Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub
[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed]
[ocr errors]
[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed]

UNION IN
IN PRAYER.

PART I.

The Text opened, and an Account given of the Affair proposed in the Memorial from Scotland.

Zech. viii. 20, 21, 22.—Thus saith the Lord of hosts, It shall yet come to pass, that there shall come people, and the inhabitants of many cities; and the inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, Let us go speedily to pray before the Lord, and to seek the Lord of Hosts: I will go also. Yea, many people and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of Hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before the Lord.

In this chapter we have a prophecy of a future glorious advancement of the church of God; wherein it is evident, something further is intended than ever was fulfilled to the nation of the Jews under the Old Testament. For here are plain prophecies of such things as never were fulfilled before the coming of the Messiah: particularly what is said in the two last verses in the chapter, of many people and strong nations worshipping and seeking the true God, and of so great an accession of Gentile nations to the church of God, that by far the greater part of the visible worshippers of God should consist of this new accession, so that they should be to the other as ten to one; a certain number for an uncertain. There never happened any thing, from the time of the prophet Zechariah to the coming of Christ, to answer this prophecy: and it can have no fulfilment but either in the calling of the Gentiles, in and after the days of the apostles, or in the future glorious enlargement of the church of God in the latter ages of the world, so often foretold by the prophets of the Old Testament, and by the prophet Zechariah in particular, in the latter part of this prophecy. It is most probable, that what the Spirit of God has chief respect to, is that last and greatest enlargement and most glorious advancement of the church of God on earth; in the benefits of which especially, the Jewish nation were to have a share, and a very eminent and distinguishing share. There is a great agreement between what is here said, and other prophecies, that must manifestly have respect to the church's latter day glory: as that in Isa. lx. 2, 3, 4, "The Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee: and the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. Lift up thine eyes round about, and see; all they gather themselves together, they come to thee." That whole chapter, beyond all dispute, has respect to the most glorious state of the church of God on earth. So chap. lxvi. 8, "Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? Shall a nation be born at once?" Ver. 10, "Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye that love her." Ver. 12, "I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream." Micah iv. at the beginning," But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills,

« ÎnapoiContinuă »