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song of thanks for the safety of God's people.

1 In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah; We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks.

2 Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in.

3 Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.

4 Trust ye in the LORD for ever for in the LORD JEHOVAH is everlasting strength: 5 For he bringeth down them that dwell on high; the lofty city, he layeth it low; he layeth it low, even to the ground; he bringeth it even to the dust.

6 The foot shall tread it down, even the feet of the poor, and the steps of the needy.

7 The way of the just is uprightness thou, most upright, dost weigh the path of the just. 8 Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O LORD, have we waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee.

9 With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn right

eousness.

10 Let favour be shewed to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness in the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the LORD.

11 LORD, when thy hand is lifted up, they will not see: but they shall see, and be ashamed

for their envy at the people; yea, the fire of thine enemies shall devour them.

12 LORD, thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou also hast wrought all our works in us.

13 O LORD our God, other lords beside thee have had dominion over us: but by thee only will we make mention of thy name.

14 They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise: therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish.

15 Thou hast increased the nation, O LORD, thou hast increased the nation: thou art glorified: thou hadst removed it far unto all the ends of the earth.

16 LORD, in trouble have they visited thee, they poured out a prayer when thy chastening was upon them.

17 Like as a woman with child, that draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs; so have we been in thy sight, O LORD.

18 We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.

19 Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.

20 Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and

shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.

cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and

21 For, behold, the LORD shall no more cover her slain.

LECTURE 1128.

Our joy in the assurance of life from the dead.

Here is a fresh song of triumph; which, like that in the last chapter, however suitable to God's people under the Law, seems to be justly applicable, and intended to apply, to our privileges and hopes under the Gospel. They who returned from the Babylonish captivity had a strong and safe city, and peace given them therein by God. We are citizens of "the heavenly Jerusalem;" Heb. 12. 22; and have salvation both of soul and body, and have peace in our consciences towards God, through faith which is in Christ Jesus. They of old saw their lofty oppressors laid low, and a highway prepared for their prosperous return, after long and patient waiting for God's good time. We have been put into the way of salvation, without waiting, straightway from our birth. And would we but walk therein with patience, we should be always safe. But alas, how many, when thus established "in the land of uprightness," profit neither by God's past judgments, nor by his present mercies! How many, even when his hand is lifted up for judgments yet to come, refuse to see, until overtaken by the fire reserved for his enemies!

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Far be from us such blindness of mind! Far be from us such hardness of heart! Believing that God has ordained peace in our behalf, ascribing to Him the glory of every good thought and deed, in which we now desire to abound, let us altogether renounce the service of sin and Satan. Let us be thankful to be assured, that at the death of Christ these our deadly enemies had their deathblow given them. Let us rejoice in the persuasion that the number of those who thus believe has increased and is increasing. Without this saving faith what would be our existence, what, but as that of Babylonish captives; toil, without fit, travail without offspring? How welcome to the soul weary of a state so hopeless, how welcome the voice which offers us, in our immediate deliverance, little less than life from the dead, and assures to us, after this short life ended, an actual resurrection unto life eternal! Oh that whilst God's judgments, as well as his mercies, have yet a more ample fulfilment at hand, we may dwell in safety under his protection! And when the hour of his vengeance shall come, for all the bloodshedding, oppression, and wrong, of which man is guilty towards his fellows, oh that we, having lived in piety and charity a life of peace and joy, may be counted to have kept his truth, and may be admitted as a "righteous nation" within the gates of the divine glory!

PART VII. O. T.

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The deliverance of God's people from their enemies.

1 In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.

2 In that day sing ye unto her, A vineyard of red wine. 3 I the LORD do keep it; I will water it every moment lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day.

4 Fury is not in me who would set the briers and thorns against me in battle? I would go through them, I would burn them together.

5 Or let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me; and he shall make peace with me.

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6 He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root: Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit. 7 Hath he smitten him, as he smote those that smote him? or is he slain according to the slaughter of them that are slain by him?

8 In measure, when it shooteth forth, thou wilt debate with it: he stayeth his rough wind in the day of the east wind.

9 By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged;

and this is all the fruit to take away his sin; when he maketh all the stones of the altar as chalkstones that are beaten in sunder, the groves and images shall not stand up.

