
Class 


)<£4l7 


Book 


A 





THE 



EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY; 



SELECTED AND ABRDDGED, 



ADDITIONAL REFLECTIONS 



FROM A WORK 



BY THE REV. A. KEITH, 



Evidence of the Truth of the Christian Religion, derived from the literal 
fulfilment of Prophecy, particularly as illustrated by the History <A 
the Jews, and by the Discoveries of recent Travellers " 



PUBLISHED BY THE 

AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY 

150 NASSAU-STREET, NEW YORK. 



• 






Bt Ejreh«u&g% 
A*my and Na V y Gittlk 
May ^7, ]ffl| 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I 
Introduction .... - Page 5 

CHAPTER II. 

Prophecies concerning Christ and the Christian Religion, 15 

CHAPTER III. 
The Destruction of Jerusalem, • 29 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Jews, ... . 43 

CHAPTER V. 

Propnecies concerning Judea and the adjoining countries, 68 

CHAPTER VI. 

Nineveh, Babylon, Tyre, Egypt, 97 

CHAPTER VIL 
The Arabs, &c. ... - - 119 

CHAPTER VIII. 

The Seven Churches of Asia, - . 121 

CHAPTER IX. 

1 

Prophecies of Daniel, .... 138 

Conclusion, ... „ 14] 



THE 



EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY. 



CKAFTEH X. 

INTRODUCTION. 



The object of th^jpllowing pages is to present the 
reader with a short Wd plain view of some of the nu- 
merous instances in which the manifest fulfillment of 
prophecy proves that the Scriptures are given by in^ 
spiration of God. And whoever you are, into whose 
hands this little book may come, should not the very 
announcement of such a subject excite your attention, 
and induce you to give it a careful perusal? 

Are you a Christian? Then you know that it is 
good to give heed to the "sure word of prophecy;" 
and you will not hastily turn aside from hearing a rea- 
son of the hope that is in you, nor refrain from seek- 
ing how you may not only render an answer to every 
one that asketh of you such a reason, but how you 
may be also able to withstand gainsayers, and to 
strengthen your brethren. 

Are you weak in the faith ? then the same " sure 
word" is well fitted also for you ; and you would "do 
well to take heed unto it as unto a light that shineth in 
a dark place, until the day dawn and the day-star arise 
in your heart." It leads to no doubtful disputations. 



G INTRODUCTION. [ Chap. 1 

And if heretofore thescofFs of the scorner have trou 
bled you — if the deceitfulness of sin has been in dange? 
of hardening you in unbelief— or if the insidious argu 
ments of a vain philosophy have ever shaken youi 
faith, it should be no unwelcome or unprofitable task 
to you to use diligently those means which God has 
provided, in order that you may be well assured of the 
truth of his word, and to which you have only to look, 
that you may learn that " the spirit of prophecy" is 
indeed "the testimony of Jesus," and that it is verily 
confirmed as such, to a jot and tittle, our enemies 
themselves being judges. And if, hearing, you would 
hear, or, seeing, you would see, you could be no longer 
doubtful that " prophecy earnest in old time by the 
will of man, but" that "holy rmi of" old " spake as 
they were moved by the Holy Ghost ;" so that instead 
-of having but a name to live, and yet being dead, seek- 
ing, you might find ; and be enabled by the self-same 
Spirit to call Jesus, Lord — to own him for your Savior 
and your Master, and, being rooted, and grounded, and 
established in the faith, truly to confess him before 
men, of whom all the prophets bear witness. 

Or, reader, if you are an adversary, j^et this volume 
may prove a friend to you. It is not in unkindness 
that you are invited to the proof that salvation may be 
found. And wherefore should you refuse a patient 
hearing ? Would it be in candor, or for truth, or reason, 
or your safety ? " Come and let us reason together," 
is the language of the Christian, and of the God he wor- 
ships, as thou also claimest that it is thine. 

If you be fortified in a " strong delusion," the less 
should be your fear, and the greater is your need of 
, ooking to the " sure word of prophecy." Yet in your 
own hopeless way you cannot possibly reach further 



Chap. i.J INTRODUCTION 7 

than doubt, and is it wise to reject, without even a hear- 
ing, the proffer of certainty and of salvation in its stead ? 
And whether you will hear, or whether you will for- 
bear, " thou art the man " to whom the full testimony 
of Jesus is borne, in the manifest fulfillment of many 
prophecies, that all the benefit of such a combination 
of miracles may, if you harden not your heart, be 
yours ; that what partially tends to confirm the belief 
of others, may lead to your conviction ; and that thus, 
through " the acknowledging of the truth," and the 
blessing of the Holy Spirit, you may be brought from 
darkness to light, and from death to life. 

Or, reader, if your case be more desperate still, for 
" worse than an infidel" there may be; iHukewarm- 
ness mark your character, so that you scarcely care so 
much for the faith as it is in Jesus, as to trouble your- 
self at all to act on it as a truth, or to question whether 
it be true or false ; if the alienation of your heart from 
the living God be so great that no bias of judgment is 
needful to sustain a practical infidelity like yours ; if, 
wedded to the world and bigoted to sense, you mind 
only earthly things, and place all your love, and hap- 
piness, and confidence in them, and care for none of 
those things which pertain to life, to godliness, to your 
peace, and to immortality; if the tidings of salvation 
have no charm for you; and if the terrors of the Lord 
be as little understood or regarded as words spoken in 
an unknown tongue ; yet there is a language that you 
still may hear, there are truths which pertain not to 
this life alone that you still may discern ; and you may 
even learn that for you also, in this the time of merci- 
ful visitation, God has provided a way of escape. For 
since to earthly things only you will look, it is to them 
that the word of prophecy directs you. You may ask • 



8 INTRODUCTION. [Chap. 1. 

of those things that are at the present day to be seen, 
of which it told, and they will all answer in one voice 
that they have been, and now are, what in the ages of 
old it was declared by inspiration of God that they 
should be. And thus you may learn that the Bible is 
the word of God — that the world which you worship 
is his, from whose worship and service its vanities en- 
tice — that his power is over all — that the successive 
changes and convulsions among nations are creden- 
tials of the unerring certainty of the word of Him who 
changeth not — and that all his promises are true, and 
all his judgments sure. 

Or, is the passing of an idle hour the purpose of your 
reading? And is it not worthy of a trial at least, to 
ascertain whether wonderful things may not be beheld 
out of the law and of the prophets, as capable as the 
delusions of any idle tale of producing not only a mo- 
mentary excitement but deep feeling ? If your search 
be after novelties, it may possibly be new to you to 
read, in the writings of unbelievers, commentaries on 
the Scriptures and confirmations of their truth ; and it 
may not lessen your surprise to find that, in the con- 
struction of this part of the Christian evidence, (as also 
in others,) they have been more efficient, though not 
less regular and laborious co-operators, than are " the 
hewers of wood and the drawers of water." Or if you 
seek for wonders, and have not acquainted yourseh 
with God, nor considered the operation of his hands, 
you have only to hear what he has purposed, and how 
\\e has fulfilled it, and to behold the wondrous things 
he has done, that, if these be thought upon aright, 
your ears may tingle ; and that, instead of such excited 
feelings passing away in mere unprofitable amazement, 
• your lips may be ready to confess that it would be the 



Chap. I.J INTRODUCTION. 'J 

greatest of wonders that such demonstrations of the 
Spirit and of power could ever be resisted, and that if 
you yourself did not believe Moses and the prophets, 
neither would you "be persuaded, though one rose 
from the dead." 

Or, reader, if happily a different spirit be within you, 
if your mind revolt at the thought of opposition to a 
doctrine according to godliness, and if you seek for 
truth in the love of truth, it will give you comfort to 
know that, high as the consolations of religion are, clear 
as are its precepts, gracious as are its tidings, and glo- 
rious as are the hopes which it sets before the Chris- 
tian, even so abundant is the proof, and so sure the 
word of prophecy. And if such be the temper of your 
mind, you will not be slow to regard the strong con- 
firmation which the fulfillment of each successive pre- 
diction gives, that, in the revelation of the will of God 
to man through Jesus Christ, who died for our sins 
and rose again for our justification, truth is united to 
mercy, righteousness, and peace, and that they all 
meet together. Nor will you ever be at a loss to bear 
home this application of such a subject : that, knowing 
the word to be divine, you have ever to "give earnest 
heed" to all that is written therein to you and to your 
children — so that, walking in the light which has come 
down from heaven, you may now believe, and here- 
after feel, that the immortal glory which it reveals as 
the final portion of every fltithful servant of Jesus, shall 
as assuredly be realized as the fact may now be mani- 
fest, that many prophecies of old have already proved 
true. 

Whenever a man, even for the first time, beholds a 
regular and magnificent edifice, he has at once undoubt- 
ed evidence of the skill of the architect, and of the 



10 . INTRODUCTION. [Chap. 1 

power that was put forth in its construction. Of this 
he is convinced without any argument. He is not 
blind, and he has visible proof before him. He neither 
sees, nor ever saw, a plan of the building, nor a single 
man at work ; but he knows that all was planned and 
built; otherwise so goodly a structure, evidently the 
work of human hands, would never have been erected. 
In like manner God has not left himself without a wit- 
ness to the sons of men, either in his works or in his 
word. Things that are not seen, are understood by the 
things that do appear. The humblest hut exists-not 
without a builder. And the heavens, and the earth, 
and all that is therein, bear witness to the great Archi- 
tect of the universe, and show forth his eternal power 
and Godhead. But, however clearly these may be 
manifested, so that all are without excuse who glorify 
him not as God ; yet there was many a mystery con- 
cerning the nature and dispensations of the Most High, 
and the state and destiny of man, which- the light ot 
reason, struggling through the gloom of ages, tried in 
vain to penetrate. The world by wisdom knew not 
God, as it had need to know him. No mortal could 
unfold the mystery of godliness, nor ever devise, far 
less impart, the means of deliverance from spiritual 
darkness, from the conscious guiltiness of sin, or from 
the fear of death, through which man, by nature, is all 
his life-time subject unto bondage. Many wtee men 
did desire to see what we^ee, and to hear what we 
hear. In Athens, a city then the most renowned on 
earth for wisdom, an altar was erected "To the un- 
known God," but every Christian has only to take the 
Bible in his hands to show whom he worships. The 
question of the immortality of the soul — a truth im- 
pressed upon the mind, except when obliterated for a 



Chap. I.J INTRODUCTION. 11 

time by a devotedness to sense — called forth all the 
powers of reason to solve it, and yet the wisest of men 
could only elicit from the ruins of human nature 
some glimmerings of a better state. But now life and 
immortality are brought to light by the Gospel. And 
instead of doubting or disputing, as heathens were 
wont to do, what part, if any, the Almighty took in the 
control or administration of human affairs, we now 
not only know that "the Most High ruleth over all the 
kingdoms of the eartii," and that "a sparrow falleth 
not on the ground without the Father," but in looking 
back on the history of nations in the ages that are pass- 
ed, we behold in them the very proofs that the record 
which revealed their destiny is the word of the living 
God. Tidings pertaining to eternity and salvation, 
such as it never entered into the heart of man to con- 
ceive, before Christ appeared among the children 01 
men, are now clearly revealed, and may be heard and 
read by all. And as the works of the creation testify 
the power and Godhead of the Creator, so his word it- 
self testifies of its divine Author ; and there is also ma- 
ny a witness that the Scriptures are in truth given by 
inspiration of God. Their divine origin is proved not 
merely by the doctrines they reveal and the precepts 
they enjoin, concerning which it may be asked of men 
why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right? 
but by external evidence infinitely surpassing all that 
the ingenuity of man could ever have devised, and all 
that the power of man could ever have exhibited or 
produced, either to confirm any revelation, or to palm 
any imposture on the world. 

In regard to the evidence which the truth of pro 
phecy imparts, so strong is the proof and so clear may 
be the perception of it ; that c he who runneth may 



12 introduction. Chap. 1 

read.' The multiplicity and precision of the prophe- 
cies contained in Scripture is such, that no band of the 
most subtle deceivers could ever have pretended, or 
ever did pretend, to any such clear and close inspection 
of futurity; or if, to uphold any system, they had made 
the triaj, they would only have been forging the rea- 
diest means of detecting their own imposition, and 
would have, left it to every succeeding event which 
they had attempted to foretell, to mar their purpose, 
and to mark them out as lying prophets. The decla- 
ration of the end from the beginning is as sure an evi- 
dence that the word is of God, who knoweth all things 
as the creation of the world at the beginning testifies 
that the work is of God, who can do all things. What 
was foretold that men could never have revealed ? what 
predicted events have been fulfilled which men could 
never have foretold? and what certainty is there that 
the prophecies so long preceded the event? — are ques- 
tions which all have a right to ask, and which every 
one may be enabled to answer. These are the plain, 
broad, and liberal principles upon which every reader 
is invited to look to " the testimony of Jesus," and 
every gainsayer challenged to examine and canvass it 
to the uttermost. It asks no easy credit, it fears no 
trying scrutiny. If, indeed, there be strong truth 
therein, well may it lead to rational conviction all who 
will be convinced ; and justly may it leave under right- 
eous condemnation at last all who wilfully reject the 
counsel of God against themselves, whilst they will not 
hear and believe what none but the Lord could have 
spoken. And, reader, will you pray unto the Father 
of lights, that wherever there is light you may see it — 
wherever there is truth, that you may know it — that 
you may be saved from all the delusion of vain ima 



Chap. I.J INTRODUCTION. 13 

ginations, from all darkness of the understanding 
from all perverseness of the will, from all the de- 
ceitfulness of the heart — that you be not hardened 
in unbelief against the word of the living God — that 
you may know whether the doctrine be of God, and, 
if it certainly be such, that what is lacking in the 
degree, or nature, or work of your faith, may be 
perfected through all the means which infinite wis- 
dom and love have provided for that end, and that 
you may learn truly to believe, even to the saving oi 
the soul? 

The antiquity of Scripture is indisputable. In what- 
ever manner the most ungodly man on earth might 
scoff at the Bible, and vent all his malice against it, 
he cannot, except he be the most ignorant too, doubt 
that it has existed for ages. It is assuredly no idle tale 
of yesterday, like some of the wild dogmas of an 
atheistic creed. There are proofs of its antiquity to 
which no other book can lay claim. It has never been 
wilbout its witnesses and its guardians, though these 
very witnesses and guardians have sometimes been the 
greatest perverters of the Christian doctrine, or even 
the bitterest enemies of the Christian faith. The Old 
Testament, in which the prophecies abound, has been 
preserved with the utmost care by the Jews in every 
age. It forms the code of their laws, both sacred and 
civil, and the record of their history during many cen- 
turies, as well as of the prophecies, which looked and 
still look prospectively into futurity. Tacitus, a cele- 
brated Roman historian, who lived in the first century, 
in referring to prophecies contained in it, speaks of the 
books of the Jewish priests as at that time ancient. 
Two thousand and one hundred years have elapsed 
since they were translated into Greek. They "' r v . 



14 introduction. [.Chap. J 

read in the synagogues every Sabbath-day, commenta- 
ries on them were written, and ever since the begin- 
ning of the Christian era, copies of the Old Testament, 
as well as of the New, have been spread into every re- 
gion, and have been multiplied without number in va- 
rious languages. 

But to evade all attempt at caviling, and to set aside 
all possibility of doubt in the reader's mind as to the 
absolute certainty that the predictions preceded the 
events, many existing facts — that are as capable of 
proof as any fact whatever, of which men can see the 
evidence with their eyes — shall, in the course of the 
following summary inquiry, be adduced to prove the 
precise and positive truth, at the present hour, of the 
most ancient prophecies, of which also there are many 
that yet remain to be fulfilled. 

The wonderful nature of the events which were 
foretold, which are the most singular and surprising 
that have ever occurred in the history of the world, 
renders unnecessary even a single remark to show Hi at 
they are such as mortal man could never have foreseen. 
Each speaks for itself. And all of them declare, with 
one united voice, that the word which revealed them 
is indeed divine. 

