: now the parallel paffage in Ezekiel fhews, that they were gathered by punishment, therefore not allured into the wilderness. The fame fenfe is implied here; for he fays in the next verfe, "I will give "her the valley of Achor," that is of trouble or perturbation," as a door of hope;" fhe therefore comes into the wilderness with perturbation, but God opens then a door of hope, by her converfion, fo that he fpeaks comfortably to her after her arrival in the wildernefs.

"out of the land of Egypt. And it shall be at "that day, faith the Lord, that thou shalt call "me Ifhi, (my husband); and fhalt call me no "more Baali, (my lord).-And I will betroth thee unto me for ever;" Hofea ii. 14, 15, 16. 19. Their converfion is represented by their entering into a marriage-covenant with God. The fame figure is used in the Apocalypfe: "The mar"riage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath "made herself ready;" Rev. xix. 7. The fuperior excellency of the evangelic covenant, to which they are now admitted, beyond the legal, is reprefented. It confifts in giving a nearer access to God, and more familiar converse with him, resembling that of a wife with her husband, not that of a fervant with his master. "Thou fhalt call me Ifhi; thou fhalt call me "no more Baali." So our Lord intimates, "I call you not fervants, but friends." We "have not received the spirit of bondage again "to fear, but the fpirit of adoption, whereby

we cry Abba, Father." We are not come "to mount Sinai, but to mount Zion." That they shall be gathered by perfecution, is intimated by the prophet Jeremiah, "Behold, the

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days come, faith the Lord, that it fhall no "more be faid, the Lord liveth that brought up the children of Ifrael out of the land of

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Egypt; but, the Lord liveth that brought up

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