10 Yet the defenced city shall be desolate, and the habitation forsaken, and left like a wilderness: there shall the calf feed, and there shall he lie down, and consume the branches thereof.

11 When the boughs thereof are withered, they shall be broken off: the women come, and set them on fire: for it is a people of no understanding : therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them, and he that formed them will shew them no favour.

12 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall beat off from the channel of the river unto the stream of Egypt, and ye shall be gathered one by one, O ye children of Israel.

13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the LORD in the holy mount at Jerusalem.

LECTURE 1129.

The twofold application of prophetic words.

Some object to our supposing that the words of prophecy have a twofold fulfilment, part in the dispensation of the Law, and part in that of the Gospel. And it may indeed seem at first sight as if we gave to words a double sense, which would be next to taking away from them all certainty of meaning. But rightly apprehended, the Jewish and the Christian churches form but one

communion. Both together are God's one people, having one and a common fellowship with Him and with each other. The things which befel the Jews concern us. The things which appertain to us concern them. And if it was wonderfully ordered in God's providence, as we have good reason to think it was, that their dispensation was a type of ours, theirs the letter and ours the spirit, we need not hesitate to interpret prophecies at once literally of them, and spiritually of ourselves. In doing which, we take not words in doubtful senses; but rather we adore the divine wisdom, on finding that the same words, understood in their one and proper sense, at once describe beforehand the deliverance of the Jews out of captivity, and the redemption of all mankind from sin and death.

Thus the chapter before us is a prophecy of God's destroying the great powers which oppressed his people of old. It foretels the care which He would take of the Jewish nation, and the fury with which, merciful as He is to them that seek Him, He would consume his enemies. It draws a prophetic contrast between the chastisements inflicted on the Israelites, and the entire desolation of those who smote them; his own people being to be brought by their afflictions to repentance, and to amendment of their ways, and to be gathered together from all parts where they were scattered; whilst the defenced city of their chief oppressors would become no better than a wilderness. But their deliverance was a type of ours. And the words which shew how mercifully they were dealt with, tell also how mercifully God has dealt with

us.

Nay, they shew how mercifully God will yet deal, both with them and us, hereafter. "That old serpent, called the devil, and Satan," Rev. 12. 9, though now mortally wounded, has yet "a short time;" Rev. 12. 12; but hereafter he will be cast into "the lake of fire," together with "death and hell." Rev. 20. 10, 14. In the meanwhile God watches for the safety of his vineyard, and keeps it "night and day." Slow to anger, and averse to punishment, whilst He warns us of the end awaiting us if at enmity with Him, He invites us rather to be at peace; and He promises that many shall obey his invitation. And whilst there are some whom neither terrors nor mercy can persuade, He assures us that He will gather together many, and so gives us the inexpressible joy of knowing, that a multitude whom no man can number, will escape the wrath to come, and will partake with us in the gift of eternal life; if we through his grace attain unto partaking it together with them.

The sin and judgment of Ephraim and of Judah,

1 Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower, which are on the head of the fat valleys of them that are overcome with wine!

2 Behold, the Lord hath a mighty and strong one, which as a tempest of hail and a destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing, shall cast down to the earth with the hand.

3 The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under feet:

4 And the glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat valley, shall be a fading flower, and as the hasty fruit before the summer; which when he that looketh upon it seeth, while it is yet in his hand he eateth it

up.

5 In that day shall the LORD of hosts be for a crown of glory, and for a diadem of beauty, unto the residue of his people,

6 And for a spirit of judgment to him that sitteth in judgment, and for strength to them that turn the battle to the gate.

7 But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the

way; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment.

8 For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean.

9 Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.

10 For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little : 11 For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people.

12 To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.

13 But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little ; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.

LECTURE 1130.

That the sensual are not meet hearers of the Gospel. What a horrible abuse of God's good gifts is drunkenness ! What an abomination must it have been in the sight of God, for the Israelites, on whom He had bestowed a land abounding in all good things, to give themselves up to excess in strong drink! Most justly was woe here proclaimed from heaven against the proud kingdom of the drunkards of Ephraim. Most fearfully are they warned, that all the glory of their valleys is doomed to fade speedily away. Their destroyer is appointed. An enemy is at