The prophecies contained in the Scriptures, are so 
numerous, and the proofs of their fulfillment so abun- 
dant, that, instead of any deficiency of evidence, the 
only difficulty lies in selecting or condensing them. A 
general view of the prophecies that have a definite 
and distinct meaning, and that have received an express 
and literal accomplishment, may perhaps best convey, 
in a short compass, some representation, however in- 
adequate to the subject, of the fullness and force of 
this sure evidence of inspiration. The subject cannot 



Chap. II. J prophecies. i5 

be exhausted after the fullest investigation, for it forms 
a growing evidence, and is continually gaining fresh 
strength as the progress of events throws fresh light 
on the accomplishment of the predictions. And the 
slightest and most superficial view that can be taken 
of the subject — if the corresponding prophecies and 
facts be but touched upon, and presented to any inqui- 
ring or candid mind, and be made a matter of reflec- 
tion at all — cannot fail to show that there must be more 
in the word and in the work than man's knowledge 
and device. And if the reader shall close the perusal 
of this work lightened of a doubt or strengthened in 
the faith, would to God that he would suffer us to crave 
of him, in return, to leave the first principles of the 
knowledge of Christ, and to go on unto perfection ; to 
search the Scriptures as for hidden treasures; to hear- 
ken diligently to the oracles of the living God, know- 
ing that he is "not a man that he should lie, neither 
the son of man that he should repent ;" and to give all 
the glory unto God, that the gain may be his own 



CHAPTEH II. 
Prophecies concerning Christ and the Christian Religion. 

The coming of a Savior, which was the hope of Is- 
rael and the expectation of the Jews in every age, is 
frequently foretold throughout the Old Testament 
Scriptures. They represent it as announced by the 
voice of God to the first human pair, and as forming, 
from the first to the last, the theme of all the prophets. 
And, however imperfect a summary view of such nu- 



16 PROPHECIES CONCERNING CUK'ST [Chap. 11 

merous prophecies must necessarily be, a few remarks 
respecting them shall be prefixed to the more direct 
and immediate proofs of the inspiration of Scripture, 
derived from existing facts, in order that the reader 
may be rather induced to search the Scriptures to see 
how clearly they testify of Jesus, than contented to rest 
satisfied with the mere opening of the subject. 

A few of the leading features of the prophecies con- 
cerning Christ, and their fulfillment, shall be traced as 
they mark the time of his appearance, the place of his 
birth, and the family out of which he was to arise, hi9 
life and character, his sufferings and his death, the na- 
ture of his doctrine, and the extent of his kingdom. 

The time of the Messiah's appearance in the world, 
as predicted in the Old Testament, is defined by a num.- 
ber of concurring circumstances that fix it to the very 
date of the advent of Christ. The sceptre was not to 
depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver to cease from among 
his descendants, till Shiloh should come. Gen. 49 : 10. 
The Desire of all nations, the Messenger of the cove- 
nant, the Lord whom they sought, was to come to the 
second temple, and to impart to it, from his presence, 
a greater glory than that of the former. Hag. 2 : 7, 9. 
Mai. 3:1. A messenger was to appear before him, the 
voice of one crying in the wilderness, to prepare his 
way. Isa. 40 : 3. Mai. 3 : 1 ; 4 : 5. A specified pe- 
riod, — marked, according to similar computations in 
the Jewish scriptures, by weeks of years, each day foi 
a year, — was set, from the going forth of the command 
to restore and to build Jerusalem, after the Babylonish 
captivity, unto Messiah the prince. Dan. 9 : 25. A pe- 
riod somewhat longer was determined upon the people 
and upon the holy city. Dan. 9:24. After the Mes- 
siah was to be cut off, the people of the prince that 



Chap. II. J AND THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 17 

should come weie to destroy the city and the sanctu- 
ary; desolations, even to the consummation, were de- 
termined, and the sacririce and oblation were to cease. 
Dan. 9 : 26, 27. A king did reign over the Jews in their 
own land, though the ten tribes had long ceased to be 
u kingdom; their national council, the members 01 
which, as Jews, were lineally descended from Judah, 
exercised its authority and power — the temple was 
standing — the oblation and sacrifice, according to the 
law of Moses, were there duly and daily offered up — 
and the time prescribed for the coming of the Messiah 
had drawn to its close — at the commencement of the 
Christian era. Before the public ministry of Jesus, a 
messenger appeared to prepare his way ; and Jose- 
phus, in the history of that time, speaks of the blame- 
less life and cruel death of "John that was called the 
baptist," and describes his preaching and baptism. 
Josephus's Antiquities, b. 18^ c. 5, § 2. But every mark 
that denoted the fullness of the time, and of its signs, 
when the Messiah was to appear, was erased soon after 
the death of Christ, and being fixed to that single pe- 
riod, those marks could no more be restored again than 
time past could return. The time determined on the 
people and on the holy city, seventy weeks or four 
hundred and ninety years, passed away. The tribe of 
Judah were no longer united under a king. Banished 
from their own land, and subjected to every oppression, 
there was no more a lawgiver of the tritye of Judah, 
though Judah was he whom his brethren were to serve. 
Of the temple one stone was not left upon another. 
The sacrifice and oblation, which none but priests could 
offer, altogether ceased when the genealogies of the 
tribe of Levi were lost, and when the Jews had no tern 
pie, nor country, nor priest, nor altar. Ere Jerusalem 

Keith on P. 2 



18 PROPHECIES CONCERNING CHRIST [Chap. II 

was destroyed, or desolation had passed over the land of 
Judea, the expectation was universal among the Jews 
that their Messiah was then to appear ; and heathen as 
well as Jewish historians testify of the belief then 
prevalent over the whole East that the ancient pro- 
phecies bore a direct and express reference to that 
period. And the question might now go to the heart 
of a Jew, however loth to abandon the long-cherished 
hope of his race, how can these prophecies be true, if 
the Messiah be not come? or where, from the first 
words of Moses to the last of Malachi, can there be 
found such marks of the time when Shiloh was to 
come, or Messiah the prince to be cut off, as pertained 
to the period when their forefathers crucified Jesus — 
a period which closed over the glory of Judah, and 
which, in the continued unbelief of the Jews, has not 
heretofore left, for nearly eighteen centuries, a bright 
page in their history beyond it? 

Though the countrymen of Christ when he came 
would not receive him, yet it was of the Jews that Je- 
sus was to come; and the human lineage of the Mes- 
siah is as clearly marked in the prophecies as the time 
of his appearance. The divinity of the person of the 
Messiah, and his taking upon himself the likeness of 
sinful flesh, is declared in the Old Testament as well 
as in the New. He whose name was to be called the 
Wonderful, the Counsellor, the Mighty God, was to 
become a cluld that was to be born, a son that was to 
be given. Isa. 9:6. It was the seed of the woman 
that was to bruise the serpent's head. Gen. 3:15. 
The line of his descent, according to the flesh, and the 
place of his birth, were expressly foretold. It was in 
the seed of Abraham that all the nations of the earth 
were to be blessed. Gen. 22 : 18. It was from the 



Chap. II.] AND THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 19 

midst of the Israelites, of their brethren, that a pro- 
phet like unto Moses was to arise. Deut. 18 : 15. And 
he was to be not only of the tribe of Judah, Gen. 49 : 
8, &c, but also of the house or family of David. From 
the root of Jesse a Branch was to grow up, on which 
the Spirit of the Lord was to rest, and to which the 
Gentiles would seek. Isa. 11 : 1-10. It was unto Da- 
vid that a righteous Branch was to arise, a King, 
whose name was to be called The Lord our Righteous- 
ness. Jer. 23 : 5, 6. And it was in Bethlehem Ephra- 
•tah, in the land of Judah, little as it was among the 
thousands of Israel, that He was to come, whose go- 
ings forth had been of old, from everlasting. Mican, 
5 : 2. And Jesus is he alone of the seed of the woman, 
of the descendants of Abraham, oX the tribe of Judah, 
of the house of David, in whom all the families of the 
earth can be blessed; to whom the Gentiles seek, and 
who, ere the family genealogies of the Jews were lost, 
was shown by them to be born of the lineage of David, 
and in the town of Bethlehem. 

The history of the life of Christ by the four Evan 
gelists is simply a record of what he said and did, and 
his character is illustrated by his words and actions 
alone. Christians have often tried to delineate it; and 
if in the attempt their thoughts have harmonized with 
the divine records, their hearts may w r ell have then 
felt as it were the impression of that divine image after 
which man was at first created. Even some who never 
sought to be the champions of the Christian faith, have 
been struck with irresistible admiration of the life of its 
Author. Rousseau acknowledges that it would have 
been nothing less than a miracle that such a character, 
if not real, could ever have been thought of by fisher- 
men of Galilee. And Lord Byron not only called 



20 PROfHECIES CONCERNING CHWSTC Chap. II 

Christ diviner than Socrates, but he has no less truly 
than nobly said, that " if ever God was man, or man 
God, he was both." But the divine character is such 
that none but a divine hand could draw; and seeking 
in the prophecies what the Messiah was to be, we read 
what Jesus was while he dwelt among men. 

" Thou art fairer than the children of men ; grace is 
poured into thy lips, therefore God hath blessed thee 
for ever. The sceptre of thy kingdom is a right scep- 
tre — thou lovest righteousness and hatest iniquity. 
Psalm 45 : 2, 6, 7. The Spirit of the Lord shall rest 
upon him, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear oi 
the Lord. He shall not judge after .the sight of his 
eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears. 
But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and 
reprove with equity for the meek of the earth. And 
righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faith- 
fulness the girdle of his reins. Isa, 11 : 2-5. He shall 
feed his flock like a shepherd, he shall gather the lambs 
with his arm, and carry them in his bosom. Isa. 40 : 1 1. 
He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be 
heard in the streets. A bruised reed shall he not break, 
and the smoking flax shall he not quench. Isa. 42 : 2, 
3. Thy King cometh unto thee : he is just, and hav- 
ing salvation, lowly, and riding upon an ass. Zech. 
9 : 9. He hath done no violence, neither was there any 
deceit in his lips. Isa. 53 : 9. He was oppressed and 
afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; he was brought 
as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her 
shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. Isaiah, 
53 : 7. I gave my back to the smiters. and my cheek 
to them that plucked off the hair; I hid not my face 
from shame and spitting. Isa. 50 : 6. He shall not fail 
nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the 



Chap. II.] AND THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 21 

earth. Isa. 42 : 4. I have set my face as a flint, and 1 
know that I shall not be ashamed. Isa. 50 : 7. He 
shall deliver the needy when he crieth, the poor also, 
and him that hath no helper. He shall redeem their 
soul from deceit and violence, and precious shall their 
blood be in his sight. Men shall be blessed in him — all 
nations shall call him blessed." Psalm 72 : 12, 14, 17, 
The death of Christ was as unparalleled as his life, 
and the prophecies are as minutely descriptive of his 
sufferings as of his virtues. His growing up as a ten- 
der plant; Isa. 53 : 2; his riding in humble triumph 
into Jerusalem ; his being betrayed for thirty pieces of 
silver, Zech. 11 : 12, and scourged, and buffeted, and 
spit upon; the piercing of his hands and of his feet, 
and yet every bone of him remaining unbroken ; the 
last offered draught of vinegar and gall; the parting of 
his raiment, and casting lots upon his vesture; Psalm 
22, 69; the manner of his death and of his burial, Isa. 
53 : 9, and his rising again without seeing corruption, 
Psalm 16:10, were all as minutely predicted as lite- 
rally fulfilled , The last three verses of the fifty-second 
and the^whole of the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, — 
written above seven hundred years before the Chris- 
tian era, and forming, word for word, a part of the 
Jewish as well as of the Christian Scriptures, — pro- 
phetically describe, like a very history of the facts, the 
sufferings and the death of Christ; his rejection by 
the Jews; his humility, his meekness, his affliction, 
and his agony; how his words were disbelieved; how 
his state was lowly; how his sorrow was severe ; how 
his visage and his form were marred more than the 
sons of men; and how he opened not his mouth but to 
make intercession for the transgressors. In direct op- 
position to every dispensation of Providence which is 



<J2 PROPHECIES CONCERNING CHRIST [Chap. II. 

registered in the records of the Jews, this prophecy 
represents spotless innocence suffering by the appoint- 
ment of Heaven — death as the issue of perfect obedi- 
ence — God's righteous servant as forsaken by him — 
and one who was perfectly immaculate bearing the 
chastisement of many guilty, sprinkling many nations 
from their iniquity by virtue of his sacrifice, justifying 
many by his knowledge, and dividing a portion with 
the great, and the spoil with the strong, because he 
had poured out his soul unto death. 

The prophecies concerning the humiliation, the suf- 
ferings, and the cutting off of the Messiah, need only 
to be read from the Jewish Scriptures, to show that the 
very unbelief of the Jews is an evidence against them 
and the very scandal of the cross a strong testimony 
to Jesus. For thus it is written, and thus it behoved 
Christ to suffer, according to the Scriptures. And 
those things which God before had showed by the 
mouth of all his prophets that Christ should suffer, he 
hath so fulfilled. 

That the Jews still retain these prophecies, and are 
the means of preserving them and communicating 
them throughout the world, while they bear so strong- 
ly against themselves, and testify so clearly of a Sa- 
vior that was first to suffer and then to be exalted, are 
facts which give a confirmation to the truth of Chris- 
tianity, than which it is difficult to conceive any 
stronger. The prophecies that testify of the sufferings 
of the Messiah need no forced interpretation, but ap- 
ply, in a plain and literal manner, to the history of the 
sufferings and of the death of Christ. In the testimony 
of the Jews to the existence of these prophecies, long 
prior to the Christian era; in their remaining unaltered 
lo this hour; in the accounts given by the evangelists 



Chap. II. J AND THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 23 

of the life and death of Christ; in the testimony of 
heathen authors, and in the arguments of the first op 
posers of Christianity, from, the mean condition of its 
Author and the manner of his death, — we have now 
more ample evidence of the fulfillment of all these pro- 
phecies than could have been conceived possible at so 
great a distance of time. 

But if there be any truth, the perception and ac- 
knowledgment of which should lead to a sense of its 
importance, or a feeling of its power, it is surely that 
of the cutting off of the Messiah, as making reconcili- 
ation for iniquity, or the death of Christ as a sacrifice 
for the sins of men. It is not merely the knowledge of 
his righteous life, and of his ignominious death, in con- 
firmation of the word of prophecy, but an interest also 
in them that every sinner needs. There exists not the 
man, except he be alike ignorant of the spirit within 
him and of the Father of spirits, who could think of 
standing for himself, to answer for his sins, in the im- 
mediate presence of an all-holy God, and to abide the 
scrutiny of omniscience, and the awards of strict un- 
mitigated justice enforced by almighty power. Nor 
could man of himself, in whom sin has once dwelt, be 
ever meet, whatever his thoughts of immortality might 
be, for participating in the holiness or partaking of the 
happiness of heaven. And who is there that, even in 
the search after divine truth, can pass by Calvary, or 
cast but a glance toward it, and there behold in the 
sufferings of Christ a clear prophetic mark of his Mes- 
siahship, without pondering deeply on the guiltiness 
of sin, which nothing less than the voluntary death of 
the Son of God could expiate, and on that infinite 
goodness and love which found and gave the ransom, 
whereby, though guilt could not be unpunished, the 



24 PROPHECIES CONCERNING CHRIST [Chap. IL. 

guilty might be saved. And if he reflect upon the man- 
ner in which this vision and prophecy were sealed up, 
who that has a heart within him, or that can be drawn 
with those cords of love which are the bands of a man, 
can refrain from feeling the personal application to 
himself of the words of Jesus — " I, if I be lifted up 
from the earth, will draw all men unto me V* 

But the prophecies further present us with the cha- 
racter of the Gospel as well as of its Author, and with 
a description of the extent of his kingdom as well as 
of his sufferings. That he was to make a full and clear 
revelation of the will of God, and establish a new and 
perfect religion, was frequently and explicitly foretold. 
Deut. 18 : 18, 19. Isa. 9 : 6, 7. 42 : 6. 11 : 1-5. 55 : 3, 4. 
Jer. 31 : 31-34. Ezek. 34 : 23, 24. The words of God 
were to be put into his mouth, and whoever would not 
hearken unto him, God would require it of them. He 
was to be given for a covenant of the people, for a light 
of the Gentiles, to open the blind eyes. His law was to 
be put in the inward parts, or to be written not in tables 
of stone, but in the heart. And the religion of Jesus is 
pure, spiritual, perfect, and adapted alike to all. It is 
a revelation of the whole counsel of God ; it is a law 
whicK has to be written on the heart; a kingdom 
which is established within. The doctrine of the Gos- 
pel is altogether a doctrine according to godliness. 
This its enemies will not deny, for it is the cause why 
they hate it., Its very excellence and perfection is a 
stumbling-block to them. There is not a sin which it 
does not reprobate, nor a virtue which it does not in- 
culcate. And too pure and perfect it would indeed be 
for man, were not reconciliation made for iniquity, 
and redemption to be found from its bondage. 

