Another subject is the restoration of the Jews to their own land. The calm and judicious W. Lowth, in a day when nothing but the force of scripture influenced him, could not withhold assent from the directness of the testimonies to this. I shall advert merely to some testimonies respecting this point, scattered through all scripture, as it appears to me, and resting on the whole plan of God's dispensed purposes. Zechariah prophesied after the restoration from Babylon. Let the promises in chapter 10 be weighed, in which He declares that He will bring Judah and Ephraim again to place them, and break down the pride of Assyria, &c. This evidently must refer to some period to come, nor can any figurative interpretation of it be given which the language does not repel.
We may remark, also, the special promises in Hosea to Ephraim or Israel as distinct from Judah—promises never yet fulfilled. But let us hear Amos: “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt. And I, will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord thy God.” It is manifest that nothing can meet this promise but a restoration not yet fulfilled.
So Zeph. 3:1414Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. (Zephaniah 3:14), “Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. Thee Lord hath taken away thy judgments, he hath cast out thine enemy; the King of Israel, even the Lord, is in the midst of thee: thou shalt not see evil any more. In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear then not: and to Zion, Let not thine hands be slack. The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing. I will gather them that are sorrowful for the solemn assembly, who are of thee, to whom the reproach of it was a burden. Behold, at that time I will undo all that afflict thee: and I will save her that halteth, and gather her that was driven out; and I will get them praise and fame in every land where they have been pat to shame. At that tithe will I bring you again, even in the time that I gather you; for I will make you a name and a praise among all people of the earth, when I turn back your captivity before your eyes; saith the Lord.”
Ezek. 34:2727And the tree of the field shall yield her fruit, and the earth shall yield her increase, and they shall be safe in their land, and shall know that I am the Lord, when I have broken the bands of their yoke, and delivered them out of the hand of those that served themselves of them. (Ezekiel 34:27), and Isa. 49 are not less strong; but I refrain from commenting on them, as they would lead to general inquiry and interpretation. And my own conviction is, that the return of Judah was but for the accomplishment of the promises relative to our Lord's first coming; and that, in the broad sense, Israel has been in captivity from Babylon until now: this, however, I do not press. Doubt has been started, on this subject, whether Israel was not corporately restored with Judah. The onus probandi evidently rests with those who say it was. But the Lord seems carefully to have secured the negative by the repeated use of Benjamin and Judah, as those specifically who were the restored people. The only ground, which is alleged directly to this point, is Ezra 2:5959And these were they which went up from Tel-melah, Tel-harsa, Cherub, Addan, and Immer: but they could not show their father's house, and their seed, whether they were of Israel: (Ezra 2:59): “And these were they which went up from Tel-melah, Tel-harsa, Cherub, Addan, and Immer: but they could not show their father's house, and their seed, whether they were of Israel.”
As to Anna the prophetess, and many other passages adverted to, none prove—many go to disprove—the corporate restoration of Israel to their own land. Their individual junction to the tribes of Judah and Benjamin goes as nothing to prove their corporate geographical restoration, but the contrary. If, therefore, there be any promises to this effect, they remain to be fulfilled. In fact, this was nothing more than happened to them in the days of Hezekiah, and related to religions fidelity, not temporal restoration by God; and so throughout. The passages may be found in Prideaux, under the proper date. This, however, is merely a collateral point, though I think a plain one. If there be a direct testimony that Israel shall be planted again in their own land, and never plucked up, it is plain it has never been fulfilled. The more the extended prophecies on this subject are considered, the more it will be found connected with the promises of God in the latter day as regards the blessings of the church, and the circumstances which attend it.
Nor, indeed, is it apparent how the former verses of Deut. 30 can be fulfilled without it, nor without the excision of the Gentiles as a body, which is another inquiry we would make. Is there not a time of the Gentiles which is to be fulfilled, when blindness will depart from Israel? and is there not then in this chapter an explicit promise of their restoration? But is it not expressly stated, as Paul left it in conditional assertion, that the Gentiles would be cut off, when God would plead against all nations? Is not the apostacy of the Gentile profession as plainly stated as possible, and its consequences? Men may say that this applies to Popery; but it is called “the vine of the earth,” a figure well known in scripture, as importing the dispensation of the church generally. And the unclean spirits, who are to gather the kings of the earth, do not gather them against the Lamb by the instrumentality of Popery only, but by the love of power and Atheism. Popery is statedly merely one of those principles which are to be the instruments of bringing men to judgment.
