The object of these nations is expressed in these words, "Let ber be defiled, and let our eye look upon Zion." The language is taken from the consecration of the summit of Mount Zion unto the Lord, to be the floor of his holy temple, into which nothing shall enter that defileth or maketh a lie. It is parallel with that expression in the xi th chapter of Isaiah, ver. 9, "They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain.' No unclean, unholy, or unsanctified person might thither come. The Lord had sanctified it for his own throne; and having done so, the nations should have stood afar off and worshipped; they should have reverenced the place in which God had put his name; they should have looked upon Zion as the virgin daughter of the Lord, as his betrothed one, whom he could not forget, whom he could not cease to love, whom he had graven upon the palms of his hands, whose walls are continually before him. But, instead of this, they banded against her; they were not awestricken by the word of the Lord; they said, "Where is the Lord thy God? mine eyes shall behold her: now shall she be trodden down as the mire of the streets" (Micah vii. 10). They said, "Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel may no more be remembered" (Psal. lxxxiii. 4). But "God is known in her palaces for a refuge. For, lo, the kings were assembled, they passed by together. They saw it, and so they marvelled; they were troubled, and hasted away. Fear took hold upon them there, and pain, as of a woman in travail" (Psal. xlviii. 3-6). The Lord, having consecrated Zion, and held her up to the nations as his own sacred and inalienable property, must avenge their invasion and spoliation of that which they should have revered; not for her, or for her people, but for His own Name's sake, that it may be honoured on the earth, when they shall see his faithfulness to the people and to the place of his choice. Then the nations will perceive that there is no God but Jehovah; that no one saveth as he saveth, or destroyeth as he destroyeth.

Those nations which thus confederate against Zion, it is said by our Prophet, know not the thoughts of the Lord, neither understand they his counsel, that he is gathering them as the sheaves are gathered into the barn floor, that the daughter of Zion may arise and thresh them all. However much Zion and Jerusalem might deserve the judgment at the Lord's hand, the nations of the earth, unless called and commanded to it by the Lord, might not, without the greatest guilt, meddle with that which was the Lord's. Nebuchadnezzar, indeed, had a solemn commission to this effect from the mouth of the Lord's messenger to the nations, Jeremiah the prophet; and the Romans also may be said to have had a commission, from the mouth of our Saviour, and were wonderfully helped by the providence of God;

but Sennacherib, to whom primarily, and Gog, to whom ultimately, this prophecy referreth, had not any such apology or defence, but were moved by a bitter and cruel hatred of them, and an earnest desire to root them out from being a nation. That last confederacy of the nations against Jerusalem, which is described in all the Prophets, is indeed a confederacy for selfdestruction. They gather from all quarters all their men of might, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat, that the Lord may judge them there; that he may have them in one place, like Sennacherib's army, to do execution upon them at one time; to cut off the princes and the captains and the warlike men of the world, that they may never again rise in arms against his people and the city of his habitation. Thus gathered into the barn-floor of his vengeance, he calleth upon Zion to arise and thresh them all. And because the work is great and laborious, he says, "I will make thine horns iron," that thou mayest never be weary with tossing them; "and thy hoofs brass," that thou mayest never be worn out with treading them under foot; "and thou shalt beat in pieces many peoples." The figure is taken from the Eastern manner of threshing, which was by sending in the cattle to tread out the grain; but, like all other figures, it acquires new force and beauty in the hand of the Holy Ghost. It was prophesied of Ephraim, that "his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the peoples to the end of the earth;" and of Asher, "Thy shoes shall be iron and brass;" and of all of them, when they fear the Lord, that "they shall go forth and grow up as calves of the stall; and ye shall tread down the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet." The Lord now waketh up the strength of Israel, and sheweth what they are upon whose side the Lord is. They are in the battle like Sampson and Jonathan, like David and his mighty men; the Lord hath poured out upon them the spirit of victory, and one shall chase a thousand, and two shall put ten thousand to flight. This is not the end. The nations are to receive blessings from Zion; the seed of Abraham are to be a blessing unto all nations: "In thee, and in thy Seed, shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." This is not the end; it is the beginning of God's revenge: it is the act of his judgment upon his enemies; upon those who will not repent of their sins, nor acknowledge his laws, nor give their worship to his Son, whom he hath set up; his vindication of his own insulted holiness and despised power and provoked mercy. The nations have passed all bounds; they are mad against him and his people : they set his people, and their city and their holy hill, at naught; and come up in the strength of numbers and warlike chivalry to lay waste and destroy. God hereupon awaketh his people, and

calleth upon them to arise and put forth their strength. They do so, and the nations are broken in pieces; they are ground to chaff, like the dust of the summer threshing-floor, and the winds carry them away and they are no more found. The same figure is used by the Prophet Isaiah in a manner still more sublime: "Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth thou shalt thresh the mountains and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff. Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them and thou shalt rejoice in the Lord, and shalt glory in the Holy One of Israel." (Isai. xli. 15, 16.)