But the complete revelation of the will of God, 



Chap. II.] AND THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 25 

which of itself would have pointed out a highway of 
holiness that men could never have reached, was to be 
accompanied with a revelation also of the grace and 
mercy of God, which might well suffice to show that 
the light was indeed light from Heaven. And while 
Jesus gave new commandments unto men, he an- 
nounced tidings of great joy, which it never entered 
into the heart of man to conceive. In fulfillment of 
the prophetic character and office of the Messiah, he 
published salvation. Never was any anointed like 
Christ to preach good tidings to the meek ; to bind up 
the broken-hearted ; to proclaim liberty to the captive, 
the opening of the prison to them that are bound ; to 
comfort them that mourn in Zion; to give to those 
who mourn for sin, or who seek for true consolation 
amid the bereavements or any of the evils of life, beau- 
ty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the gar- 
ment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. And none 
like him ever proclaimed either the acceptable year of 
the Lord, or the day of judgment of our God. Isa. 61 : 
1-3. What many wise men of old sought to know, 
Jesus taught. What they desired to see, he hath re- 
vealed. All that he taught, as well as all that he did 
and suffered, bore witness of him as the promised Mes- 
siah; and that kingdom has now come nigh which the 
prophets saw afar off. 

That the Gospel emanated from Judea — that it was 
rejected by a great proportion of the Jews — that it 
was opposed at first by human power — that kings have 
acknowledged and supported it — that it has already 
continued for many ages — and that it has been propa- 
gated throughout many countries — are facts that were 
clearly foretold, and have been literally fulfilled. " Out 
of Zion shall go forth the law; and the word of the 



2(3 PROPHECIES CONCERNING CHRIST [Chap. II. 

Lord from Jerusalem. Isa. 2 : 3, 4. Micah, 4 : 2. He 
shall be for a sanctuary, but for a stone of stumbling 
and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel; 
for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusa- 
lem. Who hath believed our report, and to whom is 
the arm of the Lord revealed? Isa. 8:14; 53:1. 
The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers 
take counsel together against the Lord and against his 
annointed. Psalm 2 : 2. Matt. 10 : 17 ; 16:18; 24 : 
9-14. To a servant of rulers, kings shall see and arise 
princes also shall worship. The Gentiles shall come 
to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. 
Isa. 49:7-23. The Gentiles shall see- thy righteous- 
ness ; a people that know me not shall be called aftei 
my name. Behold thou shalt call a nation that thou 
knowest not, and nations that know not thee shall run 
unto thee." Isa. 11 : 10 ; 55 : 5. No one is now igno- 
rant of the facts, that a system of religion which in- 
culcates piety, and purity, and love, — which releases 
man from every burdensome rite and from every bar- 
barous institution, and proffers the greatest of bless- 
ings, — arose from the land of Judea, was rejected by 
the Jews, persecuted by Jews and Gentiles, and yet 
has subsisted for many ages, and has been spread into 
many countries, and is outwardly owned by kings and 
by people as the faith of the civilized world. 

The final extension of the Gospel over all the earth 
is the theme of many prophecies, Isaiah, 25 : 7. 2 : k '\ 
H5:l. 40:5. 42:4. 52:10. 54-1-5. 60:5. 65:1. 
Psalm 72 : 8, 17. 2 : 8. 22 : 27, 28. Hosea, 1 : 10. Mi- 
cah, 4 : 1, while it is also clearly implied in others, 
that a long period was to elapse before the reign of 
darkness was to cease, or the veil to be taken off all 
nations. After the Messiah was to be cut off, and the 



Chap. II.] AND THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 27 

city of Jerusalem and the sanctuary to be destroyed- 
desolations, even to the consummation, and until judg- 
ment should come upon the desolator, were determiiv 
ed ; the children of Israel were to abide many days 
without a* king, or ephod, or sacrifice; desolations of 
many generations were to pass over the land of Judea, 
Jerusalem was to be trodden down of the Gentiles, 
and blindness in part was to happen to Israel, till the 
times of the Gentiles should be fulfilled; and .a great 
apostacy was to arise, and to prevail for a long, but 
limited period, before the stone that was to be cut out 
without hands was to become a great kingdom and fill 
the whole earth, or the last days should arrive, where- 
in the mountain of the Lord's house would be finally 
•established and exalted above all, and all nations flow 
into it. Dan. 9 : 27. Hosea, 3 : 4. Isa. 61 : 4. Luke, 
21:24. Rom. 11: 25. 2 Thess. 2 : 1-12. Dan. 2 : 45. 
Isa. 2 : 2. Micah, 4:1. But already, far beyond the 
conception of man to have harbored the thought, hath 
the light which has come out of Judea enlightened 
the nations ; already have the Scriptures been made 
known in a tenfold degree more than any other book ; 
long has He been a light to the Gentiles, and long have 
kings seen and arisen, and princes rendered worship to 
Him whom man despised, and whom the Jewish na- 
tion abhorred. The Christian faith made at first its 
bloodless way throughout the world. And though ma- 
ny a conspiracy has been formed, and many a bloody 
warfare waged against it, it no* only stands unsubdued 
.ancUmshaken after every ashpit, but the vain rage of 
its adversaries lias been subservient to its extension 
ana its triumphs. As a matler*)f history, th« progress 
of Christianity is at least astonishing; as the fulfill- 
ment of many prophecies, it is evidently miraculous. 



28 PROPHECIES CONCERNING CHRIST [Chap. II. 

In closing even this brief and very imperfect sum 
mary of the prophecies relative to the Christian faith 
and to its Author, are we not authorized to consider 
ancient prophecy, as bearing testimony to Jesus as the 
Savior; the time and the place of the birth of Christ; 
the tribe and family from which he was descended; his 
life, his character, his sufferings, and his death; the 
nature of his doctrine, and the fate of his religion $ — 
that it was to proceed from Jerusalem; that the Jews 
would reject it; that it would be opposed and perse 
cuted at first; that kings would nevertheless acknow 
ledge its divine authority; and that it would spread 
throughout many a nation, even to the uttermost parts 
of the earth. 

Why, then, were so many prophecies delivered? 
Why, from the calling of Abraham to the present time, 
have the Jews been separated, as a peculiar people, 
from all the nations of the earth? Why, from the 
age of Moses to that of Malachi, during the space of a 
thousand years, did a succession of prophets arise, all 
testifying of a Savior that was to come ? Why was tfie 
Book of Prophecy sealed for nearly four hundred yer.rs 
before the coming of Christ ? Why is there still, to this 
day, undisputed, if not miraculous, evidence of the an- 
tiquity of all these prophecies, by their being sacredly 
preserved, in every age, in the custody and guardian- 
ship of the enemies of Christianity ? Why was such 
a multitude of facts foretold that are applicable to 
Christ and to him aloae? Why? — but that all this 
mighty preparation migfcj; usher in the Gospel o^pght- 
eousness, and prepare the way for the kingdom ot 
God; and that Christians also, in every age, might add 
to their "peace and joy in believing " the perfect trust, 
that however great the promises of God may be, thev 



Chap III.] AND THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 29 

still are sure; and th^the who spared not his own Son, 
but gave him up for us all, will with him also, if his we 
be, freely give us all- things. And if we ever read a 
book for any object, ought we not diligently .to search 
the Scriptures, to see how clearly they testify of Christ? 
And ought not every word of such testimony to be, 
like all Scripture besides, profitable for doctrine and 
for instruction in righteousness ? And may it not be 
profitable ' for reproof and for correction ) to all who 
mind only earthly things — who are eager to seek after 
unprofitable knowledge — who could talk, with all volu- 
bility, of the temporal concerns of others or their own 
— who could expatiate freely, perhaps, on the proper- 
ties of a beast, the quality of their food, or the beauty 
of a garment — and who, although they have had the 
Bible constantly beside them, have, for many a year, 
remained ignorant of the value of the treasure it con- 
tains, or of the fullness of the testimony which God has 
given of his Son? None surely would any longer 
wilfully refrain from searching the Scriptures to see 
how they testify of Jesus, or from seeking the words 
of eternal life which may be found in them, were they 
to lay to heart the thought that the second coming of 
Christ to judge the quick and the dead, is as certain 
as that the prophetic tidings of his first advent — once 
heard afar off— -have already proved true. 



CEAFTSR III. 

The Destruction of Jerusalem. 

The Jews remain to this day not only the guardians 
of the Old Testament Scriptures, but living witnesses 



30 THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. [Chap. 111. 

of the truth of many prophecietj which, in the first 
ages of their history, unfolded their fate until the latest 
generations. Jewish and heathen historians fully de- 
scribe the dreadful miseries which they suffered when 
all their cities were laid waste, when Jerusalem itself 
was destroyed in the seventieth year of the Christian 
era, and the remnant of their race, after an almost un- 
interrupted possession of Judea by their forefathers for 
fifteen hundred years, were driven from their country 
and scattered throughout the world. A brief detail of 
the unparalleled miseries which they then endured 
may serve to connect their former history with their 
subsequent alike unparalleled fate, and to show that 
the prophecies respecting the destruction of Jerusalem 
are as circumstantial and precise, and were as minute- 
ly fulfilled, as those in which their more recent and 
present history may now be read. 

The Israelites were chosen to be a peculiar people. 
The worship of the only living and true God was main- 
tained among them alone for many ages, while idola- 
try and polytheism (or the worship of many gods) 
otherwise universally prevailed. But the Father of the 
universe is no respecter of persons. A divine law was 
given to the descendants of Abraham ; and blessings 
and curses were set before them, to cleave to their 
race in every age, according as they would observe 
and obey the commandments of the Lord, or refuse to 
hearken unto his voice, and to do all his command- 
ments and statutes. Their history, and their continued 
preservation as a people, is thus an express record and 
manifestation of the doings of Providence. To read 
of their calamities is to see the judgments of God ; and 
to compare them with the prophecies is to witness the 
truth of his word. There were intermingled seasons 



Chap. III.] THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM 31 

of prosperity and triumph, or of oppression and misery 
as they enjoyed or forfeited their promised blessings, 
throughout the long period that they dwelt in the land 
of Canaan. But their punishments were to rise pro- 
gressively with their sins ; and so awfully sinful were 
the inhabitants of Jerusalem after the time of their 
merciful visitation had passed, and when the dark un- 
broken era of their miseries began, that Josephus, their 
great historian, and the greatest of their generals in 
their wars with the Romans, has recorded his opinion 
that, had they delayed their coming, the city would 
have been swallowed up by an earthquake or over- 
flowed by water, or, as it was worse than Sodom, 
would have been destroyed by fire from heaven* The 
vial of wrath was not poured out till the measure of 
their iniquities was full. 

Instruments are never wanting for the execution of 
the purposes of God ; nor, when needful for the con- 
firmation of his word, is there any want of full testi- 
mony that his declared purposes have been fulfilled. 
There is nothing similar in history to th% siege and de- 
struction of Jerusalem, and to the miseries which its 
inhabitants inflicted and brought upon themselves by 
their savage barbarity and unyielding obstinacy; nor 
was there ever any other city or country of whose de- 
struction, devastation, and misery, there is so clear 
and authenticated a detail. Josephus, himself a Jew, 
and an eye-witness of the facts he relates, gives a cir- 
cumstantial account of the whole war, which furnishes 
complete evidence, not only of the truth of what Moses 
and the prophets had foretold, but also of all that, in 

* Josephus's History of the Wars of the Jews, book 5, chnp. 
13, $ 6. 



32 THE DESTRUCTION OP JERUSALEM. [Chap. Ill 

clearer vision, and to the perturbation and astonish- 
ment of his disciples, Christ had explicitly revealed 
concerning its then approaching fate. Heathen writers 
also record many of the facts. 

The prophecies from the Old Testament and from 
the New, relative to the siege and destruction of Jeru- 
salem, are so numerous, that the insertion of them at 
length would occupy a greater space than can here be 
devoted to the consideration of the subject. The reader 
may peruse them as they are to be found in the written 
word. Levit. 26 : 14, &c. ; Deut. 28 : 15, &c. ; Isa. 29 : 
1, &c; Ezek. 6:7; Jer. 26 : 18; Micah, 3 : 12; Matt. 
21 : 33, &c; 22 : 1-7; 24; Mark, 13; Luke, 20': 9-19; 
21; 23 : 27-31. They require no other exposition of 
their meaning. Exclusive of literal predictions, fre- 
quent allusions are interspersed throughout the Gos- 
pels respecting the abolition of the Mosaic dispensa- 
tion, and the utter subversion of the Jewish state. 

A nation of fierce countenance, of an unknown 
tongue, and swift as the eagle flieth, were to come 
from a distant4and against the Jews — to despoil them 
of all their goods — to besiege them in all their gates — 
to bring down their high and fenced walls. They 
were to be left few in number — to be slain before their 
enemies — the pride of their power was to be broken — 
their cities were to be laid waste, and themselves to be 
destroyed — to be brought to nought — to be plucked 
from off their own land — to be sold into slavery, and 
to be so despised that none would buy them. Their 
high places were to be rendered desolate — their bones 
to be scattered about their altarc— Jerusalem was tc 
be encompassed round about — to be besieged with a 
mount — to have forts raised against it—to be ploughed 
over like a field— to become heaps, and to come to an 



Chap. III. J r lliE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 33 

end. The sword, the famine, and the pestilence were 
to destroy them. 

The Jews lived fearless of judgments like these, 
when they dwelt in peace, and would not listen to the 
voice of Jesus. They would have no king but Caesar ; 
and they trusted in the power of the Roman empire 
as the security of their state. But He whom they re- 
jected showed how God had rejected them, how they 
were filling up the measure of their fathers, and how 
all these judgments that had been denounced of old, 
and others of which their fathers had not heard, were 
to be felt by many, and to be all witnessed by some 
who were living then. And the Man of sorrows, whose 
face was set as a flint against his own unequalled suf- 
ferings, and who shed not a tear on his own account, 
was moved to pity, and his heart %as melted into ten- 
derness, on contemplating the great crimes and the 
coming calamities of the wicked, impenitent, and de- 
voted city: "when he beheld Jerusalem, he wept 
over it." 

The expiration of thirty-six years from the death of 
Christ to the destruction of Jerusalem ; the death, pre- 
vious to that event, of at least two of the evangelists 
who record the prophecies concerning it ; the manner 
in which the predictions and allusions respecting the 
fate of Jerusalem are interwoven throughout the Gos- 
pel ; the warning given to the disciples of Christ to 
escape from the impending calamities, and the annun- 
ciation of the signs whereby they would know of their 
approach; the dread that was cherished by some of 
the earliest converts to the Christian faith, that the 
day of judgment was then at hand, and which had 
arisen from the prophecies concerning th£ destructor) 
of Jerusalem being closelv connected with those rela- 

Keith ou P 3 



34 THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. | Chap. Ill 

tive to the second coming of Christ and the end of the 
world (all of which things his disciples had asked him 
to reveal;) the unanimous assent of antiquity to the 
prior publication of the Gospel ; and the continued 
truth of the prophecy still manifested in Jerusalem 
being yet trodden down of the Gentiles ; afford as full 
a proof as could now be thought of, that the predic- 
tions were delivered previous to the event. 

