ty are to have a period, but a period determined by that event, the vocation of the Gentiles to the faith, which when fulfilled, the Jews are to be re-assembled from all the corners of the earth, will be converted to Christianity, and re-established in that same land they formerly inhabited, and which was given by the Almighty himself to their ancestors. This singular economy of God towards that people is also in part made known to us by our Saviour, in those his words: "They (the Jews) shall be led away captives into all nations; and Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles, till the times of the nations be fulfilled." Luke xxi. 24. But the whole is beautifully described by many of the ancient prophets. A few of those instances shall here be put down. Thus prophesied Azarias, in the reign of Asa, king of Juda: "Many days shall pass in Israel, without the true God, and without a priest or teacher, and without the law. And when in their distress they shall return to the Lord, the God of Israel, and shall seek him, they shall find him." 2 Paralip. xv. 3, 4. Thus spoke the prophet Osee, about 800 years before Christ: "The children of Israel shall sit many days without king, and without prince, and without sacrifice, without altar, and without Ephod, and without theraphim: and after this the children of Israel shall return, and shall seek the Lord their God, and David their king; and they shall fear the Lord and his goodness, in the last days," c. 3. v. 4, 5. Here the

prophet first describes the present forlorn state of the Jews, without either fixed settlement or government, temple or saerifice then he informs us, that in the last days they will return to God and seek David their king, that is, the true Messiah, Jesus Christ, who is of the race of David and his successor in the kingdom of Juda. "And it shall come to pass in that day," says the prophet Isaiah, "that the Lord shall set his hand the second time to possess the remnant of his people, which shall be left from the Assyrians, and from Egypt, and from Phetros, and from Ethiopia, and from Elam, and from Senaar, and from Emath, and from the Islands of the sea; and he shall set up a standard unto the nations, and shall assemble the fugitives of Israel, and shall gather together the dispersed of Juda, from the four quarters of the earth,” xi. 11. The prophet Jeremiah prophesies on the same subject, in the following strain: "Behold the whirlwind of the Lord, his fury going forth a violent storm, it shall rest upon the head of the wicked. The Lord will not turn away the wrath of his indignation, till he have executed and performed the thoughts

of his heart. In the last days you shall understand these things. At that time, says the Lord, I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people," xxx. 23, 24, and xxxi. 1. Here the anger of God is announced to fall upon the head of the wicked, that is, upon Antichrist and his society; which the Jews will understand, or see executed in the last days. About that time the Lord will become the God of all the families or tribes of Israel, and they will become his people. In like manner, by the mouth of the prophet Ezechiel, we hear the Almighty speaking thus to the Jews: "I will take you from among the Gentiles, and will gather you together out of all the countries, and will bring you into your own land. And I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you and I will take away the stony heart out of flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh. And you shall dwell in the land which I gave to your fathers; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God," xxxvi. 24, &c. We shall close these prophecies with a passage from Micheas: “It shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared in the top of mountains, and high above the hills, and people shall flow to it. In that day, saith the Lord, I will gather up her that halteth; and her that I had cast out I will gather up, and her whom I had afflicted. And I will make her that halted, a remnant; and her that had been afflicted, a mighty nation: and the Lord will reign over them in Mount Sion, from this time now and for ever," iv. 1, 6, 7.

your

It being then the gracious design of the Almighty to receive again the Jews into his favour, by their conversion to Christianity, at the period we are speaking of, when they are gathering together at Jerusalem; it is now to be examined by what means that great work is to be effected, and who is to be the happy instrument of it. All antiquity and tradition tells us, that Elias is the person. And these vouchers are grounded on the express word of the scripture. Thus spoke God to the Jews by the mouth of his prophet Malachy: "Behold I will send you Elias the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers: lest I come and strike the earth with anathema," iv. 5, 6. Here the Almighty promises, that before the great and dreadful day of judgment, he will send the prophet Elias, who shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to the fathers, that is, he will convert the

:

Jews, by convincing them that their Messiah is that very Jesus whom they have rejected, and by such conviction he will reconcile them to their fathers the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who believed in Christ to come, expected him, and desired to see his day, (John viii. 56,) while the Jews by the preaching of Elias will believe in him already come: and thus will ensure a mutual reconciliation; the fathers and the children, who had been divided from the time of Christ's coming, will be re-united in the same faith and obedience to God. This work will be done lest I come, says the Lord, and strike the earth with anathema, or, with utter destruction; that is, lest the whole body of the Jewish people perish at the last day for want of faith in their Saviour; and also lest there should be found at that time so few among men deserving mercy, on account of their infidelity and irreligion, as to oblige the Almighty to strike the earth with utter destruction, or in other words, to condemn almost the whole bulk of mankind.

The conversion therefore of the Jews to Christianity is to be the principal function of Elias. For this design he has been reserved by the wisdom and bounty of God, and not been suffered to die. While Eliseus was walking with him, he was taken away by the divine hand from the earth, and conveyed to some place unknown to mankind. "As they (Elias and Eliseus) went on, walking and talking together, behold, a fiery chariot and fiery horses parted them both asunder: and Elias went up by a whirlwind into heaven." 4 Kings ii. 11. Elias therefore still exists in life, and will remain so, till he returns again upon earth, in full vigour, vested with that extraordinary commission from the Most High, to remove the veil of darkness that hangs before the eyes of the Jews, to show them their past error, and introduce them into the fold of Christ their God and Redeemer.