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There remaineth only, to complete this strain of Jacob's triumph over his foes, that we should be informed of the use which is made of the conquest; which is contained in these words, "And I will consecrate their gain unto the Lord, and their substance unto the Lord of the whole earth." If the speaker in the former verses be God, as distinguished from Messiah, as we have taken it, then so also must it be here; and if so, then the other person, to whom they are dedicated is Messiah, as distinguished from God and the meaning is, that the gain and the riches of all those broken nations shall become an offering unto Christ the King," to whom he hath given the heathen for an inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for a possession." "The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts: yea, all kings shall fall down before him; all nations shall serve him. For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy. He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence; and precious shall their blood be in his sight. And he shall live, and to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba prayer also shall be made for him continually; and daily shall he be praised" (Psalm lxxii. 10-15). So also in the New Testament it is written of the city of the Great King, "And the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it." This is the typical meaning of Solomon's great riches and great glory, as the same is described in the Book of Kings. The whole world shall send its free-will offerings unto the Lord of the whole earth, whose dwelling is in Jerusalem; which shall enjoy all splendour and beauty, and magnificence and riches, and plenty and blessedness; and thus shall the world in reverence worship him, and with gladness sit under his shadow: "All nations shall be blessed in him, and all shall call him blessed; and blessed be his glorious name for ever, and let the whole earth be filled with his glory."-But my spirit doth outrun my subject; which now proceedeth most majestically, bounding, as

it were, from pole to pole of truth, while it describes the wondrous deliverances afforded to Zion by Him whose goings forth have been from everlasting.

"Now gather thyself in troops, O daughter of troops: he hath laid siege against us: they shall smite the Judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek. But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting" (vers. 1, 2). Who can discover the secret harmony of those prophetic notes?-a gathering of the troops of the daughter of troops; a person laying siege against us; some ones smiting the Judge of Israel; Bethlehem Ephratah, a mean town, celebrated for giving birth to the Ruler, and he who comes forth of her is from everlasting. I say, who is the man that will link these extremities of action and of suffering, and unravel the hidden order, meaning, and purpose of this Divine discourse? Thou Holy Spirit, who revealest things to come! this is thy province; be Thou then the Interpreter: thou Comforter, who takest of the things of Christ and shewest them unto our souls, be thou my helper and guide; for none but thou canst bring out the order and meaning of words like these.

It is manifest from the verses which follow these two now in hand, that the person of the "Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from everlasting," is the chief subject of the theme, because upon him, and upon his actions, the discourse, after these rapid bounds, doth complacently enlarge itself. He, even "this Man," it is who feeds in the strength and majesty of God, who is the Peace, and smites the Assyrian hip and thigh, and wastes the land of Nimrod, the actual founder of his empire; and then it is that the remnant of Jacob becomes the dew of the whole earth, to make it fruitful in peace and righteousness. Seeing, then, it cannot be doubted that the Child of Bethlehem is now the chief subject in the prophet's visions, Zion, which hath been principal before, must now pass into an inferior place, and minister in the train of this wonderful and glorious personage, whom the Spirit of the Lord intendeth to extol. Let us then take this as a pivot and resting point, in order to put all the subsidiary parts into their proper position. His work is to accomplish the deliverance of Zion and the victory of her people, and to make an end of all her oppressors together. But hath she not been already represented in her exaltation, giving law to the nations, and ruling them in peace? She hath. And hath she not also been represented as coming out of the captivity of Babylon, and camping in the field? She hath. And hath she not already been represented as thrashing the nations with her

horns of iron and hoofs of brass? She hath. And have not the remnants both of her that halted and of her that was cast far off been already represented as gathered? They have. And what meaneth this, this bringing them back into the same conditions out of which they have all been already brought? It meaneth, O logician, that God hath a method of his own, the prophetical method, which no rules of Aristotle will define. It meaneth, that thou must go into the school of the Holy Ghost, and become studious with me of the prophetical method of setting forth the truth. The reason then is, for the end of exalting the work of this Bethlehemite Hero, who is now the subject of the prophecy; whose work to display you must first have things brought into the condition in which he found them, both the city and the people, that it may clearly appear how they owe all the glory of their deliverance and triumph to him, and to. him alone. This is the reason why things are rapidly shifted back into their former places, in order that He may be exalted to whom the glory of their new condition is due. Behold, now, how this is done.

One called "daughter of troops" (or, according to the original, "daughter of a troop") is summoned to muster her troop; and the effect of the gathering is briefly but potently described by "smiting the Judge of Israel with a rod upon his mouth :" and thus the sovereignty of Israel being put to shame, remains so till the Bethlehemite waxeth mighty to deliver his country and revenge his country's wrongs. I wonder not a little that so many interpreters, or rather commentators (for few of them have followed the rigid laws of interpretation), should have understood this "daughter of a troop," or, as the Vulgate renders it, "daughter of the robber," of Jerusalem; whereas it is, beyond a doubt, not Jerusalem, but Jerusalem's oppressor, who layeth siege against us and does the Judge of Israel grievous wrong. Zion's emblem, throughout the whole strain are, "the tower of the flock" and "she that travaileth," and in this last character she re-appears again in the third verse. Besides, it is so clear that this gathering is kindred with the gathering of verse 11 in the preceding chapter, "Now also many nations are gathered against thee, that say, Let her be defiled, and let our eye look upon Zion that this first verse of the vth in our version is joined to the ivth chapter in the Hebrew division of the text. Any one comparing the verse just quoted with the verse now under consideration, will perceive at once that it is the same mystery which is described in both, under a different aspect; the former of Zion the consecrated bride, the other of Zion the seat of the Judge of Israel.

We are now come unto the principal part of the prophecy, and