No coincidence can be closer in relation to the facts, 
than that which subsists between the predictions oJ 
Jesus and the narrative of the Jewish historian. Yet, 
as the reader will afterward perceive, this coincidence 
is not more clear than that which subsists between the 
testimony of modern unbelievers and those prophecies 
which refer to the past and present desolation of Judca. 

Wars, rumors of wars and commotions, nation ri- 
sing against nation and kingdom against kingdom, 
famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in divers places, 
though the greatest of human evils that mortals fear, 
were to be but the " beginning of sorrows " — the he- 
ralds of heavier woes. Many false Christs were to ap- 
pear, and to deceive many. The disciples of Jesus 
were to be persecuted, afflicted, imprisoned, hated of 
all nations, and brought before rulers and kings for his 
name's sake, and many of them were to be put to 
death. Iniquity was to abound, and the love of many 
was W wax cold, but the Gospel of the kingdom was 
to be preached in all the world. The abomination of 
desolation was to be seen standing in the place where 
it ought not. Jerusalem was to be compassed about 
with armies, a trench was to be cast about it, and they 
were to be hemmed in on every side. And there were 
to be fearful sights and greai signs from heaven. These 
were to be the signs that the end of Jerusalem was at 



Chap. III.] THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 35 

hand. And there was to be great distress upon the 
land, and wrath upon the people ; the tribulation was 
to be such as had never been, and would never be. 
The Jews were to fall by the edge of the sword ; a rem- 
nant was to be led captive into all nations; of the tem- 
ple, and of Jerusalem itself, one stone was not to be left 
upon another, and it was to be trodden down of the 
Gentiles till the time of the Gentiles should be ful- 
filled. 

These prophecies were delivered in a time of per- 
fect peace, and yet were all fulfilled ere the lapse of a 
single generation. The deceptions that were practised 
by false Christs or pretended prophets, occasioned 
some of the earliest of the commotions which soon 
spread over Judea. Every city in Syria became the 
seat of a civil war. The Jews were goaded on to re- 
volt by the indignities "and oppressions to which they 
were subjected under Florus, the Roman procurator. 
They openly rebelled at last against the Romans. 
These* wars and rumors of wars and commotions were 
not confined to Syria. In Alexandria, fifty thousand 
Jews were slaughtered at one time. Italy was so con- 
vulsed, that in the brief space of two years four em- 
perors suffered death. Famines and pestilences also 
prevailed. There was a great mortality at Babylon 
and at Rome. There were great earthquakes in divers 
places, by which different cities were overthrown, 
" The constitution of nature," says Josephus, " was 
confounded, and no common calamities were portend- 
ed.'* Signs and fearful sights there were which might 
have awed the most daring. Iniquity abounded, and 
even Christian faith and love decayed. The name of 
Christians became a signal for persecution and a mark 
for hatred. They were taken before rulers and kings. 



3fi THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. [Chap. 11] . 

Paul, deserted by false brethren, stood alone before 
Nero. The bodies of Christians, covered over with 
combustible matter, lighted up the streets of Rome. 
But though the disciples of Jesus were hated, perse- 
cuted, imprisoned, afflicted, scourged, and many of 
them slain, burned, or crucified, the Gospel of the king- 
dom was preached from Spain to India, wA published 
throughout the world. They bore unto the death the 
triumph of their faith ; but in the judgments of God 
against Jerusalem not a hair of their heads perished. 
For the last sign was given. The idolatrous ensigns 
of the Romans spread over Judea. Jerusalem was 
compassed about with armies. These, for a time, again 
withdrew. Many escaped from the city. The Chris- 
tians, forewarned, as Eusebius relates, fled unto Pella 
in the mountains. But multitudes of others, going up 
to the passover, or fleeing for a temporary security of 
their property and lives, crowded within the walls of 
Jerusalem. And when the people of the prince came, 
(of Vespasian, who was chosen emperor of "Rome 
while in Judea,) there was no escaping. The city and 
the sanctuary were about to be destroyed. And the 
day of the wrath of God was come upon Jerusalem. 

Jesus having been crucified, Caesar disowned, and 
the sceptre departed, the Jews were without a law- 
giver and a king, when the conquerors of the world 
came to conquer them who had proved rebellious 
against God and man. The robbers who had banded 
together amidst the preceding commotions, and resort- 
ed to the mountains -of Judea, finding no protection 
from the power of the Romans, flocked to Jerusalem, 
and, joined by the zealots and the lawless mob, ruled 
over it. Plunder, murder, and destruction were still 
their work. The common provisions for the siege were 



Chap. III. | THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 37 

not only pillaged, but burnt. Faction fought against 
faction, and the blood of thousands was shed by their 
brethren. Contests were not less frequenter severe 
with enemies without, than within. The priests were 
slain at the altar, and their bones were scattered around 
it. The robbers or zealots at last held undisputed sway 
But famine soon preyed indiscriminately on all. The 
sewers were searched for food ; girdles and shoes, and 
the leather from off their shields, were gnawed. The 
most loathsome refuse was greedily devoured. The 
bodies of the famished fell dead in the streets. And 
the most apalling fact, which soon became notorious, 
and the discovery of which struck the whole suffering 
city with horror, and the besiegers with astonishment 
and rage, — of a lady, once rich and noble, slaying and 
roasting and eating her own sucking child, — not only 
shows with what prophetic truth and pity Jesus had 
bewailed the " wo of them that give suck in those days," 
and Moses had described, fifteen hundred years before, 
the very circumstances of the case, Deut. 28:56, &c. 
but also forbids that the most callous heart should seek 
further witness of great tribulation, such as none could 
be like. Yet the infuriated Jews, though they despaired 
of divine assistance when they heard of so unnatural 
and monstrous an act, would not yield. Of no treaty 
would they hear. Discomfited by their desperate as- 
saults, the Romans built a wall, and hemmed them in 
on every side. " Crucify him ! crucify him !" had once 
been their cry and that of their fathers, who impreca- 
ted the blood of Jesus on themselves and on their chil 
dren ; and surely it was upon them. Of fugitives from 
the famine, when taken prisoners, five hundred were 
crucified daily without the walls of Jerusalem, till room 
could not be found for the crosses, nor crosses for the 



38 THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. L Chap. IR 

bodies. The purposed object of such cruelty failed. 
for even so sad and shocking a spectacle did not intimi- 
date into •submission the desperadoes who ruled over 
the wretched city. In the lacerated entrails of some 
of the slaughtered captives gold was discovered, which, 
loving it as their life, they had swallowed in the hope 
of escape: and the Arabians and Syrians, who were 
confederate with the Romans, the harpies attendant on 
their camps, searched within the bodies of deserters 
for the treasures supposed to be hidden there; and 
thus, in one night, two thousand were dissected. 

It is painful to dwell on a tale of accumulated hoi - 
rors, and the example of Jesus forbids not Christians 
to weep. Let it suffice to be told: a hundred and fif- 
teen thousand dead bodies were carried out at one gate 
during the siege; six hundred thousand in all: these 
were the poor, to be cast out was their only burial. 
Many houses besides were filled with dead bodies; 
they weie also heaped together in every open space, 
till there was no ground to be seen, nor was there any 
place in the city but what they covered. A mixed 
multitude, about six thousand, perished amid the burn- 
ing cloisters of the temple, or cast themselves down 
headlong and died ; ten thousand others were there 
slain; the city sewers were choked up with human car- 
casses; eleven hundred thousand perished during the 
siege and in the sacking of the city and the attacks 
of the slaughterers; and when Jerusalem was given 
to the devouring flame, every street ran down with 
blood. 

Jerusalem was devoted to utter destruction. Her 
walls were destroyed, her battlements were taken 
away, for they were not the Lard's. The city and the 
sanctuary were razed from the foundation. The pass- 



Chap. III.] THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 31* 

• 

iiig of the ploughshare over the place where it had 
been was the last act of the Romans, as consigning 
Jerusalem to perpetual desolation, and was also the 
completion of their destined work, when they had laid 
it even with the ground, and had not left one stone of 
the temple upon another but what had been thrown 
down. 

The Jews were slain with the edge of the sword. 
Exclusive of those who were slaughtered in the sedi- 
tions and the siege, two hundred and forty thousand 
were slain throughout the cities of Judah and in the 
neighboring countries, as enumerated by Josephus, 
who specifies the numbers that were slaki in each 
separate place. Ninety-seven thousand prisoners were 
led into captivity. Many were taken into Egypt, and 
were there sold for slaves. Deut. 28 : 68. The slave 
marts were glutted with their vast number, till none 
would buy them. And on one occasion above eleven 
thousand captives were, through wilfulness or neglect, 
left destitute of food, and perished by hunger. 

So closely did the judgments of God cleave unto the 
Jews, and so fully did they all come upon them and 
overtake them, that, as pertaining to the destruction of 
Jerusalem and the devastation of their cities and coun 
try, every one of them was literally fulfilled. 

Jerusalem was called the city of the Lord, and Ziori 
was his holy mountain, where alone on all the earth 
praise had waited on him. Yet the sins of Jerusalem 
could not be concealed from his sight ; and his long- 
suffering patience, which had been tried in vain, would 
not always strive even with the city which he had cho- 
sen to put his name there. And when its iniquities 
had come to the full, — when in the day of its visitation 
it would not be instructed, or made clean, or wash it- 



40 THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. [Chap. Ill 

seJf from its wicketuiess, though God had sent his Son 
to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and a fountain 
was opened for sin and for uncleanness, — and when 
the Jews had rejected the Savior, and would have 
other lords to have dominion over them, — God would 
not pity nor spare it any more ; his soul was avenged 
on such a nation; and yet his anger was not turned 
away, but his hand was stretched out still; and he gave 
Jacob to the curse and Israel to reproaches. And if 
God spared not the natural branches, take heed that 
he spare not thee. If the recompense of their iniqui- 
ties, till he rewarded them double, was paid into the 
bosom of the children of Abraham his friend, who 
art thou, or what is thy father's house, that any sin of 
thine should pass unpunished, if thou continue impeni- 
tent; and if thus, in the time of thy merciful visitation, 
the Savior be rejected and crucified again? 

The security of nations rests not in the strength of 
.heir Hilwarks, for none were stronger than those of 
Jerusalem ; nor in the abundance of their riches, for 
such was the wealth accumulated in that city, that, 
after its demolition, gold was reduced in Syria to the 
half of its former value. "Except the Lord keep the 
city, the watchman waketh but in vain;" and sin must 
finally be the ruin of any people. The combined sins 
of private individuals form the accumulated iniquity 
of a nation. And when these become greater and 
greater, the time is rapidly advancing when they rise 
up to heaven, and its thunderbolts can be restrained no 
more. There are other drunkards beside those of 
Ephraim, on whom judgment was denounced, who are 
not less guilty than were they. And that covetousness 
which is idolatry, and for the iniquity of which the 
Jews were smitten, yek abounds. For where is the 



Chap. III. | THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 41 

practical influence of the love of God to be seen like 
that which the love of the world displays, or where is 
the fulfilling of the law of Christ in bearing one an- 
other's burdens, compared with the signs of mammon's 
rule, in each seeking his own wealth? But what, the . 
reader may ask, can one man do t<yivert national ca- 
lamities, or to lessen the amount of the sins of any 
people? Were each man to repent, as in Nineveh of 
old, all would be saved, though the threatened judg- 
ment were within forty days of its approach. And 
who, that continues in sin, and that thinks on Jerusa- 
lem as it lay even with the ground, can say, that were 
the judgments of God to come upon his countiy, he 
would have no share in the guilt that brought them 
down? "I sought for a man among them,*' said H? 
to whom all judgment pertains, "that should make up 
the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, 
that I should not destroy it, and I found none." 

But it is not to national and temporal judgments, 
though they might be terrible as were those of Jerusa- 
lem, but to his own individual and eternal destiny, that 
every man has chiefly to give heed that he may flee 
from the wrath to come, and lay hold on eternal life. 
Every man must stand or fall to his own master. And 
as an earthly king, by making a fearful example in the 
punishment of some, would strike the hearts of his re- 
bellious subjects with terror, so is Jerusalem set as an 
example before us, to show that iniquity will not pass 
unpunished, and that the terrors of the Lord, and his 
threatenings against impenitent sinners, shall all be 
executed, even as his word was true, and his wrath 
great upon Jerusalem. 

And it is no just reason, that, "because sentence 
against an evil work is not executed speedily," the 



42 THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. ^Chap. III. 

hearts of men should therefore "be fully set in them 
to do evil." Seeing that the judgment itself against 
every evil work is sure, such conduct would be to all, 
what it proved to the Jews, a treasuring up of wrath 
against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righ- 
teous judgments^" God. And the passing of the Ro- 
man ploughshare over the site of that desolated city 
which should have been the Lord's, is but a faint em- 
blem of that utter desolation which must come over 
the soul of every one who revolts now against the 
reign of the Redeemer, when every false foundation 
shall at last be razed, every sinful pleasure be destroyed, 
every towering imagination that exalteth itself against 
God shall be laid even with the ground, and every de- 
lusive hope be destroyed. 

But while we could not leave Jerusalem in its ruins 
in showing how the word of the Lord was executed 
Mpon it, without imparting some warning to those who^ 
in a spiritual sense, are not the children of Zion, we 
cannot close this tale of wo without expressing the 
hope that the time is hastening when Jerusalem shall 
no longer be termed forsaken, and that, the prophetic 
admonition, of another import, may now be received 
and acted upon, even as if it were a Christian precept. 
Ye that make mention of the Lord, ye to whom prayer 
is a familiar work, keep not silence and give him no 
rest, cease not from fervent importunity, till he estab- 
lish and make Jerusalem a praise in the earth. 

And seeing that the time is come when men go not 
up either to Samaria or to Jerusalem to worship, but 
that the grace of God hath appeared, and that the true 
worshippers now worship the Father in spirit and m 
truth, let this office, dear reader, be yours j let your 
body be a temple of the Holy Ghost, your heart an al- 



Chap. IV.J THE JEWS. 43 

tar to your God, and let your life no less than your 
lips shew forth his praise and be devoted to his glory. 
And if thus you would ever look to the Redeemer from 
all iniquity, as both the author and the finisher of > our 
faith, who once was crucified for the sins of men with- 
out the walls of Jerusalem, and to whom all judgment 
and power are now committed by the Father; and if 
you would receive the Savior in all his offices, to teach, 
to atone, to intercede for you, and to rule over you by 
his word and Spirit; you may securely, rest on that 
rock which is Christ, and look also to a city which 
hath foundations that can never be moved, whose ma- 
ker and whose builder is God. And though your body 
must be laid in the dust, being dissolved, you shall be 
with Christ; and the transition of your spirit, after you 
have lived soberly, righteously, and godly upon earth, 
shall be even more glorious than that of Jerusalem, 
when it shall be raised from its ruins, and become, as 
yet it shall be, an eternal excellency, the joy of many 
generations. 



CHAPTER IV. 

The Jews. 



Were we to seek a single word wherewith to con- 
tend the adversaries of the Gospel, and to confute all 
their arguments against the inspiration of Scripture — 
knat word would be, the Jews. We need not urge 
either the peculiarity of their fate ever since the days 
of Abraham, a period of three thousand seven hundred 
years, nor the miraculous preservation for ages, since 
their dispersion, of their exiled, wandering, miserable 



44 THE JEWS. c Chap. IV 

race. For we have only to read a multiplicity of pro- 
phecies concerning them, as they are written in the 
earliest records in the world, and, without once hinting 
what they are, to ask whose history they relate; and 
there scarcely is a man so ignorant in any country un- 
der heaven, who would not answer in one word, the 
Jews. To all the inhabitants of the earth the scriptu- 
ral appeal may here be made in relation to facts, of 
which all are witnesses — judge ye what we say. It 
is needful only to look to the Jews, and to hear Moses 
and the prophets, to know that the word must have 
been of God. And he that hath ears to hear, let him 
hear. 

