pired. This conjecture is founded upon à remarkable chronological passage in the book of Daniel. The prophet teaches us, that 75 years will intervene between the expiration of the 1260 years and the commencement of the millennium: and these 75 years he divides, without specifying any reason for such a division, into 30 years and 45 years. What particular event will happen at the era of the division, we undoubtedly cannot determine with any degree of certainty; because Daniel has left it wholly undetermined: but we must conclude, that the point of the division will be marked by some signal event; otherwise how can we rationally account for such a division having been made? Now, when we find, by comparing prophecy with prophecy, that the restoration of Judah will precede the restoration of Israel, and that the restoration of Israel will not even so much as commence till the restoration of at least the main body of Judah * is completed, and till the power of Antichrist is broken: it is at least highly probable, that the 30 years will be occupied in the conversion and restoration of Judah, in the great earthquake or political convulsion that divides the Latin empire into three parts, in the wars of Antichrist with the kings of the north and the south, in his grand expedition against Palestine and Egypt, and in the contemporary naval expedition of the maritime power undertaken for the purpose of bringing back the converted Jews; that the 30 years will close with the complete overthrow of Antiehrist in the valley of Megiddo, an event than which we cannot conceive one better calculated to mark a signal chronological epoch; and that the 45 years will be employed in the wanderings of those who, escaping from the rout of the Antichristian army, will carry every where the tidings of God's supernatural interference, and in the subsequent conversion and restoration of the whole house of Israel. I wish this to be understood only as conjec *It appears from the mention of some countries, into which (according to Isaiah) the fugitives from the Antichristian army will wander, that several scattered Jews will be left behind in Europe both by the maritime power and by Antichrist. These will be converted and hasten to join their brethren, both in consequence of the report of the fugitives, and of their beholding from afar the glory of the Lord manifested over Jerusalem in the awful sign of the Shechinah. See Isaiah Ixvi. 18, 19. ture; for it would be folly to speak positively before the event. When the 45 years shall have expired, when the whole family of Jacob shall have been converted and restored, and when the stick of Judah shall have united itself for ever with the stick of Joseph; then will commence the season of millennian blessedness *. We have reason to suppose, that the ancient people of God, now converted to the faith of Christ, will be greatly instrumental in spreading the glad tidings of the Gospel among the heathen nations, already prepared to receive it by so many supernatural interpositions of Providence, and by beholding with their own eyes the glory of the Lord permanently manifested over Jerusalem. According to the united testimony of many of the prophets, Israel, after his restora * What Mr. Mede has said upon the subject of these numbers is to me altogether unsatisfactory. He dates them from the profanation of the temple by Antiochus Epiphanes, thus making the first number terminate about A. D. 1120, and the second about A. D. 1166; and he refers them altogether to the suspicions, which then began to be entertained by many, that the Pope was Antichrist (See Mede's Works, B. 111. P. 717-724.) But what great blessedness was there in living about the year 1166? Mr. Mede answers, that then the Waldenses began to be persecuted, and the promise to be fulfilled that" blessed are the dead which die in the Lord." Such an answer, I must confess, appears to me little better than a quibble. In fact, it can only be by a very strained construction that we can make these numbers relate to the times when the wise first began to understand. According to the general context of the whole passage, they obviously extend beyond the 1260 years, and reach to the very end of the days, to the commencement of some period of great blessedness. Bp. Newton, much more judiciously than Mr Mede whom he scruples not to pronounce mistaken, connects these numbers with the 1260 years, making their overplus reach beyond them. At the close of the 1290 years, if I mistake not, he places the complete restoration of the Jews, and the destruction of Antichrist: at the close of the 1335 years, the full conversion of the Gentiles, and the beginning of the Millennium. See Dissert. XVII. towards the end. Mr. Wintle, like myself, inclines to prefer Bp. Newton's opinion to that of Mr. Mede. See Note on Dan. xii. 11. See also Mr Lowth in loc. Mr. Fleming's opinion, though it differs from that of Mr. Mede in computing the number 1290 from the final desolation of Jerusalem in the year 135, and the number 1335 from the end of the number 1290, appears to me to be equally objectionable; or, I should rather say, much more objectionable, because it is founded upon an absolute error. By the accomplishing of the scat tering of the holy people (Dan. xii. 7.) he understands the commencement of their complete scattering by Adrian in the year 135; whereas the expression means the very reverse, namely the termination of their scattering or the beginning of their restoration. In this sense accordingly it is understood both by Mede, Newton, Lowth, and Wintle. Our common English translation indeed employs two different words, accomplish and finish; but the self-same word in the original is used in both places, and in both alike ought to have been rendered by finish: :-" when he shall have finished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these wonders shall be finished." Fleming's Apoc. Key, P. 74. tion, will be sown among the Gentiles; and will thus be made, in a wonderful manner, from first to last, the seed of the Church. This preaching of the Gospel by the converted Israelites, unlike the preaching of it by that first handful only of seed, the Hebrew Apostles of our Lord, will, I apprehend, be totally unattended by persecution or opposition: for all trials of that nature would be incompatible with the