That such will be the office committed to Elias, we also learn very clearly from the book of Ecclesiasticus, chap. xlviii. v. 4, 9, 10, where it is said: "Who can glory like to thee, Elias? Who wast taken up in a whirlwind of fire, in a chariot of fiery horses. Who art registered in the judgments of times, to appease the wrath of the Lord, to reconcile the heart of the father to the son, and to restore the tribes of Jacob." Elias is here said by the inspired writer, to be registered in the judgments of times, that is, destined. to be, at an appointed time, a kind of mediator, to appease the wrath of the Lord, irritated against the Jews for their in

fidelity; to reconcile the heart of the father to the son, by bringing them to the faith and the holy sentiments of the patriarchs their ancestors, as we said above; and in fine, he is destined to restore the tribes of Jacob to the favour of God, by teaching them to acknowledge his divine son Jesus for their Messiah. He will restore the tribes of Jacob, by re-engrafting them on the true olive tree, from whence, according to the Apostle, they had been cut off for their infidelity. “Because of unbelief," says St. Paul, "they were broken off. And if they abide not in unbelief, they shall be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in again. For if thou (Gentile) wert cut off the wild olive tree, which is natural to thee; and contrary to nature, were grafted into the good olive tree; how much shall they, the Jews, that are the natural branches, be grafted in their own olive tree? For, blindness in part has happened in Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles should come in; and so all Israel should be saved." Rom. xi. 20, 23, &c. The same account of Elias is confirmed by our Saviour, who told his disciples: "Elias indeed shall come, and shall restore all things." Matth. xvii. 11. But let us here observe, that the expression of the book of Ecclesiasticus, Elias will restore the tribes of Jacob, and that of our Saviour, Elias will restore all things, seem to indicate more than the conversion of the Jewish nation to the faith, as this conversion is sufficiently insinuated in the expression of Elias, appeasing the wrath of God, and reconciling the heart of the father to the sun. It appears therefore probable, that Elias will, by divine instruction, discover to the Jews the original distinction of their tribes, which they seem to have confounded and lost then that he will restore the tribes to their primitive possessions, by re-establishing them in their ancient land of Judæa, each tribe in his new respective partition, as marked out by Ezekiel, ch. 48. The execution of this work will not at all be impossible to the prophet, as he will be endued with so ample a degree of authority from God, and so extraordinary a power of working miracles. This observation will be confirmed in the sequel from the ancient prophets, who represent the Jews in full possession of the Holy Land after the time of Antichrist.

But if the Almighty, through his special mercy to the Jews, appoints them a teacher in Elias, to bring them back into the true path, from which they have so long strayed. it is not to be imagined he leaves the rest of the world without

66

the same kind of assistance. A teacher of extraordinary power and virtue will be more wanted, as iniquity will abound in these times, and even the good will be exposed to dangerous and most severe trials. To answer this exigency, the all-bountiful God will send another agent, namely, Henoch. We learn from Moses that this patriarch by a particular privilege was preserved from death: "Henoch walked with God, and was seen no more, because God took him." Gen. v. 24. We learn the same from St. Paul: By faith Henoch was taken away that he should not see death; and he was not found because God had taken him away.' Rom. xi. 5. In the whole class of mankind Henoch and Elias are the only two persons to be found, that have not paid the debt of nature; which is deferred, till they shall have completed the functions to which they are destined, and which are not to take place till the latter days. They will then have, each, their separate commission. That of Elias will be, as we have seen, the conversion of the Jews, &c., or, to restore the tribes of Jacob; while Henoch will be sent to preach to the Gentiles, as we learn from the book of Ecclesiasticus: "Henoch pleased God, and was translated into Paradise, that he may give repentance to the nations," xliv. 16. The object therefore of Henoch's ministry is to give repentance to the nations, to withdraw idolaters from idolatry, to move bad Christians to repentance and bring them back into the ways of virtue, and in fine to stem the prevailing tide of iniquity. In the same manner then as St. Peter was appointed the apostle of the Jews, and St. Paul the apostle of nations, Gal. ii. 7, 8; so Elias will be sent, chiefly to the former, and Henoch to the latter; but as the preaching of each of the two apostles was not entirely confined to either body of people, but sometimes extended to both; so likewise Elias and Henoch will sometimes mix their labours in favour of both Jews and nations. It is here further to be observed, that Henoch represents the ancient patriarchs and people who lived under the law of nature; and Elias the Jewish prophets with that people, who were bound to the Mosaic institution: so that by their preaching the Christian religion we understand that both the patriarchs and the prophets, both the law of nature and the Mosaic, will appear again, if the expression be allowed, upon the stage of the world, to concur in giving testimony to Christ.

The two messengers of God, Henoch and Elias, are the

1