"I will scatter you among the heathen, and draw out 
a sword after you; and your land shall be desolate, and 
your cities waste. — And upon them that are left alive 
of you, I will send a faintness into their hearts, in the 
land of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf 
shall chase them; and they shall flee as fleeing from a 
sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth. — And 
ye shall have no power to«stand before your enemies 
And ye shall perish among the heathen ; and the land 
of your enemies shall eat you up. And they that are 
left of you shall pine away in their iniquities in your 
enemies' land. — And yet for all that when they be in 
the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, 
neither will I abhor them to destroy them utterly, and 
to break my covenant with them. Lev. 26 : 33, 36-39, 44. 
And the Lord shall scatter you among the nations, 
and ye shall be left few in number among the heathen, 
whither the Lord will lead you. Deut. 4 : 27. The 
Lord shall cause thee to be smitten before thine ene- 
mies: thou shalt go out one w r ay against them, and 
flee seven ways before them ; and shalt be removed 



Chap. 1V.J the jews. 45 

into all the kingdoms of the earth. — The Lord shall 
smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonish- 
ment of heart; and thou shalt grope at noon-day as 
the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not pros- 
per in thy ways; and thou shalt be only oppressed and 
spoiled evermore, and no man shall save thee. — Thy 
sons and thy daughters shall be given to another peo- 
ple. — There shall be no might in thine hand. The 
fruit of thy land and all thy labors shall a nation which 
thou knowest not eat up; and thou shalt be or ly op- 
pressed and crushed alway : so that thou shalt Le mad 
for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see. — Thou 
shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a by- word 
among all nations whither the Lord shall lead thee. — 
All these curses shall come upon thee, and shall pur- 
sue thee and overtake thee till thou be destroyed: be- 
cause thou hearkenedst not unto the voice of the Lord 
thy God; — and they shall be upon thee for a sjgn and 
for a wonder, and upon thy seed for ever. Because 
thou serpedst not the Lord thy God with joy fulness, 
and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all 
things: therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies, which 
the Lord shall send against thee, in hunger, and in 
thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things; and 
he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, unti.' he have 
destroyed thee. Deut. 28 : 25, 28, 29, 32-34, 37, 45-48 
If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law 
that are written in this book, that thou mayest feai 
this glorious and fearful name — The Lord thy God 
then the Lord will make thy plagues wonderful and 
the plagues of thy seed, even great plagues and of long 
continuance, and sore sicknesses and of long continu 
ance. — And it shall come to pass, that as the Lord re 
joiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you ; 



46 the jews. |_Chap. IV 

so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you, and 
to bring you to nought ; and thou shalt be plucked from 
off the land whither thou goest to possess it. And the 
Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one 
end of the earth even unto the other;— and among 
these nations thou shalt find no ease, neither shall the 
sole of thy foot have rest; but the Lord shall give thee 
a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrows of 
mind. And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; 
and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none 
assurance of thy life. In the morning thou shalt say, 
Would God it were even ! and at e^en thou shalt say, 
Would God it were morning! for the fear of thine 
heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of 
thine eyes which thou shalt see." Deut. 28 : 58, 59, 
63-68. 

" I will cause them to be removed into all kingdoms 
of the earth. I will cast them out into a land that 
they know not, where I will show them no favor. J 
will scatter them also among the heathen, whom nei- 
ther they nor their fathers have known. Jer. 15:4. 
16: 13; 9: 16. I will deliver them to be removed into 
all the kingdoms of the earth for their hurt, to be a re- 
proach, a proverb, a taunt, and a curse, in all places 
whither I shall drive them ; and I will send the sword, 
the famine, and the pestilence among them, till they 
be consumed from off the land.that I gave unto them 
and to their fathers. I will bereave them of children. 
Jer. 24:9, 10; 15:7. I will deliver them to be re- 
moved into all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a curse, 
and an astonishment, and a hissing, and a reproach, 
even among all the nations whither I have driven them. 
Jer. 29 : 18. I will execute judgments in thee, and the 
™hole remnant of thee will I scatter into all the winds. 



Chap. 1V.J the jews. 47 

Ezek. 5 : 10. I will scatter them among the nations, 
among the heathens, and disperse them in the coun- 
tries. Ezek. 12 : 15. They shall cast their silver in 
the streets, and their gold shall be removed; their sil- 
ver and their gold shall tfbt be able to deliver them in 
the day of the wrath of the Lord; they shall not sa- 
tisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels; because it is 
the stumbling-block of their iniquity. For the iniquity 
of his covetousness was I wroth, and smote him. Ezek. 
7 : 19. Isa. 57 : 17. I will sift the house of Israel 
among the nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet 
shall not the least grain fall upon the earth. Amos, 9 : 9. 
Death shall be chosen jather than li/e by all the resi- 
due of them that remain of this evil family, which re- 
main in all the places whither I have driven them, 
saith the Lord of hosts. They shall be wanderer* 
among the nations. Jer. 8 : 3. Hos. 9 : 17. Make the 
heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and 
shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear 
with their ears, and convert, and be healed. Then said 
I, Lord, how long? and he answered, Until the cities 
be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without 
man, and the land be utterly desolate, and the Lord 
have removed men far away, and there be a great for- 
saking in the midst of the land. Isa. 6 : 10-12. Though 
they go into captivity before their enemies, thence will 
I command the sword, and it shall slay them ; and 1 
will set mine eyes upon them for evil and not for good. 
Amos, 9:4. I will make a full end of all the nations 
whither I have driven thee; but I will not make a full 
end of thee, but correct thee in measure ; yet will I 
not utterly cut thee off, or leave thee wholly unpun- 
ished. Jer. 46 : 28. The children of Israel shall abide 
many days without a king, and without a prince, and 



38 THE JEWS. [Chap. IV 

without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without 
an ephod, and without teraphim. Afterward shall the 
children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, 
and David their king ; and shall fear the Lord and his 
goodness in the latter days.'* Hosea, 3 : 4, 5. 

All these predictions respecting the Jews are deli- 
vered with the clearness of history and the confidence 
of truth. They represent the manner, the extent, the 
nature and the continuance of their dispersion, their 
persecutions, their sufferings, their blindness, their fee- 
bleness, fearfulness, and faint-heartedness; their cease- 
less wanderings, their hardened impenitence, their in- 
sitiable avarice; and the grievous oppressions, the con- 
tinued spoliation, the universal mockery, the unextin- 
guishable existence and unlimited diffusion of their 
race. 

Strong were the ties which bound the Jews to Judea. 
It was not only a glorious land, the land of their fa 
thers and the land of promise, but they held it as the 
peculiar gift of Heaven, and there only could many of 
the ordinances of their religion be observed. And as 
they could not be separated from the temple till it was 
blazing around them, so nothing but the strongest com- 
pulsion could tear them from their country ; and the 
unavailing closeness with which they clung to it, and 
their entire separation from it, were prophetically de- 
scribed with strict historical fidelity ; for they were tru- 
ly rooted up, and plucked, and consumed from off their 
own land. On a desperate attempt to repossess it, 
when their numbers had increased and their scattered 
strength was again combined, they fell by the edge of 
me sword in such numbers that, in the words of pro- 
phecy and of a heathen writer, very few of them es- 
caped. They were banished from Judea, and by ar 



Chap. IV. | the jews. iU 

imperial edict it was death for a Jew to set a foot in 
Jerusalem, though every Gentile might tread it down. 

But the extent is still more remarkable than the man- 
ner of their dispersion. Many prophecies described 
it, and foretold, thousands of years ago,, what we now 
behold. " They have been scattered among the nations, 
among the heathen, among the people, even from one 
end of the earth unto the other. They have been re- 
moved into all the kingdoms of the earth. They have 
been scattered unto all the winds, and dispersed through- 
out all countries, among nations which neither they nor 
their fathers had known" — the very names of which 
were unheard of by the prophets, and in countries the 
very existence of which was unknown long after the 
Jews had become wanderers among the nations. They 
have traversed the wide world; and there is not a king- 
dom on the face of the earth where they are not to be 
found. They abound in Poland, in Turkey, in Germa- 
ny, and in Holland. In Russia, France, Spain, Italy, 
Britain, and America, they are more thinly scattered. 
In Persia, China, and India, on the east and on the west 
of the Ganges, they are few in numbers among the hea- 
then. They have trod the snows of Siberia and the 
sands of the burning desert; and the European travel- 
er hears of their existence in regions which he cannot 
reach, even in the very interior of Africa. From the 
one end of the earth unto the other, the Jews, and the 
Tews alone, have been scattered among all nations. 

But the history of the Jews throughout the whole 
world, and in every age since their dispersion, verifies 
the most minute predictions, which clearly delineated 
all the marked characteristics of their stricken race. 
And dispersed, as every where they are, not only does 
that very fact bear witness to the divine truth of the 

Keith on P 4 



50 THE JEW9. [Chap. IV 

word which foretold it, but in every land visible demon- 
stration has been given, century after century, and is 
still given, seventeen hundred years after the expulsion 
of the Jews from Judea, that all those judgments have 
come upon them 4 and have pursued them, and have 
overtaken them, which, before they entered it, were 
denounced against them, if they would not hearken to 
the voice of the Lord their God, to observe to do all 
his commandments and his statutes. 

They were to find no ease nor rest among the na- 
tions whither they were to be driven. Their plagues, 
and the plagues of their race, were to be great and 
wonderful, and of long continuance. They were to 
be oppressed, and crushed, and spoiled evermore, &c. 
Various as is the history of nations in divers parts oi 
the world, and of the same people at different periods, 
that ' of the Jews, since their dispersion, has been 
every where the same. The first century of the Chris- 
tian era saw Jerusalem laid even w r ith the ground, theii 
cities and their country ravaged, the Jews led into cap- 
tivity, and driven from their own land — homeless wan 
derers throughout the world. In the second, under 
one Roman emperor, five hundred thousand of them 
were slain. Tl*ey were greatly persecuted in the third 
by another. In the fourth they were dispersed into 
various countries as vile fugitives and vagabonds; and 
previous to their banishment from Rome, their ears 
were cut off. In the fifth they were driven out of Alex- 
andria, and severely oppressed and persecuted through- 
out the Persian dominions. Many of them, having 
sought in vain every where for rest, and having been 
allured by a false Messiah with the hope of regaining 
Judea and subduing their enemies, rebelled against the 
Romans in the sixth century; and a slaughter^ lhV- 



Chup, IV. | THE JEWS. 51 

that by which their forefathers had fallen, was again 
renewed in Palestine. And such was the oppression 
of their kindred in Africa, that they were prohibited 
from any exercise of their religion, even in caverns. 
They were grievously persecuted during the seventh 
century, and expelled from Jerusalem, from Antioch, 
and from Spain. Multitudes fled into France, where 
the only choice that was given them, was to renounce 
their religion, or be despoiled of all their goods. Ma- 
homet at the same time subdued the Jews who dwelt 
in Arabia, and after exacting a heavy tribute, forcibly 
expelled them. A law was enacted and enforced 
throughout the Mahometan dominions in the succeed- 
ing century, which occasioned a double misery to ma- 
ny a Jewish family, whereby any child, on renouncing 
Judaism and professing to believe in Mahomet, became 
the sole inheritor of the property of his parents and 
brethren. In the ninth and tenth centuries the caliphs, 
or successors of Mahomet, whose power extended from 
Spain to India, despoiled the Jews of their property 
by repeated exactions, closed their academies in Per- 
sia, caused them to be distinguished by a mark of in- 
famy, and tried their endurance to the uttermost, till 
they fled for refuge to the deserts of Arabia. A tem- 
porary respite throughout the greater part of Europe, 
from any peculiar oppression, (except those troubles 
and indignities to which they were ever subjected, du- 
ring which time their covetousness had unfettered ope- 
ration,) prepared the way for spoliations and persecu- 
tions, which continued throughout several centuries 
with little intermission, and which were too multiplied 
to admit of detail. 

It would indeed be fearful, as it would be endless, to 
tell of the unceasing spoliations and unsparing cruel- 



F2 THE JEWS. [_Chap. IV 

ties which were exercised toward them in those dark 
and barbarous times, when men seemed fitted like de- 
mons for being the executioners of divine wrath, and 
when such was the blindness and madness of the Jews, 
that by their usury and covetousness they often pro- 
voked the ferocity of their enemies, and plunderers, 
and murderers. Nor can any tongue of man tell, or 
pen write, what trembling of heart and failing of eyes 
were theirs, or what sorrow of mind, what sore sick- 
nesses of soul, what madness for the sight of their 
eyes that they did see, what pining away and choosing 
of death rather than life, were the portion of the resi- 
due of this evil family among the nations whither they 
were driven; in the oppressions and crushings, the 
riflings and banishments, the miseries and the massa- 
cres, which, time after time, were relentlessly inflicted 
upon them throughout Spain, Portugal, France, Ger- 
many, Hungary, Turkey, Italy, and England. 

Did not every account conspire in attesting the 
facts, the nature and extent of the miseries which the 
Jews then suffered in many kingdoms would be alto- 
gether incredible. " They were every where," as is 
recorded in a history of the middle ages, " the objects 
of popular insult and oppression, frequentty of a gene- 
ral massacre." They were massacred in great num- 
bers at Orsana, Valentia, Barcelona, and Toledo ; and 
throughout Navarre and Arragon in Spain ; in France 
from one extremity to the other; throughout Langue- 
doc, Guienne, Poitou, Touraine, Anjou, and Maine y 
at Trani and Naples ; at Ulm, where all the Jewish in- 
habitants were slain ; at Frankfort, where, exclusive of 
many who were slaughtered, one hundred and eighty 
perished in the flames ; and in different other towns of 
Franconia and Bavaria, where, in one persecution 



Chap. IV. J the jews. 53 

twelve thousand of them perished. " At Verdun, 
Treves, Mentz, Spires, Worms," to use the words of 
Gibbon, " many thousands of them were pillaged and 
massacred. A remnant was saved by a feigned and 
transient conversion ; but the greater part of them bar- 
ricadoed their houses, and precipitated themselves, 
their families, and their wealth, into the rivers or the 
flames. These massacres and depredations on the 
Jews were renewed at each crusade." Their suffer- 
ings were no less terrible in England than throughout 
the continent. The whole nation united in the perse 
cution of them. They truly were, as Sir Walter Scott 
describes them, " alike detested by the credulous and 
prejudiced vulgar, and persecuted by the greedy and 
rapacious nobility. Except, perhaps, the flying fish," 
he adds, " there was no race existing on the earth, in 
the air, or the waters, who were the objects of-such an 
unremitting, general, and relentless persecution as the 
Jews of this period. Their persons and their property 
were exposed to every turn of popular fury." At Nor- 
wich nothing could restrain the fury of the people till 
the objects of it were destroyed by a general massacre 
of the Jews. Many of them were slain at Stamford, 
St. Edmund's, and Lincoln, and in the Isle of Ely, 
whither crowds of them had fled. But at York their 
sufferings were most appalling, and worse than death. 
Fifteen hundred Jews, including women and children, 
having shut themselves up in the castle, were refused 
all quarter; their silver and their gold could not save 
them, for they could not purchase their lives at any 
price, and, frantic with despair, they perished by a mu- 
tual slaughter; each father was the murderer of his 
wife and of his children, when death became their only 
deliverance. In England at York, as in Palestine at 



34 the jews. _Chap. IV 

Massada, (the last fortress which they held in their 
native land, where nearly a thousand perished in a 
similar manner,) and at Lisbon, Toledo, Nuremberg, 
Frankfort, and in numberless places beside, deatn was 
chosen by them rather than life; and the fear of man 
overcoming all fear of God, they acted on the choice. 

These dreadful persecutions were uniformly accom- 
panied with pillage. " They were spoiled evermore. 
Their substance and their treasure were given to the 
spoil without price." ?• 

They were bereaved of their children by the artful 
policy of th*e Mahometans, who bribed their children 
to abjure their religion, and to forsake their parents j 
and in a more forcible manner by Roman Catholics, 
who took them from their families to be brought up in 
monasteries — a practice which was not only sanctioned 
but enjoined by the canons of different councils. When 
the Jews were banished from Lisbon, none under four- 
teen years of age were suffered to depart. Their sons 
and their daughters were given to another people. 

