the Latin and Greek churches, not to enumerate other denominations-all zealous to make it their "holy place?" and so it will continue in their estimation, till the nations are again gathered for their final attack on it.

But though in God's gracious purpose, that guilty city is yet to be forgiven and restored to His favour, how different the language concerning her to the strains of joy and praise, in which the Zion of the Holy One of Israel is spoken of. To the former it is said, "Thy birth and thy nativity are of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother a Hittite, and then reminding her of all the divine pity and love of which she had been the object, but proved so unworthy, exceeding in guilt the iniquity of her sisters Sodom and Samaria, her restoration is coupled with theirs: "When I shall bring again their captivity, the captivity of Sodom and her daughters, and the captivity of Samaria and her daughters, then will I bring again the captivity of thy captives in the midst of thee . . . but not by thy covenant.. I will establish my covenant with thee, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord."* How different such reproofs from the notes of gladness and exultation, in which the restoration of Zion is always spoken of, or the tone of tenderness in which she is addressed, when she complains that she had been forsaken and forgotten of her Lord. (Isa. xlix. 13-23.) But neither in that Scripture nor in any other, though her sorrows and afflictions are often dwelt on, is the same language of severity and rebuke addressed to her, as to "Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children."

A heavenly as well as an earthly character attaches to Zion. As distinct as is the "heavenly Jerusalem " from the former metropolis of Judea, so distinct is "the Zion of the Holy One of Israel," from the hill of Jerusalem that bore that name; though eventually both the hill and its earthly city will reflect the glory radiating from Mount Sion, and the inhabitants thereof be made partakers of all the essential spiritual blessings of the citizens of "the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God;" unto which the children of faith, the Church of the firstborn, are said even now to have come,t however the manifesta

tion of their true standing and glory waits the time and circumstances foreshown to the beloved disciple, when "carried away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, he saw that great city, the holy Jerusalem descending out of heaven from God."* He had before seen the same heavenly company, “the Bride, the Lamb's wife," as a "first fruits unto God and the Lamb," stand with Him on the Mount Sion;"† the mountain which we have identified with that seen also in vision by Ezekiel, "a very high mountain," the top of which and the whole limit thereof round about was most holy; for over it, heaven will be opened, and its holy inhabitants be revealed in glory with their Lord as at the Transfiguration; not a mere transient scene as then, but to rule and reign with Him in Mount Sion, established as the centre of His government on earth. The heavenly city which will crown it, will then bear the same relation to the earthly Jerusalem and its hill of Zion, as did "the holy place," accessible only to the priests, to the outer court of the temple. She descends out of heaven, the antitypical "holy of holies," into which Jesus has entered to appear in the presence of GOD for us; and, associated with Him in the exercise of His royal priesthood, the saints will minister to the blessing of men below, more especially to penitent Judah and the children of Israel his companions, to whom supremacy in the earth will then be given, that they may bring the nations to the knowledge of the Lord and under the sceptre of His righteous

ness.

The argument in favour of the locality we have here pointed out as that of the city and sanctuary, where the glory of the Lord is to be manifested, is further strengthened by a remarkable passage in the prophecy of Zechariah, chap. ix: "The burden of the word of the Lord in the land of Haderech (the way); and Damascus shall be His offering (minkhatho, see marginal reading of Hebrew Bible) when the eyes of men, as of all the tribes of Israel, shall be toward the Lord," i.e., beholding His glory as of old, when "all the people saw the cloudy pillar stand at the tabernacle door, and rose up and worshipped, every man in his tent door." Such again will be the scene, but on a vaster * Rev. xx. 9, 10. † Rev. xiv. 1-5. + Exodus xxxiii. 10.

scale and in far exceeding splendour, when, in the rich verdant plains extending for forty miles between Mount Hermon, whence flow the streams that gladden those plains, and Damascus (which, from the above Scripture, appears to be included in the portion of the land offered unto the Lord,) all nations shall come up to the mountain of the Lord's house to worship the Lord of hosts; for "out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem," then responsive to His call and re-echoing that word to the ends of the earth, the great missionaries or apostles of the age to

come.

Interpreting thus the prophecies of the Old Testament by the light of the New, and bearing in mind the twofold character of Zion-the one as high above the other in its glorious and heavenly aspect, as "Sion which is Mount Hermon," is elevated high above the hill of Zion (the former 10,000, the latter only 700 feet above the level of the sea); we are able to understand much in the Scriptures, which would otherwise appear contradictory; but keeping in view the distinction to which we have called attention, we find no difficulty in harmonising the testimony of apostles and prophets concerning "the holy mount;" the meeting place, as it were, between heaven and earth, as prefigured in the vision of the patriarch, when "he beheld a ladder set up on earth, and the top of it reached to heaven, the angels of God ascending and descending on it." Then will the saints of the heavenlies, "Israelites indeed," who "have kept the charge of the Lord and went not astray when the children of Israel went astray, as the Levites went astray,† minister in the sanctuary of the Lord on the holy mount; and none other have access to it, as so distinctly foreshadowed in the scene of the Transfiguration, where Moses and Elias, representatives of the risen Church, alone entered into the glory with the Lord; whilst the apostles, though eye-witnesses of it, entered not therein, typifying in this scene, as men still in the flesh, Millennial Israel, in the day when the Lord's glory shall be revealed-worshipping in that mountain, but not associated with Him and the Church of the first-born in that glory on it, nor able "to sing

Is. ii. 3; Micah iv. 2. † Ezekiel xlviii, 11.

