nies which are appointed for him and them, thus happily united, to fulfil.

And this man shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land: and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven shepherds, and eight principal men. And they shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof: thus shall he deliver us from the Assyrian, when he cometh into our land, and when he treadeth within our borders" (Micah v. 5, 6).-We have shewn [Interpretation, Nos. III. and IV. vol. i. pp. 332, 592] that the term," the Assyrian," used so often in the prophecy of Isaiah, though doubtless conveying a distinct prediction against the person of Sennacherib, doth in and by him embody all the oppressors of Israel unto the last, and especially the very last of them. This conclusion, which we now take as a thing already demonstrated, is confirmed by these two verses before us, which bring "the Assyrian" into controversy with the Ruler of Israel, after he hath returned unto his brethren, and gathered them out of all the countries whither the Lord had driven them. That this time is come, and that this controversy was fulfilled in the literal Assyrian, no one can say; because when those Assyrian conquerors were in existence the Ruler of Israel was not yet born, and therefore could not be the peace and deliverance of his country in those days. Moreover, the people never returned from under the yoke of that former Assyrian, that they might be in a case to contend with him in their own land. Nor was "the Assyrian even at that time beaten by them; but went on conquering and to conquer. It is not a matter of choice but of necessity, therefore, to understand "the Assyrian," in the passage under consideration, as of some one who is yet to arise, in the providence of God, against the time when the children of Israel are settled in their own land; and from whose grasp they are to be delivered by their Ruler returning to them, as the first-born of many brethren, at the head of the hosts of the redeemed, to deliver the hosts of his people in flesh and blood subsisting; the spiritual Jerusalem coming to the help of the natural; the brethren born after the Spirit coming to the help of those born after the flesh, who heretofore did mock them, but now are glad to be beholden to them for salvation. Those who object to the double interpretation of prophecy, may try what hand they can make of this passage, or the others referred to above, in Interpretations III. and IV., where "the Assyrian" is spoken of. The truth is, that faithful interpretation forceth us to find greater personages, and more important events, than those of ancient Jewish history, in these prophetic chronicles. We must either make the word of God a book of extravagances in language, that is, a book of

falsehoods; or, if we keep it a book of words, every one like silver seven times purified, we must come to the conclusion that something more is couched under these prophecies than meets the ear; and being led by the Spirit in the mouth of Christ and his Apostles, and in the church for continuance, and therefore in me and every other faithful member of Christ, we come at length to discover that the Spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus. And yet hardly doth any thing occur, written in any prophet, which had not a bearing upon the generation to which it was written, and did not receive a typical and a partial fulfilment in events which speedily fell out. Now the typical event by which the fulfilment of this splendid prophecy was foreshadowed, is, if I err not, the marvellous deliverance of Jerusalem out of the hands of Sennacherib, through the faith and piety of Hezekiah, as recorded in 2 Kings xviii.; 2 Chron. xxxii.; and Isai. xxxvi., xxxvii. Hezekiah found the temple of God defiled and his service forsaken, and the people desolate and forsaken of their glory; and, being full of the Spirit of God, he set himself to reform every thing, and did celebrate such a passover as surely there was not the like kept, from the days of the Judges that judged Israel; nor in all the days of the kings of Israel or of the kings of Judah, save in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, wherein the passover was holden to the Lord in Jerusalem (2 Kings xxiii. 22, 23). This piety found him great favour in the sight of God, and was the beginning of that dignity which he holdeth among the royal types of Christ. In this act of accomplishing an unexampled passover upon entering the throne, he represents Christ, our passover accomplished on the cross, at the time of his entering into his kingdom; in his act of delivering the city through his faith and intercession, when, nothing daunted by the message of the Assyrian, he spread it before the Lord, and received through Isaiah the word of the Assyrian's utter destruction, he represents Christ delivering Jerusalem and his people from the Assyrian, in the way which is set forth in the passage before us: and I may add, that in the prolongation of his life, and the sign of the sun's removing backward in his course, is signified the resurrection of Christ, to the end he may shake the heavens and the earth, and establish the world in peace for ever. Now the first invasion of Sennacherib, wherein he did smite all the fenced cities of Judah except Jerusalem, and did insult over Hezekiah, may well represent the Judge of Israel smitten on the cheek, and for a season covered with opprobrium in this world, of which he is the rightful King. For three years did the proud and faithless Assyrian lord it over Hezekiah and his land, exacting dishonourable and grievous tribute; until at length nothing would serve him but the supremacy itself, the possession of Jerusalem, the metropolis of the

whole earth. Then it was that God arose out of his place, and stretched out his hand for the preservation of the name and dignity of his king. All this represents Christ, the true King of the Jews, bearing patiently the oppression of his people and his land; until one come, who, after the manner of the Assyrian, and with the pride of Lucifer the son of the morning, shall insist upon sitting in the mount of the congregation on the sides of the north, shall tread in the holy land, and occupy the palaces of the Great King; and now shall God arise, and avenge his Son upon the great enemy and head of the confederated earth, wound him over many countries, and smite him with more hideous destruction than the world hath ever seen. Such, in general, is the connection between the typical and the ultimate events set forth in this prophecy, and the particulars will come better out as we proceed.