" They found no ease among the nations, neither 
had the sole of their foot rest," &c. There is scarcely 
a single kingdom from which, independent of their 
oppressions, they have not been publicly and repeated- 
ly banished. From France they were seven times ba- 
nished. And, at one time, six hundred thousand Jews 
were expelled from Spain, and found no where either 
ease or rest. 

They were to be " a proverb, a by-word, a taunt, a 
uurse, an astonishment, a hissing, a reproach among 
all nations, and in all places, whither they should be 
driven." And all these they, and they alone, have 
been, and still are. They have in ail places been sub- 
jected to innumerable indignities, which it requires 



Chap. I V.J the jews. 55 

the full meaning of each and all of these epitnets and 
maledictions adequately to express and represent. A 
leathern girdle bound about them ; a piece of cloth of 
some peculiar color, worn so as to be seen of every 
passer by; a clog tied to their body, and dragged behind 
them at every step, or cast in derision and ignominy 
before them, are some of the badges of distinction or 
marks of infami which they have often been com- 
pelled to use, and which exposed them openly, wher- 
ever they went, to every insult and mockery. And 
were it to be asked, what is the one only by- word that 
is used by all nations, and common to the world, or 
the universal stigma that is applied in every country 
to a single name, the answer would rightly be, in every 
language, a Jew. And may we not, reader, whoever 
you are, appeal to yourself, and ask how often you 
have made use of this very proverb and by-word ; and 
if you must own that you have done so times without 
number, must you not own also that your own lips, 
however unconsciously, have as often borne witness, 
on your part, to the truth of this most marvellous pro- 
phecy; and that it has only to be thought upon, in order 
that you may as freely own that He alone who knoweth 
all things, could have foreseen and foretold so exclu- 
sively singular and astonishing a fact, and that in this, 
as in every other respect, the Jews are a sign and a 
wonder? 

It was for their sins that they were to be punished, 
hut covetousness was the stumbling-block of their ini- 
quity, the removing of which has yet to prepare the 
way of their conversion. Isa. 57 : 14, 17; Ezek. 7 : 19. 
The covetousness of the Jews is proverbial. Among 
them the most exorbitant usury is often the regular 
business of the rich. But the love of money is not 



56 THE jews. [Chap. IV. 

confined to these ; it is an iniquity which cleaves to all 
their race — the very idol of their hearts. It is often 
manifested in the streets of London, for instance, fre 
quently to the annoyance of all who pass by. And 
their hurried gait, their out-stretched arm, their plead- 
ing voice, their care-worn countenance, their eager 
eye, their squalid figure, and their bending form, in- 
dicate a soul bowed down to mammon, though their 
traffic be so pitiful as the selling of an old garment, an 
orange, or a pencil. A new heart has to be given them, 
and a new spirit to be put within them, the veil has to 
be taken off, and this stumbling-block to be put out of 
the way, before they can see a Messiah in a crucified 
Savior, or find a way to that kingdom which is not oi 
this world. 

But the greatest apparent contradictions and con- 
trarieties, which it might well seem impossible to re- 
concile, are involved in their most wonderful fate, and 
yet each extreme tallies perfectly with its correspond- 
ing prediction. While they were to be oppressed and 
crushed alway, their often renewed possession oi 
wealth is not only implied in their being spoiled ever- 
more, but it is explicitly foretold that when they shall 
be gathered out of all nations, they shall take their 
silver and their gold with them, and inherit the riches 
of the Gentiles. And, after all their spoliations, silver 
and gold is theirs in the greatest abundance. And 
from their large share in the funds of every kingdom 
in Europe, it may not now be difficult to see how they 
shall yet possess the riches of the Gentiles. Isa. 60 : 
9; 61 : 6.* But though the truth of His word, and the 

* There is, however, a striking exception, in regard to the 
accumulation of wealth by the Jews, which deserves, as such, 



Chap. IV.j THE jews. . 51 

workings of His overruling providence be thus mani- 
fested, it is not worldly wealth that 'can purchase the 
blessing of God : for covetousness is idolatry, with the 
iniquity of which the Lord is ever wroth. But all, 

to be particularly noted. And their own land was marked as 
the spot where no prosperity whatever was to be theirs, when 
the judgments of God on account of their iniquities should 
come upon them and overtake them. Before their entrance 
into Judea, it was numbered among their blessings, that, if they 
would carefully observe to do all his commandments, "the 
Lord shall greatly bless thee in the land which the Lord thy 
God giveth thee to possess it. The Lord shall make thee 
plenteous in the fruit of thy ground, in the land which the 
Lord sware unto thy fathers to give thee. The Lord shall 
open unto th«e his good treasure, the heavens to give the rain 
unto thy land in his season, and to bless all the works of thine 
hands : and thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt 
not borrow. And the Lord shall make thee the head, and not 
the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not bo 
beneath, if thou hearken to the commandments of the Lord thy 
God." Lev. 26 : 4, 6; Deut. 28 : 11-13. Among the curses for 
disobedience it was on the other hand denounced, " All the trees 
and the fruit of thy land shall the locust consume. The stranger 
that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and 
thou shalt come down very low. He shall lend unto thee, but 
thou shalt not lend unto him : he shall be the head, and thou 
shalt be the tail." Deut. 28 : 42-44. The abject, dependent, 
and impoverished state to which they would be reduced within 
their own land is here forcibly described. And their peculiar 
fate in it, and their mean condition there, in relation to the 
stranger that would possess it, represents to the life how very 
low the poor Jew has become in the land of his fathers, in the 
presence of the imperious Roman of old, or of the lordly Turk 
in past ages, or in the present day. The prophecy was amply 
fulfilled, and the blessings and privileges which were promised 
them, and which they long enjoyed in Judea, and their superi- 
ority above the stranger that was within their gates,.were alto- 
gether reversed, when, on their having forfeited the divine 
protection and favor, the Romans subjugated Judea, and got 



58 the jews. [Chap. IV. 

however high or however low their rank, may learn 
from the fate of the Jews to observe carefully that ad- 
monition which their forefathers would not listen to 
from Jesus, and to the power of which they still are 
strangers — take heed and beware of covetousness. 

up above them very high, and when the captive Jews came 
down so very low, that, even in their native land, they were in- 
debted to the stranger within it for the very means of sub- 
sistence — to be repaid only by their being sold into slavery. 
And although, in almost every other region, the Jews, in the 
exercise of their covetousness, have gained much silver and 
gold, yet that loved occupation has never, since their disper- 
sion, been practised by them in the land of Judea. From the 
want both of traffic and of the security of property in that de- 
solated country, they could neither acquire wealtfi nor practise 
usury; and hence few of them have sought to dwell there. 
Whenever, however, for the love they bore to the land of their 
fathers, any of them, when permitted, have resided in Jerusa- 
lem or throughout Judea, their condition has indeed been very 
low. Benjamin of Tudela, a Jew, who traveled in the twelfth 
century, states, that the country which should have been their 
own, was then almost entirely abandoned by them. About 
two hundred of them, for the most part dyers of wool, lived 
together under David's Tower, and made there " a very little 
figure.' 1 They were even more sparingly scattered, and left 
few in number throughout the Holy Land. In later times the 
remnant of the tribe of Judah, in Jerusalem, has continued in 
the same very mean and dependant state, some of them as 
clerks and servants of the governor, and others having no sub- 
sistence but from charity. It may here be worthy of remark, 
as being perhaps one of the signs of the times, that recently 
their number has greatly increased in Jerusalem, aud that 
many of them have of late been crowding toward Judea. Ano- 
ther prophetic and actual peculiarity, contradistinguishing, in 
some degree, their character as well as their fate in Judea 
and in other countries, is also very remarkable. While they 
exhibited the most desperate courage and fierce resolution in 
striving to retain possession of Judea, and in repeated attempts 
to recover it, there has been such a faintness in their hearts in 



Chap. IV.] the jews. 59 

The Jews were to be smitten with blindness and as- 
tonishment of heart, to continue long, having their ears 
deaf, their eyes closed, and their hearts hardened ; and 
to grope at noon-day, as the blind gropeth in darkness. 
Every civilized nation professes to believe in Jesus as 
the Savior of men, of whom all the Jewish prophets 
bore witness. But the Jews, though surrounded by 
the light of the Gospel, are still in blindness and dark 
ness : and their religious observances and opinions, as 
drawn from their own authorities, are the most frivo- 
lous and absurd imaginable. They have made the law 
of God void by their traditions. When Moses and the 

the land of their enemies, that the sound of a fallen leaf would 
shake them. And although the most powerful of nations could 
scarcely pluck them from off their own land, they have never 
conquered for themselves a settlement in any part of the world, 
or subdued the feeblest people in the land of their enemies. 
There is still, however, one remarkable exception, in the pre- 
sent day, to that timidity and faint-heartedness which has long 
been the universal characteristic of the Jews in the land of their 
enemies, and which is indicated in their very appearance. In 
a late publication, (Walsh's Narrative,) it is stated that "the 
Jews in Constantinople are a very fierce and fanatic race; per- 
secution and suffering have not taught them moderation, and 
they pursue, even to death, any apostate from their own doc- 
trines.'.' It is also stated that " they have lately distinguished 
themselves in the Greek insurrection, by their inveterate hos- 
tility to the Greeks." Yet this, though certainly an exception 
to the general character of their race, is no exception to the 
truth of prophecy, which overlooks it not. It seems rather to 
be a sign of the approaching fulfillment of a specific prediction, 
the accomplishment of which is evidently future. u Turn you 
to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope: even to-day do I de- 
clare that I will render double unto thee. When I have bent 
Judah for me, filled the bow with Ephraim, and raised up thy 
sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece, and made thee as a 
sword of a mighty man." Zech. 9 : 12, 13. 



tfO THE JEWS. [Chap. V 

prophets are read, there is a veil upon their hearts. 
And the people that long stood alone among the na- 
tions as the worshippers of the living God, now, when 
light has arisen upon the world, have lost the know- 
ledge even of their own law, and are so blinded by their 
prejudices, and ignorant of the divine truths revealed 
in the Gospel, that they grope at noon-day, as the blind 
gropeth in darkness. 

Their plagues, like their incredulity and impeni- 
tence, were to be of long continuance; and after a con- 
tinuance of nearly eighteen hundred years, they are 
fresh upon them still, in many parts of the earth, as if 
they had commenced but yesterday. Throughout all 
the countries of the East, the Jews are, as they have 
ever been, the marked objects of unsparing scorn, and 
of unpitying cruelty. So unused are they to compas- 
sion, and so freely are they deprived of those rights 
which should be common to all men, that " any acts 
of kindness, or even of justice, exercised toward them " 
by any humane traveler, ' " excite at once, in Asia and 
Africa, the astonishment of the Jews and the indigna- 
tion of the natives." Many rigid laws are still in force 
against them throughout almost every country in Eu- 
rope. And it is only very recently, in some minor 
states, that a more liberal and enlightened policy has 
been acted on toward them. And who that either 
thinks on the great and wonderful miseries which 
every where they have suffered so long, or believes 
that the receiving of them shall be life from the dead 
to those who yet sit in darkness under the shadow of 
death, and to those also who have but a name to live, 
and yet are dead — can refrain from feeling a deep in 
terest in their fate, or from cherishing an ever-earnest 
wish, and offering up many a fervent prayer, that the' 



Chap. IV.J THE JEWS. 



61 



close of their long-continued plagues may be hasten- 
ing on, when God shall bind up the breach of his peo- 
ple, and heal the stroke of their wound ; and surely it 
is full time to try whether Christian kindness, and 
those efforts on which the blessing of God may be ex- 
pected, may not be the means of preparing the way 
for their conversion, and for effecting far more, in a 
short space, toward that prophetic consummation of 
all their miseries, than all that coercive measures or 
savage cruelty ever have been, or ever could be, able to 
accomplish. 

Many prophecies concerning the Jews, of more pro- 
pitious import, are reserved for testimonies to future 
generations, if not to the present. To them the reader 
is referred, as they are to be found in Scripture. Deut. 

30 : 3-5; Isa. 11 : 11, 12; 60 : 9, 10, &c; 61 : 4; Jer. 

31 : 37, &c; Ezek. 36; 37; Zech. 9 : 12, &c.;.Amos, 
9 : 13-15; Micah, 2 : 12. " And, that throughout all 
the changes which have happened in the -kingdoms oi 
the earth from the days of Moses to the present time, 
which is more than three thousand three hundred 
years, nothing should have happened to prevent th 
possibility of the accomplishment of these prophecies 
but, on the contrary, that the state of the Jewish, ana 
Christian, and Heathen nations at this day should be 
such as renders them easily capable, not only of a figu- 
rative, but even of a literal completion in every parti- 
cular, if the will of God be so : this is a miracle, which 
hath nothin^parallel to it in the phenomena of nature." 

In regard to the past, as we have seen, on a brief re- 
dew of their miseries, the most wonderful and ama- 
zing facts, such as never occurred among any other 
people, form the ordinary narrative of the history of 
the Jews, and fulfill literally the prophecies concern- 



62 THE JEWS. [Chap. IV. 

ing them. These prophecies are ancient, as the oldest 
records in existence. They are clear in their meaning 
as any history can be. Many of them are apparently 
contradictory and irreconcilable to each other, and yet 
they are all literally true, and identified in every parti- 
cular with the fate of the Jews. They were so unima- 
ginable by human wisdom, that the whole compass of 
nature has never exhibited a parallel to the events. 
And the facts are visible, and present, and applicable, 
even to the most minute point. Could Moses, as an 
uninspired mortal, have described the history, the fate, 
the dispersion, the treatment, the dispositions of the 
Israelites to the present day, or for thirty -three centu- 
ries, seeing that he was astonished and amazed, on his 
descent from Sinai, at the change in their sentiments 
and in their conduct in the space of about as many 
days? .Could various persons have testified, in differ- 
ent ages, of the self-same and of similar facts as won- 
derful as they have proved to be true? Could they 
have divulged so many secrets of futurity, when oi 
necessity they were utterly ignorant of them all ? or 
could they, by their own sagacity, have foretold events 
that were to happen hundreds and thousands of years 
thereafter, seeing that, like all mortal men, they knew 
not of themselves what a day or an hour would bring 
forth? The probabilities were infinite against them; 
for the mind of man often hangs in doubt and uncer- 
tainty over the nearest events and the most probable 
results ; but in regard to remote ages, wh^ thousands 
of years shall have passed away, and to facts respect- 
ing them contrary to all previous knowledge, experi 
ence, analogy, or conception, it feels that they are 
dark as death to mortal ken. And viewing only the 
dispersion of the Jews and some of its attendant cir- 



Chap. IV.j THE JEWS. 63 

cumstances — how their city was laid waste; their tem- 
ple, which formed the constant place of their resort 
before, levelled with the ground and ploughed over 
like a field; their country ravaged and themselves 
murdered in mass, falling before the sword, the fa- 
mine, and the pestilence; — how a remnant was left, 
but despoiled, persecuted, enslaved, and led into cap- 
tivity ; driven from their own land, not to a mountain- 
ous retreat, where they might subsist with safety, but 
dispersed among all nations, and left to the mercy of 
a world that every where hated and oppressed them, 
shattered in pieces like the wreck of a vessel in a 
mighty storm, scattered over the earth like fragments 
on the waters ; and instead of disappearing or ming- 
ling among the nations, remaining a perfectly distinct 
people, in every kingdom the same ; meeting every 
where the same insult, and mockery, and oppression ; 
finding no resting-place without an enemy soon to 
dispossess them; multiplying amidst all their mise- 
ries, so that though they were left few in numbers, 
were they now to be restored, the land would overflow 
for the multitude of men; surviving their enemies; 
beholding unchanged the extinction of many nations, 
and the convulsions of all ; robbed of their silver and 
gold, though cleaving to the love of them still, as the 
stumbling-block of their iniquity; often bereaved of 
their very children; disjoined and disorganized, but 
uniform and unaltered ; ever bruised, but never broken ; 
crushed alway, but not utterly destroyed ; weak, fear- 
ful, sorrowful, and afflicted ; often driven to madness 
at the spectacle of their own miseries; taken up in the 
lips of talkers; the taunt, and hissing, and infamy of 
all people; and continuing ever what they are to this 
day, a proverb and a by-woru to the whole world : — 



t!4 THE JEWS. [Chap. JV 

how did every fact, from its very nature, defy all con- 
jecture; and "how could mortal man, overlooking a 
hundred successive generations, have foretold any one 
of these wonders that are now conspicuous in these 
latter times ? Who but the Father of spirits, possessed 
of perfect prescience, even of the knowledge of the 
will and of the actions of free, intelligent, and moral 
agents, could have revealed their unbounded and yet 
unceasing wanderings, unveiled all their destiny, and 
unmasked the minds of the Jews and of their enemies, 
in every age and in every clime? The creation of the 
world might as well be the work of chance as the re- 
velation of these things. It is a visible display and de- 
monstration of the power and prescience of God, and 
of the truth of his word. And although it forms but a 
part of a small portion of the Christian evidence, it 
lays not only a stone of stumbling, such as infidels 
would try to cast in a Christian's path, but it fixes at 
the very threshold of infidelity an insurmountable bar- 
rier, which all the ingenuity of sceptics cannot evade, 
and which all their power can never overthrow. 

