again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full:" which answers to “the fulness of the gentiles is not yet come in." Hosea speaking of Ephraim says, “The sorrows of a travailing woman shall come upon See Jeremiah iv. 31, and Rev. xii. 1, and Micah iv. 10., who saith, that "he (whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting) will give them up until the time that she which travaileth✶ hath_brought forth: then the remnant of his brethren shall return unto the children of Israel. And he shall stand and feed (“ butter and honey shall he eat, saith Isaiah, that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good,") in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God; and they shall abide :: for now shall he be great unto the ends of the earth. › And this man shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land, (in other words, when he shall plant the tabernacles of his palaces between

Jer. vi. 2. "I have likened the daughter of Zion (in other words, the daughter of my people) to a comely and delicate woman." Thus as Zion is represented barren in the allegory, the daughter of Zion as being in the transgression of the Bondwoman, is signified, as being in travail.

+ Heb. ii. 11.

Note Jer. xxxi, 22.

the seas in the glorious holy mountain,) then, as saith Micah, “shall we raise against him seven shepherds and eight principal men," (the three patriarchs and the twelve prophets, according to Esras, who shall be the leaders of the righteous seed, unto the child that is now born to rule; as it is written," the princes of the people are gathered together, even the people of the God of Abraham;")" and they shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof; thus shall he deliver us from the Assyrian when he cometh into our land, and when he treadeth in our borders, and the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from the Lord, as the showers on the grass which tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men." Thus the rem nant, as concerning the first 976 days, being now restored and cleansed of their iniquity, wherefore are they signified in the allegory by "the virgin daughter of Israel*;" as it is written, written, "The virgin, the daughter of Zion, hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken

her head at thee," &c.: being now reclaimed, I say, they are preserved in the wilderness, as it were, of the world*. Accordingly, as a type of these things, we find that our Saviour, after he came up from Egypt, was led by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil; and then he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast, on the border of Zebulon and Naphthalim; that it might be fulfilled which is spoken by Esaias, "The land of Zebulon and the land of Naphthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations. The people that sat in darkness saw great light: to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up:" which is in allusion to the " root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign to the people;" as where Isaiah saith, speaking with respect to Christ and his church, (and it is the stone himself speaking by the mouth and in the person of Isaiah) “Behold I and the children† which God hath given me, are for signs and for wonders in Israel, from the Lord

*Micah iv. 10. Matthew xiii. 38.

Answering to the congregation of the just. See Heb. xi. 12, 13.

of hosts, which dwelleth in mount Zion." ," Ask thee a sign," it is said to Ahas, "ask it either in the depth, or in the height above." The 14th verse saith, "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign: Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel‡.

* See Isaiah viii. 18, and Heb. ii. 13, compared; whilst as an accomplishment of Isaiah's being for a sign and a wonder, see chapter xx., where "he is desired to loose the sackcloth from off his loins, and to put off his shoe from his foot: and he did so, walking naked and barefoot ;" (which it may be supposed was miraculously effected.) "And the Lord said, Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt, and upon Ethiopia, so shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethiopian captives, young and old, naked and barefoot," &c. See Dan. xi. 43.

+ Note Luke ii. 34. Matt. xxiv. 30.

We should not consider our Saviour now any more after the flesh, (ie., of a carnal man,) as the apostle Paul tells us. In the third chapter of Acts it is written, "Those things which God before had showed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled. Repent ye, therefore, that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presense of the Lord,”—(here is expressed an end as respecting our Lord after the flesh, and then it is immediately said that he will come again" in the times of the restitution of all things;")—it is obvious, therefore, that we should consider our Lord henceforth in the character only of a king who is to reign in righteousness; accordingly, when the prophets speak of him in his kingly capacity, as in the ninth chapter

Butter and honey* shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good. For before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings. The Lord shall bring upon thee, and upon thy father's house, days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah†, even the king of Assyria. And it

of Isaiah and 6th verse, and in the thirty-second and in the eleventh chapters, the reference is to his coming, (i. e.) to his being born again after a wonderful manner, as where it is expressed, “in the regeneration, when the son of man shall sit upon the Throne of his Glory;" and indeed our Saviour saith, and that after being baptised of John, “ I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it shall be accomplished." Who will be revealed, it appears, in the first place, only to the just, as it is written, Unto us a Child is born, unto us a son is given ; and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful, &c. Thus I say we should reflect upon him for the future; who will also come at the last, in the clouds of heaven, (i. c.) at the end of the days.

* Thus we may perceive will be fulfilled that saying, “ a land flowing with milk and honey." Note Micah v. 4.

+ Here, evidently, days are appointed for certain years which were past: for it is said, the days shall come, whilst they are made to apply to the preceding generations, up to the first year of the reign of Jeroboam, when the tribes revolted. Now from the expression" before the child (Immanuel) shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good," it is plain that the days apply to all the generations from the first year of the reign of Jeroboam