“They answered and said unto him Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.” If these things be so, there will be a direct manifestation of Christ, of the judicial power of the Lamb, quite distinct from any of the present expectations of those who reject the study of prophecy. When John saw heaven opened and beheld a white horse, and He that sat upon him called Faithful and True, and in righteousness doth He judge and make war—when he saw the person and glory of the Word of God, it was the revelation of something wholly different from the secret operations of the Spirit of God; and it was something characteristically different from previous providential judgments. There had been hail, and thunder, and lightning, and earthquakes; but this was a manifestation of Him (who had been long hid behind instruments, Who had governed the world as one that suffered apparently His church to grow up and spring he knew not how) because the harvest of the earth was ripe. The ordained government of the earth and the operation of the Spirit of God Was that by which He has ruled the church hitherto; therefore it was a suffering church. Now He was Himself manifested in His power, and therefore the church became triumphant.
No one can read the Revelation without perceiving the intended contrast, so to call it, nor other prophecies without seeing how the whole system of God's dispensations arrange themselves round this great fact. The Son manifested to tread the winepress of wrath is not the Spirit subduing willing souls by the gospel. The operation, everywhere given, of the gospel, is the gathering out of souls before the wrath come, nor is there a testimony, nor the revelation, of the universal spread of the knowledge of the Lord, as far as my recollection serves me, which is not directly accompanied by, or rather conversant about, the judgments of an adverse power, or the declaration of the special blessings to the house of Israel, whose receiving shall be as life from the dead. I would here just shortly refer to Psa. 72; 108 and the consecutive psalms from 91-100. To those who may be interested in the inquiry, Mal. 2:33Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; and one shall take you away with it. (Malachi 2:3) may also be consulted, and they may recur again to the prophecy of the stone cut out without hands, and Dan. 7.
There are many passages more fully opening the subject, but perhaps not so strongly leading a previously unconvinced mind as these. It would have been my own delight (oh, how much more so!) to have rather followed, in inquiry, the opening of scripture as to the ways and promises of God as our God. O high and holy place! utterly unworthy we to have it, enjoying the confidence, because the mercy, of Him who hath called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. I mean not of myself, but with the brethren in the Lord. But they have forced upon me the necessity of other inquiries.
In the suggestions I have made to them, I have only put the questions in the broadest terms, on which scripture throws a glare of light, which, as far as I can see, cannot be struggled with, if we pursue our common attainments, walking by the same rule, and minding the same thing; if in anything we be differently minded, God will reveal this also unto us. Let, me beseech the brethren to be thus minded. Let me beseech those who yet stand out against these truths to inquire for themselves, to lay them to heart, to submit themselves to the word; not to throw scorn (I pray them to forgive me for thus speaking)—on any part orate testimony of God before they have inquired the purpose of it and their own concern in it. Are they not every way debtors to do this? Let those whose minds are open pursue, with humble desire, inquiry into the Lord's mind. We are surely all interested in knowing that. Let us pursue it as learners in the fear of God, not as speculators; as those who see that God is great in His glory and righteous in His judgments, and one that judgeth the earth and holdeth the waters in the hollow of His hand. The Lord has revealed, much, all that man can comprehend; and it belongs to us and to our children, that we may keep the sayings of His book. There are those, doubtless, who will please themselves, and not seek the church's good; but such shall bear the burden, whoever they be. In many things we all offend. I pray God to give His grace to bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. O blessed time, when the church should care one for another, as fellow-sufferers or fellow-heirs, as He did, Who needed none of their sympathy or had but little of it when needed, and Who knew no want, no necessity but the necessity of love. May we be found laboring in this spirit when He shall return! Oh, may His people be perfected in Him, one and all! His grace and the knowledge of His glory be with them in every place. And to Him be praise and dominion and glory according to His Father's will. Amen.
J. N. D.
(Concluded from p. 288.)