The anger of the Lord has not returned until he has 
executed, and till he has performed the thoughts of 
his heart ; and in the latter days we may now consi- 
der it perfectly. Though he once caused to cleave un- 
to him the whole house of Israel, and the whole house 
of Judah, as the girdle cleaveth to the loins of a man; 
yet when they despised his statutes, and walked con- 
trary to him, and would not return from their own 
ways, he took away his peace, his loving kindnesses 
and mercies from them, and cast them out of his sight. 
But it was not till their neck became an iron sinew, 
that he put upon it an iron yoke. 

" What seest thou ?" was the question of the Lord 



Chap. IV. | the jews. 65 

to the prophet, when he made to appear before him a 
sign of judgments that were to come upon the Jews. 
And the words were repeated at every sign. And now 
on a retrospect of their actual sufferings, prolonged foi 
ages and not yet passed from view, and when all these 
have been to us a sign set before us that we may see it } 
it is the voice of the Lord that seems to put the ques- 
tion again — "What seest thou?" And who so blind as 
' not to see that the Jews stand forth from among the 
nations of the eartt as a token, a sign, a wonder, and 
a witness to all people, that the prophets spoke not 
a vision of their hearts, but out of tne mouth of the 
Lord; and that the sufferings of the Jews have not 
been by chance, but by judgment? And when the 
Lord thus speaks unto thee, answer thou him. And 
who so dumb as not to make confession with the lips, 
that this is the Lord's doing, and wondrous in our 
eyes ? and that, although the Jews would not observe 
his statutes to do them, nor fear the great and glorious 
name — the Lord thy God — their wonderful plagues, 
and the plagues of their seed, have clearly shown that, 
above all, his statutes shall be obeyed, and his great 
and glorious name feared above every other fear. 

Here the most ignorant may learn that God will by 
no means acquit the guilty. And even those who 
think not of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, as exem- 
plified to the universe in the sufferings of the Son of 
God, by which sin was condemned in the flesh, may 
look and see how great is the indignation of a thrice 
holy God against it, as visibly exemplified in the judg- 
ments which he has executed upon the Jews. Their 
punishment, like their sin. is written with a pen of iron, 
and with the point of a diamond. " How readest thou ?" 
If you cannot learn from thence, wherewithal can you 

Keith on P 5 



6G the jews. Chap. IV. 

be instructed? Here the man whose idol is the world, 
may learn how dreadful is the curse that cleaves to 
covetousne'ss. Here the boaster of privileges which 
he abuses may cease to pervert the right ways of the 
Lord, or to trust in unwarrantable hopes, when he 
thinks on the once chosen people of God looking fox 
a Messiah while his blood was upon their heads. Here 
the pride of ancestry may be humbled, in beholding 
the seed of Abraham, whose lineage is traced to the 
creation, the offscourings of the earth and the revilings 
of all flesh. Here the profane swearer may learn 
whose great and glorious name it is that he takes in 
vain ; and if his sin be not washed away by the blood 
of Christ, what his punishment shall be when the Lord 
will not hold him guiltless. Here the scoffer at the 
threatened judgments of God may learn from ten thou- 
sand facts, that his threatened judgments have proved 
true, and that none of them are ever to be mocked at 
and had even he the wisdom, the feeling, and the grace 
to consider perfectly the judgments which the Lord 
hath already executed in the earth upon a single peo- 
ple, not only would his ears tingle at the recital of 
such woes, but, looking from national to individual, 
from temporal to eternal punishments, from those 
which have fallen upon the Jews, to those which shall 
come on "all the workers of iniquity," his heart would 
quake, till the thought of his uttering another scoff at 
the religion of Jesus would be more fearful to his al- 
tered spirit than the thought of all the accumulated 
miseries which the Jews have ever suffered. And 
here, at the sight of such temporal judgments, even 
the Christian may not only learn the more to fear the 
great and glorious name of the Lord his God, but may 
also find new reasons to prize the blessings of redem r - 



Chap. 1V.J THE JEWS. 67 

tion, and to flee, with renewed alacrity, from the wrath 
to come. 

But national judgments, though heretofore most con- 
spicuous in regard to the Jews, and though literally 
fulfilled respecting them, are not confined to them alone. 
And in the same true and holy word in which sentence 
was written against their iniquities wherever they w r ere 
committed, it is recorded that the Lord, who hath now 
long left them to be a curse and a reproach throughout 
the world, hath a controversy with all nations, and will 
plead with all flesh, and hath appointed a year of recom- 
penses for the controversy of Zion ; a time to try all 
that are on the face of the earth. And we cannot call 
this truth to remembrance, and bear in mind, at the 
time, the wo denounced against the false prophets and 
teachers among the Jews, who by healing the wound of 
the people slightly, and by saying, Peace ! peace ! when 
there was no peace, caused them to err by their lies 
and by their lightness; nor. can we close our view, dim 
and contracted as it has been, of the judicial sufferings 
of the Jews, without urging the reader to think, in all 
seriousness, how awfully these judgments warn all to 
stand in awe and sin not; how they set forth sin before 
us stripped of every disguise, that we may see it in all 
its abomination, as in the sight of God it appears ; in 
all its hideousness, as the child of hell, and in all its 
danger, to every nation now, to every individual here- 
after, as linked closely to judgment, except its own 
fetters shall be broken, and redemption, through the 
Savior, be timely found from its bondage. And where 
s the people, though the name of Christian be upon 
them, to whom peace ! peace ! may be safely said ? Or 
who can tell that the time is not come, when those 
shall prove the warmest lovers of their race who give 



68 PROPHECIES CONCERNING JUDEA [Chap. V 

the loudest warnings of their danger? As the clay is 
in the hand of the potter, so is the house of Israel, and 
every other people, in the hand of the Lord. "At 
what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, or 
concerning a kingdom, saith the Lord, to pluck up, 
and to pull down, and to destroy it; if that nation 
against whom I have pronounced, turnfrom their evil, 
I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. 
And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, 
and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; if 
it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then 
1 will repent of the good wherewith I said I would 
benefit them." Jer. 18 : 7-10. 

We have seen the judgments on the house of Israel* 
O that they would return unto the Lord, for he would 
have mercy upon them. "Thus saith the Lord, If my 
covenant be not with day and night; and if I have not 
appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth ; then 
will I cast away the seed of Jacob, and David my ser- 
vant, so that I will not take any of his seed to be ru- 
bers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob ; for I 
will cause their captivity to return, and have mercy on 
them." Jer. 33:25,26. 



CHAPTER V 

Prophecies concerning Judea and the adjoining Countries 

Judea, the country of the Jews, of which Jerusalem 
was the capital, and which was also called Canaan, 
Palestine, and the Holy Land, was so exceedingly fer- 
tile, that, according to Volney, an infidel writer, whose 



Chap. V.J AND THE ADJOINING COUNTRIES. C){) 

evidence will be largely adduced to prove its desola- 
tion, it was ranked by the Greeks and Romans among 
the finest Of their provinces. Celebrated ancient au- 
thors bear the most decided testimony to the great 
number of towns and villages with which it was over- 
spread, to the eminence of several of its cities, the ex- 
cellency of the climate, and the fertility of the soil, 
whereby it outrivalled Italy in the abundance of its 
fruits, and to the very high degree of cultivation it had 
reached; from whence Syria, including Ammon, Moab, 
and Philistia, as well as Judea, was proverbially called 
a garden by the Greeks, who possessed a rich and 
beautiful country of their own. So highly was the 
beauty and fertility of Judea esteemed, many centu- 
ries after the prophecies had described its future and 
long-continued desolation. 

The earth is the Lord's, and as it was cursed for 
the sake of man when he first sinned against God, the 
glorious land of Judea was likewise accursed, and 
"desolations of many generations" were to pass over 
it, on account of the sins of the people to whom the 
Lord had given it, and for whom it is atill reserved, to 
be held by them in perpetuity, when they shall have 
returned unto the Lord God of their fathers. 

The calamities of the Israelites were to rise pro- 
gressively with their iniquities ; and the desolation oi 
their country, as well as their banishment from it, is 
ranked among the punishments that were denounced 
against them. And many prophecies respecting it, 
which admit of a literal interpretation, and which have 
been literally fulfilled, are abundantly clear and ex- 
pressive. 

• "I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanc- 
tuaries into desolation ; and I will bring the land into 



70 PROPHECIES CONCERNING JUUEA [Chap. V 

desolation; and your enemies which dwell therein 
shall be astonished at it ; your land shall be desolate, 
and your cities waste. Then shall the land enjoy her 
Sabbaths. As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest" 
Levit. 26:31-35,43. 

The particular features of the desolation of Judea 
are minutely traced out in other prophecies, Isa. 1 :7; 
24 : 1-13; 32 : 9-15 ; 27 : 10. Jerem. 4 : 20, 26-28 ; 1 2 5 
7-14. Ezek. 12:19,20, exactly as they are described 
by modern travelers. The vision of the prophets was 
as clear as the eye-sight of any who now read the his 
tory of Judea, or look upon the land ; while the ma- 
ny vestiges of ancient cultivation, ruins abounding 
every where, the remains of Roman buildings and high- 
ways, the natural richness of the soil, in many praces 
yet unaltered, agree with the universal voice of history 
m attesting, beyond the possibility of a doubt, that for 
ages after the era of the prophets, Judea was altogether 
different from what it now is, or from what any mortal 
could have conceived that, for so long a period, it ever 
would have become. 

The land wad to be overthrown by strangers; mis 
chief was to come upon mischief, and destruction upon 
destruction ; the land was to be desolate ; there were 
to be desolations of many generations. After a long 
and uninterrupted possession of Judea by the Israel- 
ites, — the Chaldeans, Syrians, Egyptians, and Romans 
were successive strangers who brought destruction 
upon destruction, and prepared the way for more sa- 
vage desolators. The history of Judea for the last 
twelve hundred years is well recorded by Volney. 
"In the year 622, (636,) the Arabian tribes, collected 
under the banners of Mahomet, seized, or rather laid 
it waste. Since that period, torn to pieces by the civil 



Ciiap. V. j AND THE ADJOINING COUNTRIES. 71 

wars of the Fatiraites and the Qmmiades; wrested 
from the caliphs by their rebellious governors ; taken 
from them by the Turkmen soldiery ; invaded by the 
European crusaders; retaken by the Mamelukes of 
Egypt, and ravaged by Tamerlane and*his Tartars, i* 
has at length fallen into the hands of the Ottoman 
Turks." It has been trodden down of the Gentiles — 
overthrown by strangers — destruction has come upon 
destruction. 

The cities were to be laid waste. By the concur- 
ring testimony of all travelers, Judea may now be 
called a field of ruins. These, though in general 
tenantless, retain the names of their ancient cities. 
Heaps of rubbish and of ruins are all that remain of 
Cesarea, Zabulon, Capernaum, Bethsaida, Gadara, Ta- 
richea, and Chorazin. Desolators have brought to per- 
fection their destined work on those cities where Christ 
and his apostles lived and preached. Columns covered 
with rubbish and shapeless heaps of ruins are scattered 
over the whole country. These are in some instances 
extensive. The remains of Arimathea show, accord- 
ing to Volney, that it must have been about five miles 
in circumference. The ruins of Djerash (Gerasa) are 
described by different travelers as finer than those of 
Palmyra. But of many towns, once illustrious in Pa- 
lestine, scarcely a vestige remains — they are so utterly 
laid waste. 

The land was to be brought into desolation — to -rest, 
ind enjoy her Sabbaths. And while the children of 
Israel were to be in their enemies' land, so long was 
their land to lie desolate. They have been for nearly 
eighteen centuries in their enemies' land, and their 
own land is still desolate. The sword was drawn af- 
ter them, and the ploughshare has rested in JudeaL 



72 PROPHECIES CONCERNING JUDEA. [Chap. V. 

The most fertile plains lie imtilled. The country is 
overrun by rebel tribes ; the Arabs pasture their herds 
at freedom. "The art of cultivation," says Volney, 
"is in the most deplorable state, and the countryman 
must sow with the musket in his hand." Valleys natu- 
rally the most fertile are covered with varieties of this- 
tles; some of the hills are scarcely accessible, so close 
ly are they beset with thorns; the wild plants and 
grasses on the plains sometimes impede the traveler , 
and so luxuriant is their growth, that horses with diffi 
culty pass through them; and the whole district of Ti- 
berfas, as Burckhardt, a celebrated traveler, relates, is 
covered with a thorny shrub. " The land mourns, an J 
is laid waste, and has become as a desolate wilderness 
Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and 
briers." 

" Your highways shall be desolate." Lev. 26 : 22. 
Isa. 33 : 8. The highways lie waste ; the wayfaring 
man ceaseth. Judea was traversed with roads in every 
direction, and the intercourse was incessant between 
its numerous and populous cities. The remains of 
highways, no longer passable, are still to be seen. " In 
the interior parts of the country," says Volney, " there 
are neither great roads, nor canals, nor even bridges 
over the rivers and torrents, however necessary they 
may be in winter. The roads in the mountains are ex- 
tremely bad. There are no inns any where; neither 
posts nor public conveyances ; not a wagon nor a cart 
in all Syria." The same remarkable facts are stated 
by others. In a country where there is a total want 
of wheel-carriages of every description, the highways, 
however excellent and numerous they once might have 
been, must lie waste ; and where dangers are encoun- 
tered at every step in passing over wastes that are 



Chap. V.] AND THE ADJOINING COUNTRIES. 73 

overrun by plundering and lawless Arabs, the way- 
faring man ceaseth. But let the disciples of Volney 
tell how his ample description of these existing facts 
was summed up in a brief prophetic sentence by Mo- 
ses and Isaiah ; by the former thirty-three, and by the 
latter twenty-five centuries past. 

The condition of the inhabitants of Judea, as well 
as of the land, when the house of the Lord would be 
forsaken, and his heritage left and given into the hands 
of her enemies, is described in repeated prophecies. 
Many pastors (or rulers) were to destroy his vineyard, 
to tread his portion under their feet, and to make his 
pleasant portion a desolate wilderness; the spoilers 
were to come, and the sword was to devour ; no flesh 
was to have peace; they were to put themselves to 
pain, but they were not to profit, and they were to be 
ashamed of their revenues. Jerem. 12:7-13. It was 
prophesied that when the Israelites should be scattered 
among the nations and dispersed in the countries, the 
inhabitants of Jerusalem and of the land of Israel 
would eat their bread with carefulness, and drink their 
water with astonishment, that her land might be deso- 
late from all that was therein, because of the violence 
of them that dwelt therein. Ezek. 12 : 19, 20. While 
the ancient possessors of the land were to be scattered 
abroad, it was to be defiled under the inhabitants there- 
of; they that dwelt therein were to be desolate, and few 
men left. Their joyless state is thus described: "The 
new wine mourneth, the vine languisheth, all the merry- 
hearted do sigh. The mirth of tabrets ceaseth. The 
noise of them that rejoice endeth. The joy of the 
harp ceaseth. They shall»not drink wine with a song; 
strong drink shall be little in them that drink it; all 
joy is darkened ; the mirth of the land is gone." Isa. 