...

the new song as these "redeemed from the earth "-neither can they "follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth," their privilege alone who have followed him here, and whom He has constituted His witnesses to the nations, to take out of them a people for His name. The glorious mission entrusted to them, promulgated from the same "holy mount," where He had been acknowledged and glorified by the Father; for we read, "Then, as they came down from that mountain (which we have shown to be 'Mount Sion' which is Hermon,) Jesus charged them, saying, Tell this vision to no man, until the Son of Man is risen from the dead;" and immediately after His resurrection, the angel of the Lord, comforting the hearts of the women with the glad tidings, bids them, "Go quickly, and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead; and behold He goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see Him. . . Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them." Can there be any doubt but that it was that same mountain in Galilee, where he had been transfigured before them, charging them to keep the vision secret till after His resurrection? And there, on the mountain He had appointed, He gave them the Gospel commission: so truly and literally did He there, on Mount Hermon. the Mount of Transfiguration, "command the blessing, even life for evermore;" for is not the Gospel of Christ which they were commanded to preach to all nations, "the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth?" The full results of that salvation will however only be manifested when His saints, "gathered in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, § will, in resurrection power and glory, be the channels of blessing to a renovated earth: : even as the dews of Hermon renew the face of the land, so shall streams of blessing from Sion, our mountain, (the centre of heavenly glory manifested on earth,) descend on the long barren mountains of Zion, transforming its wilderness, and causing it to blossom as the rose: the physical beauty of the restored land, an

*Matt. xvii. 9; Mark ix. 9.
+ Matt. xxviii. 7, 10, 16.

em

+ Ps. cxxxiii, 3. § Eph. iv. 13.

blem of the glorious spiritual change of her people, when "the vail that is upon their heart shall be taken away,' and the once blind disciples of Moses shall acknowledge that all the types and shadows of the law have been fulfilled through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all," and that "there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins:"t a statement so plain and positive, as to forbid the thought of any restoration of sacrifices acceptable to God, even though only commemorative. He that made the heart of man, knows how prone it is to substitute the visible and tangible for the real and unseen, as evidenced by the practice of the greater part of Christendom, interpreting the figurative language of our Lord to signify a "real presence" and "a propitiatory sacrifice," requiring priestly hands to offer it.

If any inquire, What then is the instruction to be derived from the elaborate details of Ezekiel's vision concerning the temple and its sacrifices? we would point to the profit and edification the Church of God derives from the minute details of the Tabernacle, and the offerings and sacrifices under the Mosaic economy, opening up to us the riches of Divine wisdom, grace, and love, as unfolded through them, in the Person, work, and offices of our glorious Immanuel, as Prophet, Priest, and King; the Light of the world, the Bread of Life, the Mercy-seat, the Laver of regeneration, the Victim and altar; Son of Man, and Son of God-the Sum and Substance of all perfection, human and Divine. In like manner, will the restored of Israel, "beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord," learn under the teaching of the Spirit, from Ezekiel's details of a temple and sacrifices on so vastly larger a scale than those in Jerusalem of old, the fuller and universal scope of the blessings of which they will themselves be the appointed ministers, to gather in the great harvest of the earth, as the Lord's witnesses, in this dispensation, have been to gather a first-fruits unto Him. Called to so glorious a ministry, proclaiming every where "the fulness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ," we cannot admit the thought that they will again be subjected to ordinances even more burdensome than "the yoke which neither they nor their fathers were able to

66

* 2 Cor, iii, 14-16. † Heb. x. 11-26.