It appears clearly, from the two verses now under consideration, that when the Jews are gathered and restored to their own land, the Assyrian shall come up against them with mighty power, and for a while win the ascendancy over them, even so far as to tread in their palaces; and in the midst of the direful tempest of war, this Man, whom they had smitten and rejected, shall come in as their peace; and, having marshalled the nation under shepherds and princes of men, shall carry the war into the enemy's land, and waste it with the sword, and deliver them out of his hands for ever. This is the fact recorded in the two verses; and they record no other fact, nor can be strained to bear any other interpretation. The fact predicted is, that the invasions and oppressions of the Assyrian shall never cease until He comes whose name is "the Prince of Peace," the Bethlehemite "whose goings forth have been of old, even from everlasting ;" being the same truth which is declared over and over again in the prophecy of Immanuel, which we have interpreted above. (See Isai. viii. 10; ix. 4; and x. 27, 34). The Assyrian, signi fies an invader and oppressor of Israel in their own land; Babylon, signifies the house of their captivity, unto which they are carried out of their own land; and Egypt, the original state of bondage, out of which they were brought to inherit a land of their own. This characteristic feature of the Assyrian, is suffi ciently expressed by these words, "when he shall come into our land, and when he shall tread in our palaces." Now, because Messiah hath not yet come against the Assyrian to destroy him and spoil his land; and because the whole context, both before and after, are of future things; also because the children of Israel have never yet spoiled the land of Nimrod with the sword; we are forced to conclude that this prophecy remaineth to be fulfilled against the day of their restoration. But is there any other ground in the Prophecies for believing that the children of

Israel will be vexed with new invasions, after they have been gathered home again and settled in their own land?

There are two such events prophesied of in Scripture, or they may be two parts of the same event, whereof the former represents the Jews as coming into great calamities through the invasion of the Gentiles, and the latter represents the Gentiles as utterly consumed before Jerusalem. Both these events are strangely mingled together in the ix th, xth, and xiv th chapters of Zechariah; and the latter of them is fully set forth in the xxxviiith and xxxix th chapters of Ezekiel, to which this passage is supposed by the Jewish commentators to refer. It is certain that Gog is there described as "he of whom I have spoken in old time by my servants the prophets of Israel, which prophesied in those days many years, that I would bring thee against them." The same utter destruction of the Gentiles in the valley of Jehoshaphat is described in the iiid chapter of the Prophet Joel; and both the chastisement of Israel, and the judgment of all flesh, are set forth in the last chapter of the Prophet Isaiah; and in all the Psalms which speak of the ultimate preservation of Israel, it issues out of the perilous edge of conflict, and the very article of death. The utmost extremities are endured before the grand and final interference of the Lord Jesus in their behalf: and when they are brought into such a crisis as at the Red Sea, God delivers them "with a high hand, and with an outstretched arm." The reason of this mingled cup, which God gives to his people to drink after the restoration, is, that they acknowledge not the hand of Jesus in their deliverance; but refer it to their Jehovah, as if he were another person; and take up the cause of Jehovah against the name of Jesus; and blaspheme Him who, notwithstanding their blasphemies, is putting forth his power and might to deliver them; because his callings are without repentance, and the time to favour Sion is come. order to chastise this their obduracy of heart, God brings up against them the nations of Christendom, rallied under an infidel head, and lending themselves as heartily, and to their minds as religiously, to oppose these Jewish deniers of the name of Jesus, as heretofore they did to oppose the Mohammedans in the time of the Crusades. I can well conceive all Europe liberalized out of the distinction between Papist and Protestant, and confederated under the consecrated banner of religious liberality, "precipitating itself upon Acra" again, to prevent these ignorant hordes of Jews from coming up in the name of Moses and Jehovah to possess their ancient land. They will come as Jews from their hiding-places, and with fell strokes will they break through the barriers of nations; and more speedy than the Turk will they cut in upon the lines of the civilized and Christian world. Whereupon that wilful king, last mentioned in Daniel, who

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feareth no God, shall, with many nations at his steps, pass over, and overflow, and plant the tabernacle of his palaces in the glorious holy mountain; and there shall he come to his end, and none shall help him: for Michael, the great Prince, shall stand up for the Jewish people; and there shall be between these great potentates, the head of Infidelity leading the nations called Christian, and the Head of the Jews, such direful conflicts as never hath been heard of, nor ever shall be upon the earth again. Thus shall God set unbelief against unbelief in battle, the infidels of the Old Testament against the infidels of the New Testament, both deeming themselves to be believers; and fearful will the conflict be: but it will end in the deliverance of the Jews and of Jerusalem, because the set time to favour Zion is come. And this, which is contained in all the Prophets, as about to be accomplished against the day of Zion's restoration, is the event described in the two verses before us, which are more simple in the general idea than in the details.

The Assyrian, whoever he be, the last enemy of God's people, the wilful king of Daniel (ch. xi.), including also, perhaps, the Gog of Ezekiel, being come into the holy land, doth prevail so mightily as to tread in the palaces of the King, and to trample the glory of the kingdom under foot. "He shall ascend, and come like a storm; he shall be like a cloud to cover the land "(Ezek. xxxviii.) "Jerusalem shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city" (Zech. xiv. 2). Then it is that "this Man shall be the peace;" for, according to the same prophet, "then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle: and his feet shall stand in that day on the Mount of Olives....and the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with thee." From this act of strong interference for his people, and judgment upon their enemies, shall come peace, as it is written in the xlvith Psalm, 8-10: "Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations he hath made in the earth: he maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire. Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth." And so also in the ixth chapter of Zechariah, the King of Zion doth in like manner bring about peace: "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass. And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem, and the battle-bow shall be cut off: and he shall speak peace unto the heathen: and his dominion shall be from sea even to sea, and from the river even to