View of the Hebrews

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242 ADDRESS OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. This standard of salvatien at that period, is a notable event in the prophets. See Isai. xi. 12, where God sets his hand a second time to gather his Hebrew family from all nations and regions beyond sea; doubtless from America, as well as other nations ; and it is promis- ed, “ He shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcas of Israel, ts and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.” if from the four corners of the earth, then surely from America! In this passage are the descriptive situations from which the two great branches of the Hebrews are recovered ; Judah from being dispersed among the nations ; and Israel from being outcast from the nations ; thrown out of sight of the social world; precisely as they have been in the wilds of America for more than two thousand years, provided our natives are of Israel. Verse 4. “ For so the Lord said unto me, I will take my rest,and 1 will consider my dwelling place like a clear heat upon herbs, and hke a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”” ‘The event and the figures tn this passage are best explained by those found in synchronical passages, or prophecies alluding to the same event. And according to them, it is as though the Most High shout say; lace. | am now about to renew my ancient dwelling *f will again have a fixed habitation in Canaan ; as Zech.i. 16: ‘* Thus saith the Lord, I am again returned to Jerusalem with mercies ; my house shall be built in it ;”? and viii. 3; “ Thus saith the Lord, I am returned unto Zion,* and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem.”? And the event shall beas “life from the dead’? to the nations; Rom. xi..15. Gentile lands, now behold. ‘Therefore, ye | will now be to my ancient heritage like the genial heat of the sun to promote vegetation after the death of winter; as Isat. xxvi 19, ‘s Thy dew is as the dew of herbs,” which in the spring ghall vevetate. * And I will be like the fertile cooling. ejoud in the sultry heat of harvest.”?. ‘The Hebrews shall now become “as the tender grass springing out of the earth, by the clear shining aftey rain;’ 25am. xx. Yes, “l will be as the dew unto Israel; he shall 4. ADDRESS OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. 245 grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive tree, and his smell as Lebanon; Hos. xiv. 5, G6. ‘The nations shall behold this fulfilment of divine grace to Israel, and shall find instruments raised up adequate to the work. But a tremendous scene to the anti-christian world shall be found intimately connected. Verse 5. “For afore the harvest, when the bud is perfect, and the sour grape is ripening in the flower, he shall both cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and take away and cut down the branches.” Or near the fulfil- ment of this event of the last days, a vast scene 1s to be accomplished. Prophetic notice is ever given relative to that period, that the salvation of the friends of Zion shall be ushered in with a proportionable destruction to herenemies. ‘The iarvest and vintage of di- fvine wrath, called “the battle of that great day of God |! Almighty,’ : must be accomplished ; and at the time of \_ the restoration of the Hebrews, that tremendous event shall beat the doors. As in the natural vineyard, when the blossom is succeeded by the swelled pulp, which soon reaches the size of the full grape, indicating that the vintage is near; soat the time of the service here divinely demanded, wickedness shall have blossomed; pride shall have budded in anti-christian realms. The sour grapes of their tyranny, violence, and licentiousness, will be found to be arriving at their growth ; indicating that the time for the casting of the vin> of the earth into the wine press of the wrath of God. is just at hand. - Verse 6, “ They shall be left together unto the fowls of the mountains, and the beasts of the earth; and the fowls shall summer upon them, and the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them.” Soon the most prominent branch- es of the anti-christian vine of the earth, shall be coilee.- ted and trodden upon the mountains of Israel, in the noted scene of Armageddon; Rev. xvi. 16. The asSage noted in EXzek. xxxix. 17—20, (at the time of as : slaughter of Gog and his bands, and anillastration of the text,) shall then which is siven ea be accomplished.