for he says he will yet deliver them, and place "Salvation in Zion for Israel his glory." And if the interpretation which is here attempted to be established, and which is supported by so many proofs, be correct, this deliverance is now very near at hand; the allotted time of their awful punishment is on the point of expiring; and the cup of Divine fury, which they have drank to the very dregs, is now all but fully poured out.

But as the stone which shall smite the image will become "a great mountain and fill the whole earth"—that is, as Christ, in smiting down the kingdoms of the world, will in due time be constituted king over all the earth in his own person, thus restoring, after its long depression, the throne of David-so this great epoch, which finally terminates the long period of Israel's captivity, and restores them to their land, will prove, likewise, the inchoative termination of the "seven times" or 2520 years of Judah's loss of sovereignty. For in the same year that Israel was finally carried into captivity by Esarhaddon, the KING of Judah was likewise taken captive and carried to Babylon. But Manasseh, "when he was in affliction, besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. And prayed unto him, and he was entreated of him,

and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom."

The consideration of this part of the subject will, however, be found in the "Second Application" of this "Period," which immediately follows.

turally descended from Solomon and his successors, as we have an account in Matthew's genealogy. Jesus Christ, though he was not the natural son of Joseph, yet by the law and constitution of the Jews he was Joseph's lawful heir; he was the lawful son of Joseph's lawful wife, conceived while she was his legally espoused wife. The Holy Ghost raised up seed to him. A person by the law of Moses might be the legal son and heir of another whose natural son he was not; as sometimes a man raised up seed to his brother: a brother in some cases was to build up a brother's house; so the Holy Ghost built up Joseph's house. And Joseph being in the direct line of the kings of Judah, the house of David, he was the legal heir to the crown of David; and Christ being legally his first-born son, he was his heir; and so Christ, by the law, was the proper heir of the crown of David, and is therefore said to sit upon the throne of his father David." (President Edwards.)

The grant of sovereignty, therefore, which was entailed upon the house of David, is thus graciously accepted, in His person as God-man Mediator, by Him who conferred it, and who is at once the root as well as the offspring of David. When we reflect on this great and infinite condescension, we shall not be surprised that David, who as a prophet well knew the

PERIOD V.

If the chronological term "seven times," as it occurs in Leviticus, chap. xxvi., and more especially in this instance, as used in Daniel, chap. iv., will bear the signification which I have attached to it, it will appear that its application ought not to be confined exclusively to the house and kingdom of Israel; but that it must likewise have a special reference to the tribe and kingdom of Judah. The preference which God hath ordered, and otherwise sanctioned on so many occasions, towards this highly favoured tribe, does not at all comport with the idea that this distinction and pre-eminence is to be lost in the glorious period of their restoration: "Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise; thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies thy father's children shall bow down before thee. Judah is a lion's whelp; from the prey, my son, thou art gone up: he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up?" (Gen. xlix. 8, 9.)

In the manner of encampment, and in the order of march during their forty years' journey in the wilderness, the post of honour always was assigned to this tribe. The camp of Judah (which was the most distinguished also in point of number) always marched first; and its ensign or standard was erected in the centre of "the east side, towards the rising of the sun," when they stood still; as that of Reuben was on the south; Ephraim on the west; and Dan on the north each of these having a tribe on the right and the left (See Numbers chap. ii.). It is named (in Rev. chap. vii.) as the first in the mystical number of the tribes which are said to be sealed during the suspension of the awful commotions of the sixth seal.

But its chief pre-eminence was in its being the chosen tribe from which Messiah, after the flesh, was to descend, and to which A GRANT OF THE SOVEREIGNTY was distinctly and formally given.

There have been two separate and most remarkable grants given to the posterity of Abraham; both of which are expressed, with regard to the time of their continuance, in similar strong language. The first is the grant of Canaan, which is common to all the tribes; the second is the grant of the throne, which is confined to the tribe of Judah and the house of David. The terms in which the former was