predicted peace and blessedness of the millennian church. God will incline the hearts of the Gentiles to receive the word gladly. Great shall be the day of Jezrael. For, if the fall of the Jews be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness? Nay, instead of opposing or slighting the truth, so eager shall the heathens be to receive it, that out of all the languages of the nations ten men shall lay hold of the skirt of only one Jew, declaring, with a holy vehemence, their full determination to go with him, inasmuch as they have heard that God is with him of a truth. In short, the whole world shall press eagerly to Jerusalem to behold the glory of the Lord, and to receive instruction from the lips of his servants. All nations shall flow like a mighty torrent to his holy mountain, assured that he will teach them of his ways, and cause them to walk in his paths; that the law shall go forth out of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. Wars and tumults shall be no more; and the whole earth will form, as it were, only one great family of faithful worshippers. It is not impossible, that some may feel a curiosity to know what nation is intended by the great maritime power destined to take so conspicuous a part in the restoration of Judah. On this point their curiosity cannot be gratified; at least, not with any degree of precision. Bp. Horsley has studiously, as it were, enlarged the circle, within which the power in question is to be sought for. situation," says he, "is not otherwise described in the prophecy which peculiarly sets forth its office and actions*, than by this circumstance; that it is beyond the rivers of Cush. That is, far to the west of Judea, if these rivers of * Isaiah xviii. "Its Cush are to be understood, as they have been generally understood, of the Nile and other Ethiopian rivers; far to the east, if of the Tigris and Euphrates. The one, or the other, they must denote; but which, is uncertain :-insomuch that we know not, in what quarter of the world to look for the country intended, whether in the East Indies, or in the western parts of Africa or Europe, or in America*." What his Lordship says on the subject is perfectly just: and, were there no other prophecies that treated of the restoration of Judah except that which particularly describes the maritime power, we undoubtedly could not even approximate to any certainty respecting its precise situation. But there are other parallel predictions, which, although they do not authorize us to say that this state or that state is the maritime power intended by Isaiah, seem nevertheless to give us some warrant very considerably to contract at least the circle within which it is to be sought. The isles of the Gentiles, and the ships of Tarshish, are represented as bringing the sons of Judah from afar unto the name of the Lord their God † and the returning Jews themselves are exhorted, while they cry aloud from the sea or (as the original word may with equal propriety be translated) the west, to glorify God in the isles of the sea, that is, the isles of the west ‡. Now it is well known, that the Jews were accustomed to call the whole maritime region of Europe by the general name of the isles of the Gentiles or the isles of the sea; because the Phenicians were unable to reach any part of that region, except by the means of shipping §. And it is further known, that perhaps the greatest part of the Jews, properly so called, is scattered through the different nations of Europe. These isles of the Gentiles then are destined to the office of bringing back the Jews: but some one nation among them, described as the Tyre of the day, and whose ships are mystically styled the ships of Tarshish, is plainly to take the lead in bringing back at least the converted Jews. Thus is the circle at once narrowed, from the east and the west in general, to a particular part Bishop Horsley's Letter on Isaiah xviii. p. 90, 91. See also P. 37-41, See Mede's Works, B. 1. P. 272, 273. only of the west; namely, the maritime region of Europe, and some mighty naval power which will then occupy the same place in the modern world that Tyre did in the ancient world. But the isles of the Gentiles, and the ships of Tarshish, are clearly described by Isaiah as restoring the Jews in a converted state, and as undertaking that of fice upon religious motives: and he represents, with equal plainness, both the great maritime power, and the Jews under its protection, as being faithful and acceptable worshippers of the Lord in purity and truth. Yet we know, that at this very period, the mighty confederacy of Antichrist, which (we have reason to believe both from prophecy and from the passing events of the day) will at least comprehend the whole of the papal Roman empire, will commence its expedition against Palestine, in direct opposition, though perhaps not avowed opposition, to the purposes of the Most High. Here then, at the epoch of the restoration of Judah, we have the isles of the Gentiles divided into two parts: the one papal, and subject to the tyrannical domination of Antichrist; the other protestant, and under the influence of the maritime power described as the ships of Tarshish. Those isles of the Gentiles therefore, and the ships of Tarshish, which restore the Jews in a converted state, and in order to glorify the name of the Lord their God, certainly cannot be that part of Europe which is subjugated by Antichrist: because their views and principles are directly opposite to the views and principles of Antichrist. Hence it will follow, that the maritime power must not only be sought for generally in the isles of the Gentiles or in Europe, but particu larly in the believing isles of the Gentiles or in protestant Europe. Further than this we have no authority to advance, and therefore I shall not advance further: but I shall content myself with resting in the conclusion, that the maritime power will be that state of protestant Europe which shall possess a decided naval superiority at the time when the 1260 years shall expire. This mighty maritime power, and other smaller maritime protestant powers its allies, described by the prophet under the general name of the isles of the Gentiles, will undoubtedly be the agents in converting and restoring those Jews who are not under the influence of Antichrist. |