rage of Satan when judgment, beginning at the house of God, shall involve in its progress the whole world in one universal tribulation, unparalleled up to that time, and so dire, that except those days be shortened no flesh should escape; but, for the elect's sake, those days shall be shortened. (Matt. xxiv. ; Mark xiii.; Luke xxi.; Dan. xii.)

At this time it is proclaimed from heaven, "Woe to the inhabitants of the earth; for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time" (Rev. xii. 12). And all his rage is directed against the church he is "wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ" (ver. 17). By what power shall this extremest rage of Satan be resisted, but by the Almighty power of the Holy Spirit in the church? In the power of God the church shall prevail; but she must know both her need, and the promise of help, that she may plead the promises, and lay hold on everlasting strength; that she may find God to be her refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. (Psalm xlvi.)

And if judgment must begin at the house of God, what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God; and if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? (1 Pet. iv. 17.) Very, very fearful indeed, is the doom now ready to fall upon the unbelieving and the impenitent; dreadful, infinitely more dreadful, to them will be the day of the Lord which is approaching. The church will have to bear the fiercest onsets of Satan in all his rage, but she hath the Almighty God for her strength and her shield; and when God hath been glorified by her, in her overcoming Satan, and keeping the works of Jesus unto the end, she shall be removed by translation from the midst of the tribulation, which the unbelievers shall be left to endure. These fearful and unbelieving, who by terror or doubt have given Satan an advantage, and resist not his power and his will, shall find, when too late, that they are not only involved in all the tribulation to which the church shall be exposed, but to its tenfold aggravation when the church shall be translated, and the world be left to the unresisted, uncontrouled, rage of Satan: and to all these inconceivable horrors shall be added the infinitely surpassing, the eternal anguish of finding the Almighty God their foe; when the terror of Satan in his utmost rage shall be as nothing; and when, in the extremity of despair, they shall call upon the mountains and the rocks, saying, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?" (Rev. vi.)

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Thou Church of the First-born, enrolled in heaven, hold fast

that thou hast ; let no man take thy crown. The Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron (1 Tim. iv.): and that in the perilous times of the last days men shall arise, “having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof” (2 Tim. iii. 5). These enemies of the truth are further characterized as "mockers," who walk after their own ungodly desires. These be they who separate themselves from the ordinances and communion of the church; sensual, or making sense the test of truth; having not the Spirit, and undervaluing the importance of the Holy Ghost in the church. Against all these errors and dangers the presence of the Comforter in the church is the only security. Let the sheep of the good Shepherd know his voice speaking in the midst of them, and implicitly obey whatsoever he commandeth. And all ye who profess the name of Christ, and believe the Scriptures to be the word of God, know ye, that THE FEARFUL AND UNBELIEVING, as well as the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death (Rev. xxi. 8).

Ye company of sealed ones, who have your Father's name of holiness to the Lord written on your foreheads; who follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth; who are redeemed from among men, being the first fruits unto God and to the Lamb (Rev. xiv.); know that by faith "ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels; to the general assembly and church of the first born, which are enrolled in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect" (Heb. xii. 22).

See then that ye turn not away from that voice which speaketh from heaven, and which soon, very soon shall shake, not the earth only, but also the heaven; for the removing of those things which may be shaken, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. We have received a kingdom which cannot be moved. We, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace without spot and blameless: and account the long-suffering of the Lord salvation... Therefore, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness. But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory, both now and for ever. Amen. (2 Pet. iii. 13-18).

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UNACCOMPLISHED PROPHECIES NOW FULFILLING.

NO. VI.

In the last number of the exposition of unaccomplished prophecies now fulfilling, it was said that the word which had been "sent to Jacob, and had lighted on Israel," in Isai. ix. 8, was the word that had come first to the Jewish church, and had passed subsequently on to the Christian; and also, that Ephraim striving with Manasseh, was Protestantism striving with Popery. It was felt that these expressions required more full elucidation, but it was thought better not to interrupt the interpretation of that portion of prophecy, and to devote a separate paper to its consideration.

It has been the custom to consider the terms applied to the Jewish dispensation as used indiscriminately; whereby not only has much pointed application been lost, but several prophecies have been entirely unintelligible. We believe that each term has a distinct and positive signification; that it is never used indefinitely; and that its right understanding is in many cases a complete key to the opening of Scriptures, which are not to be understood by any other.