bear." But whilst enjoying so honoured a position in the Levitical service of the Lord's house, they will acknowledge the justice of the divine plan that excludes them from the higher priestly privileges of the sons of Zadoc, the Righteous One, "Jehovah-Tsidkenu," the Lord our Righteousness. And though precluded from the glories of the heavenly Sanctuary on Mount Sion, yet guarded and watched over by their risen and glorified priesthood there, they will see in them and in “the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel," inscribed on the gates of that holy city, the pledge and evidence of their own eventual participation in that glory, and of Jehovah's unchangeable love to the people He had separated unto Himself to be "His glory," and a peculiar treasure unto Him above all people. "Wonderful in counsel and excellent in working!" when rejected of His own to whom he came, Judah's unbelief issues in the restoration of the far larger portion of the people, beloved for the fathers' sakes, so long cast out among the Gentiles, but now "caused to inherit them,"t and take out of them a people to be fellow-heirs with themselves of the blessings of the new covenant and the glories of the " Jerusalem which is above." For though "the scornful men that ruled in Jerusalem " set Him at nought,-even "the stout hearted that are far from righteousness," yet did the Lord declare, "I bring near my righteousness, it shall not be far off, and My salvation shall not tarry; and I will place salvation in Zion for Israel My glory." Therefore, when His own estimated Him at thirty pieces of silver, the Shepherd of Israel,

cutting asunder His staff Bands, that He might break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel,"§ sent the word of reconciliation after the latter; proclaiming at the same time the message of salvation to the people that had cast down Judah, destroying their city and temple: "For thus saith the Lord of hosts, After the glory hath He sent me unto the nations that spoiled you" the prophecy then reaching forward to the time when Sion's King shall come and dwell in the midst of her-the same period as spoken of in the visions of Ezekiel and St. John; the clearer statements of the apostle

concerning Mount Sion and the heavenly Jerusalem enabling us to apprehend the obscurer details of the former, respecting that same mountain of the height of Israel, and its heavenly Sanctuary and the outer court thereof,-linking in a chain of blessing the heavens and the earth; and, while giving to the restored of Israel out of all her tribes, the pre-eminence promised them on earth under the rule of David their king, justifying at the same time, the Spirittaught praises of "the Israel of God" when contemplating the blessings and glories of Zion as their own proper portion, and "Jerusalem the golden, the home of God's elect," as their heavenly inheritance.

March 12th.

ZETA.

HAVE THE JEWS FULFILLED THEIR TRUST?

for ever? Were not the holy prophecies exactly fulfilled in Christ Jesus, though not yet consummated? How was it then that Israel was blinded to the highest honour ever vouchsafed to a nation? Were they judicially blinded, whilst, at the same time, divine wisdom over-ruled that blindness for the confirmation of the Christian faith? unanswerably proving the genuineness of those prophecies, (the fulfilment of) which forced belief from the all-powerful kingdoms of the Gentile world, who would not willingly have received their faith from a then despised and persecuted people, had they proclaimed that fulfilment; but might probably have doubted the authenticity of the prophecies, or charged the Jews with having forged an after-history of what had occurred (so exact was the delineated history, in those prophecies, of what should occur). The authenticity of the Holy Scriptures is not now denied, but infidelity is seeking to invalidate their divine origin and inspiration, and treating them as Jewish myths. Will the Jews make common cause with infidels, who so consider them? What use was it preserving the trust deeds if they are unfaithful to the trust? but, as the test of the true prophet was the fulfilment of his prophecies, so the only way to vindicate the inspiration of the holy prophecies must be by the acknowledgment of the fulfilment of them; and will the Jews rather yield up the divine trust reposed in them rather than search, with earnest prayer for enlightenment, into the evidence offered of the fulfilment of prophecy, and (if convinced that they have erred in blindness) stand forth as the best defenders of God's Holy Scriptures. The wonderful (might I not say, miraculous) blindness to their unparalleled honour, which, perhaps, in early ages, promoted the spread of the Christian faith, founded on the fulfilment of divine prophecy, would now (if removed) have the like effect in vindicating the divine inspiration of those prophecies. The testimony of the Jews would be unimpeachable now, which in the early ages would have been impeached, and I would appeal to the chosen race, whether there be not now a solemn call to them from God to stand forth" on the Lord's side."

DEAR SIR-Would you allow me to state a case of conscience for impartial consideration? If a solemn trust be committed to the guardianship of trustees, is it not as incumbent upon those trustees to fulfil the conditions of the trust, as to preserve the trust deeds? If so, have the Jews, to whose custody were committed "the Law and the Prophets," fulfilled the trust reposed in them by Almighty God? They have faithfully preserved the trust deeds, but have they carried out the conditions of that sacred trust? Were not the Law and the Prophecies designed to prepare the way for the recognition of the "Desire of all nations," the Redeemer of a lost race, when He appeared? Did they not prefigure and foreshow that the Divine Messiah should be born of a Jewish virgin; should suffer as despised and rejected of men, before entering into His glory; should prove by miracles His divine mission, and by His calm, quiet dignity of character (with no form or comeliness of outward grandeur) that it was "He who should come" to destroy the power of Satan, overcome death, and re-open Paradise for all the rebellious race of man, on their submission to, and renewed fealty to God, in Him,and rule, not only over the house of Jacob, of which people he condescended to take His human nature, but over all God's redeemed and regenerated people

曰:

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