Jacob and Israel are names which are both used for Christ, personal and mystical; but not indiscriminately. Jacob is Christ personal in the flesh; or mystical, the Jewish church, or the Christian church in a fleshly state. Israel is Christ personal in the Spirit; or mystical, the Christian church, or the Christian church in a spiritual state. Rachel, the favoured spouse, is the Christian church as a whole; while the changes through which it has passed are set forth by her children. She had only two children, Joseph and Benjamin. Joseph represents the firstborn church, as it appeared at Pentecost, and as it continued, with all its richness and largeness of endowment, so long as the Apostles lived; in short, the Apostolic church. But Joseph was sold into Egypt, as the church was sold to honours, learning, dignity, and wealth; and there he begat two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. In like manner, from the church, which went down into mystical Egypt, arose Popery, its first-born, and afterwards Protestantism. Manasseh signifies "forgetfulness," and aptly sets forth in his name the church which forgot its first love, and thence, taking other lovers, committed fornication with the kings of the earth. Ephraim signifies "that brings fruit," representing that something better should arise after it. Rachel's youngest son was Benjamin: he is the type of the church of the latter rain, as Joseph was the type of the church of the former rain: his mother called him the child of " her sorrow," for she died when he was produced, but his father called him the " son of his right hand." So now the Christian church expires when the church

of the latter rain is produced; the church which is the instrument through which the Father will do mighty deeds, make bare his holy arm, and get to himself the victory before all men. Joseph and Benjamin were alone the sons of Rachel: the churches of the former and of the latter rain, of Pentecost and of the present day, are the only churches which have manifested the likeness of their father Israel," the strength of God," he who "wrestled and prevailed."

Ephraim compasseth me about with lies, saith the Lord, and the house of Israel with deceit : but Judah yet ruleth with God, and is faithful with the saints" (Hosea xi. 12). The term Judah is applied to that portion of the church which has retained its allegiance to the coming King, and stands up for the authority of the Kingly rule of Christ on the earth; and to whom a special promise is made.

From what has been observed already, it is evident that the same terms may be used to express opposite states. For example under the term Israel, the Christian church may be censured for having apostatized from that which its name imports-namely, its spiritual standing-and become fleshly again: Ephraim, or Protestantism, may be recognised as the true Israel of God, and yet censured for no longer bearing true witness for him: and these several conditions will be readily determined by the context, and subject of which the Prophet is treating. The two great divisions of the Protestant church in these lands-namely, those who reverence authority and ordinances, and those who pour contempt upon them; commonly called the High Church, and Evangelical parties; each bottoming itself upon the Fathers, and not upon the Lord Jesus Christare set forth under the types of Ammon and Moab. But there are a few in each of these classes who are looking for the reign and coming of the Lord, and who are spoken of by the name of Judah.

The Prophet Hosea has been completely unintelligible from the days of the Apostles to the present time, as we shall presently shew, and must have ever remained so, together with a large portion of the rest of the book of God, unless the Spirit who wrote it had once more condescended to become our teacher. At the end of this book, in Baxter's Bible, there are some general remarks of Bishop Horsley, which shews how little even he could understand the details: amongst other erroneous observations, he says, "Of all the Prophets he certainly enters the least into the detail of the mysteries of redemption: we have nothing in him descriptive of the events between the two advents of the Lord." Now, the time of which the Prophet writes is the time in which we at present live; yet Horsley, knowing nothing of any similar events, was obliged to draw the conclusion that he did whereas the Evangelical school has filched scraps of

texts from this writer, and declared them to be written for the Christian church, whilst it was unable to explain any one chapter upon its own principles. Lowth, after praising the style of Hosea, observes, as quoted by Baxter, "This very circumstance, which anciently was supposed to impart uncommon force and elegance, is, in the present ruinous state of the Hebrew literature, productive of so much obscurity, that, though the general subject of this writer be sufficiently obvious, he is the most difficult and perplexed of all the Prophets. There is, however, another reason for the obscurity of his style....the duration of his ministry must include a very considerable space of time. We have only a small volume of his remaining, which it seems (wherefore?)" contains his principal prophecies; and these are extant in a continued series, without any marks of distinction as to the times in which they were published, or the subjects of which they treat. There is therefore no cause to wonder, if in perusing the prophecies of Hosea we sometimes find ourselves in a similar predicament with those who consulted the scattered leaves of the Sybil." If this learned Bishop had had more faith, and less love of arguing, he would have inferred from the premises he lays down, that the reason why such is the present state of these writings is, that they belong to our times; and that, therefore, the addition of those parts of his prophecies which did not relate exclusively to us, would have only perplexed, without being of the smallest benefit to us. The book called THE BIBLE has come to us with every chapter, verse, and word exactly in the place which God intended it should occupy, in order to be of the greatest service to us, on whom the ends of the world are come." There is as much infidelity in talking about passages being obscure because more is not come down to us, as there is in saying that mere accident has given us any portion at all. Baxter further adds, " Another reason of this obscurity has been assigned by some learned men, who have used very strong language upon the subject,-the supposed corrupt state of the present text;—and abundant corrections have been proposed, some on very slender authority, others purely conjectural." So then, learned men, not being able to understand God's book, have dared to attempt to alter it! Oh the blessing of an Established Church, which has given us an Authorized Version, and saved us from the abundant corrections proposed by learned Their ignorance was excusable; but not their rashness. The book of Hosea relates to the bringing up of the Seed of God out of all the parts into which Christendom has been long and now lies split, and the gathering them into one church. Ephraim, Protestantism, which at the first was animated by the Spirit of God, and in the Reformers did God service against the Papacy, has relapsed into a state of fleshliness worse than

men.

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