74 PROPHECIES CONCERNING JUDEA [ Chap V. 

24 : 7-11 . And such, to an exact likeness, and in every 
respect, are those still who dwell in Judea, while the 
Lord has forsaken his heritage and left it m the hands 
of its enemies, and while his ancients are scattered 
abroad. And while many other witnesses are not 
wanting, Volney alone gives the most copious and dis- 
tinct evidence of each of the facts. And if ever there 
was a perfectly unexceptionable and unsuspected wit 
ness, he, in this case, is the man. He is careful in stat 
ing the revenue of the different pachalics of Syria. 

In Aleppo. . 800 purses. 

Tripoli .... 750 

Damascus. . . 45 

Acre 750 

Palestine . . — 



2345 purses (£122,135 sterling.) 
The revenue of Palestine (including Philistia and 
part of Judea) was gifted to two individual's. And to- 
gether with that of Damascus, the least by far of all 
the rest, it formed almost the whole revenue of the 
Holy Land. "They shall be ashamed of your reve- 
nues." The government of the Turks in Syria is en- 
tirely a military despotism ; that is, the bulk of the in- 
habitants are subject to the caprices of a faction of 
cirmed men, who dispose of every thing according to 
iheir interest and fancy. In each government the 
pasha is an absolute despot. In the villages the in- 
habitants, limited to the mere necessaries of life, have 
no arts but those without which they cannot subsist. 
There is no safety without the town, nor security with- 
in their precincts. The barbarism of Syria is complete. 
They live in a state of perpetual alarm. Every peasant 
is afraid of exciting the envy of his equals, and the 



Chap. V.J AND THE ADJOINING COUNTRIES. 75 

avarice of the aga and his soldiers. In such a country, 
where the subject is perpetually watched by a despoi] 
ing government, he must assume a serious counte- 
nance for the same reason that he wears ragged clothes 
or in other words, " because of the violence of them 
that dwell therein." Such is the testimony of Volney 
They that dwell therein are desolate. They eat their 
• bread with carefulness, and drink their water with as- 
tonishment. They put themselves to pain, but it does 
not profit them ; no flesh has peace. The land is de- 
filed under the inhabitants thereof. 

Few men left. " So feeble a population in so excel- 
lent a country may well excite our astonishment; but 
this will be increased, if we compare the present num- 
ber of inhabitants with that of ancient times. We are 
informed by the philosophical geographer Strabo, that 
the territories of Yamnia and Yoppa, in Palestine 
alone, were formerly so populous as to bring forty 
thousand armed men into the field. At present they 
could scarcely furnish three thousand." " The stranger 
that shall come from a far land shall be astonished at 
it." In the preceding words Volney expresses his as- 
tonishment. " They have no music but vocal, for they 
neither know nor esteem instrumental ; and they are 
in the right, for such instruments as they have, not 
excepting their flutes, are detestable." " The mirth of 
the harp ceaseth, the joy of the tabret ceaseth." " Their 
singing is accompanied with sighs and gestures. They 
may be said to excel most in the melancholy strain. 
To behold an Arab with his head inclined, his hand 
applied to his ear, his eye-brows knit, his eyes lan- 
guishing; to hear his plaintive tones, his sighs and 
sobs, it is almost impossible to refrain from tears." 
Their very mirth is melancholy; their very sports 



76 PROFHECIES CONCERNING JUDEA. [ Clia P- V - 

tend to sadness; "all the merry-hearted do sigh ; their 
shouting is no shouting." " Their behavior is serious, 
austere, and melancholy. They rarely laugh. And the 
gayety of the French appears to them a fit of delirium 
They have a serious, nay, even sad and melancholy 
countenance." " All joy is darkened, the mirth of tne 
land is gone." Volney instances the Jews, to show that 
the character of the people is entirely changed from 
what it was in ancient times. " One of the chief 
sources," continues he, " of gayety with us, is the so- 
cial intercourse of the table and the use of wine. The 
orientals (Syrians) are strangers to this double enjoy- 
ment. Good cheer would infallibly expose them to 
extortion, and wine to a corporal punishment, from 
the zeal of the police in enforcing the precepts of the 
Koran. It is with great reluctance the Mahometans 
tolerate the Christians in the use of a liquor they envy 
them." The wines of Jerusalem (though Judea was 
" a land of vines ") are described by another traveler 
as " most execrable ;" and by a third, as " probably the 
very worst to be met with in any country." " The new 
wine mourneth; the vine languisheth. They shall not 
drink wine with a song ; strong drink shall be bitter to 
them that drink it." 

The exception to this general desolation is not the 
least remarkable and distinguishable feature of Judea, 
nor the least wonderful of the prophecies concerning 
it ; and, like the last touch of the painter, it renders 
the picture complete. " When thus it shall be in the 
midst of the land, there shall be as the shaking of an 
olive tree, and as the gleaning of grapes when the vin- 
tage is done. The glory of Jacob shall wax thin : and 
it shall be as when the harvestman gathereth the corn 
and reapeth the ears with his arm : yet gleaning grapes 



Chap. V.J AND 'I HE ADJOINING COUNTRIES. 77 

shall be left in it, as the shaking of an olive tree, two 
or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four 
or five in the outmost fruitful branches thereof. 3 ' Isa. 
24 : 13 ; 17 : 4-6. These words imply, as is otherwise 
expressed without a metaphor, that a small remnant 
would be left ; that though Judea should become poor, 
like a field that has been reaped, or like a vine stripped 
of its fruits, its desolation would not be so complete 
but that some vestige of its former abundance, the 
gleanings of its ancient glory, would be still visible. 
It is even so. Whenever any spot is fixed on as the 
residence, or seized as the property of a Turkish aga, 
or of an Arab sheikh, little culture is needful, and pro- 
tection only is required, that the exuberance and beauty 
of the land of Canaan may speedily re-appear. And 
the garden of Geddin, abounding with olives, almonds, 
peaches, apricots, and figs ; Napolose, the ancient Sy- 
chem, " luxuriantly embosomed in the most delightful 
and fragrant bowers, half concealed by rich gardens 
and by stately trees ;" the vale of Zabulon ; rich forests 
on the mountains of Gilead, though the plains beneath 
be covered only with thistles ; the valley of St. John, 
close by Jerusalem, crowned with olives and vines, and 
bearing the milder fig and almond below, appear in the 
midst of surrounding wastes as Edens in a desert; and 
are just like gleanings after the full crop has been 
reaped, or the few berries that remain after the olive 
has been shaken. But who could have thought that 
the same cause was to produce so opposite effects; or 
that a few berries on the outmost branches would be 
saved by the same hand that was to shake the olive? 

Of Samaria, the capital of the ten tribes of Israel, it 
was foretold, " I will make Samaria a heap of the fit d, 
and as plantings of a vineyard ; and I will pour down 



78 PROPHECIES CONCERNING JUDEA ( Chap. V. 

the stones thereof into the valley; and I will discover 
the foundations thereof." Micah, 1 : 6. Herod the Great 
enlarged and adorned Samaria. It was the see of a bi- 
shop during several centuries of the Christian era ; and 
there are still many of its ancient medals and coins. 
These are the memorials of a city which has long 
ceased to exist. Its stones have been poured down into 
the valley. One of the earliest of modern travelers de- 
scribed it as wholly covered with gardens ; and later 
accounts in like manner tell of " the hill where once 
stood Samaria," and that " its local features are seen 
in the threat of Micah." 

Jerusalem was to be trodden down of the Gentiles till 
the times of the Gentiles should be fulfilled. Eighteen 
hundred years after this prediction was uttered by the 
Author of the Christian faith, we still can say, the time? 
of the Gentiles are not yet fulfilled, and Jerusalem is 
to this day trodden down of the Gentiles. In early 
ages after their dispersion, the most furious attempts 
of the Jews to recover it proved altogether fruitless 
The Roman power which had plucked them from off 
their own land, prevented them from taking root in it 
again. And when (under Julian, who thought that 
the emperor of Rome could contend with a word which 
had been uttered some centuries before, by one who 
was crucified) the Roman power was united to that of 
the Jews, without any opposing human means, to re- 
build their city and temple, and to reinstate them in 
Judea, the attempt, as a heathen historian and other 
writers relate, was effectually frustrated, in spite of 
every effort of the Roman soldiery, by fearful balls of 
fire bursting from the ground and burning the work 
men, till they ceased to contend with the fiery element 
Certain it is, and this could be known to God alone, 



Chap. V.J AND THE ADJOINLNG COUNTRIES. 71) 

that the Jews have never yet been reinstated in Judea, 
and that Jerusalem has ever since been trodden down 
of the Gentiles. Romans, Grecians, Persians, Saracens, 
Tartars, Mamelukes, Turks, and Egyptians, Arabs and 
Turks again, have, age after age, trodden it down. 
The Jews alone, to whom the very dust of it is dear, 
have never obtained possession of it. And the truth oi 
this word alone, spoken by Jesus, whom their forefa- 
thers crucified, is an infinitely stronger proof that it is 
of God, than all that the author of any false religion 
ever uttered. 

Such is now the wide- wasting desolation and misery 
which is spread over the cities and the land on-which 
the blessing of God once rested more than on any 
other; and so many and clear are the marks that all 
the curses that were written have come upon it as well 
as upon the people, to whom, if they had not departed 
from the living God, it was given for a perpetual inhe- 
ritance. Think then of the Jews dwelling in peace 
and safety, each man under his own vine and under 
his own fig-tree, and of the Jews scattered among ail 
nations, and pining away in their iniquity in their ene- 
mies' land ; think also on Judea, each spot a garden, 
and the little hills rejoicing on every side, and on Judea, 
a desolate wilderness, and all joy departed from it; and 
learn to know how great is the difference, perhaps un- 
thought of and unfelt before, between the promises and 
the threatenings of the Lord, or between enjoying 
his favor and incurring his wrath. His promises and 
threatenings, not for time only, but for eternity, are 
now set before us all; and all have now to determine 
which they will choose. Do earthly objects which at- 
tract the eye ensnare also the heart, and withdraw us 
from the love and service of God, or blind the eyes ol 



80 PROPHECIES CONCERNING JUDEA [ Ciia P« V. 

our understandings that we walk not by faith, and look 
not to the word of God as it is written unto us ? Then 
surely we may take a warning from Judea in its deso- 
lation. And if we consider it perfectly, we shall find 
how the Scriptures concerning it were given for our 
instruction in righteousness. We may at least learn 
from thence that it is not the cultivation of fields, nor 
the erection of cities, that should be the chief object of 
man ; that these, however fruitful, rich, and fair, would 
be all blasted in a moment were the Lord to breathe 
upon them in his anger; that his favor is the only 
strong hold ; and that to be rich toward God is the only 
true and imperishable treasure. And seeing that God, 
who in times past and in divers manners spake unto 
the people by the prophets, hath spoken unto us by his 
own Son, how earnestly ought those who have heard, 
and who may ever read or hear the words, the pro- 
mises, and the threatenings of Christ and his apostles, 
always to watch and to pray that they fall not into 
temptation ; that they forfeit not a better inheritance 
than was that of the possession of the land of Canaan ; 
and that a worse desolation may never come over their 
spirits than has come, since it was smitten with a curse, 
upon the land of those to whom Moses and the pro- 
phets still speak in vain. And how diligently ought 
every believer in Jesus to labor in the high and holy 
vocation assigned him by his Master-, and day by day 
to cultivate, through the abundant mercy of his God, 
every Christian grace and virtue, till, where the barren 
wild of nature once was, the vineyard of the Lord be 
clothed with all the fruits of the Spirit springing up 
unto immortality and glory, and till there be attained 
that moral, spiritual, and therefore higher beauty and 
nobler culture than the cold earth in its fairest forms 



Chap. V^.J AND THE ADJOINING COUNTRIES. ' 81 

can show ; which no wrath of man ever can deface, 
which no exterminating angel will ever lay desolate, 
but which renders the soul, when redeemed, rescued 
and separated from sin, meet to be a partaker of an in- 
heritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth 
not away. Of that glorious inheritance now set before 
ihe Christian, the land of promise, in the prospect of 
the Israelites as they passed through the desert, was 
but a faint emblem : and let the mercies of Jesus, by 
whose blood the heavenly Canaan was purchased, win 
your hearts to his love, till that love constrain you so 
to look to the word of God, and so to live, that the loss 
of that land by the Jews may never prove a faint em- 
blem of the loss that would otherwise be your own ; 
and that the place, " the kingdom within you," on 
wkich, for Jesus' sake, the blessing of God would now 
rest, and which he seeks that he may dwell there, may 
never be forsaken of him, and that you may never 
have a portion with hypocrites and unbelievers, who 
shall pine away in their iniquities, where there is 
weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth, in utter 
desolation, not such as the eye can see, but such as the 
spirit would for ever feel. 

But other countries lie desolate beside that of Judea, 
and many nations that were the enemies of the Jews 
have perished; while they, though not left unpunished, 
have not been cut off. 

Of the prophecies respecting Ammon, Moab, and 
Philistia, a mere enumeration may here suffice. It was 
prophesied concerning the countries of Ammon, Moab, 
and Philistia, which are all naturally vary fertile, and 
which abounded in wealth and population long after 
Ihe Christian era — that Ammon was to be a spoil to 
the heathen, to be destroyed and to be a perpetual or 

Keith on P. Q 



82 PROPHECIES CONCERNING JUPEA [Chap. V 

long-continued desolation; that its capital was to be- 
come a desolate heap, to be a stable for camels, and a 
couching-place for flocks; and that the Ammonites 
were to be cut off, to perish, and not to be remembered 
among the nations; that Moab was to flee away, all its 
cities to be desolate without any to dwell therein, and 
no city to escape; that those who dwelt in the cities 
would leave them and dwell in the rocks, and be like 
the dove that maketh her nest in the sides of the hole's 
mouth ; and that the cities of Aroer would be for flocks 
to lie down, none making them afraid; that the valley 
was to perish, and the plain to be destroyed; that wan- 
derers were to come upon Moab, and cause him to 
wander ; that Moab would be a derision, and its daugh- 
ters be at the ford of Arnon, as a wandering bird cast 
out of the nest ; that the land also of the Philistines was. 
to be destroyed — the sea-coasts to be dwellings for 
shepherds and folds for flocks; that the remnant would 
perish ; that Gaza would be bereaved of its king, of its 
wealth, and of its fortifications; that the inhabitant 
would be cut off from Ashdod ; that Ashkelon would 
be a desolation without an inhabitant, and that Ekron 
would be rooted up. Of Lebanon it was prophesied 
that its branches were to fall, its cedars to be devoured ; 
and (although it was covered with trees for eight hun- 
dred years after the prophecy was delivered) that the 
trees of this forest were to be few, that a child might 
write them. And, in one word, it may be said that all 
these prophecies, however marvellous they may seem, 
are at this hour, as proved by the most unexception- 
able and abun^&nt evidence, literally - fulfilled. 

Edom, or Idumea, forms the only other boundary of 
Judea, and the prophecies concerning it remain to be 
briefly considered. And here again we may appeal to 



Chap. V.] AND THE ADJOINING COUNTRIES. 83 

Vblney, in the first instance, as the readiest witness. 
The prophecies are so remarkable that they shall be 
given somewhat at length. 

" From generation to generation it (Idumea) shall 
lie waste, none shall pass through it for ever and ever. 
But the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it; the 
owl also and the raven shall dwell in it, and he shall 
stretch out upon it the line of confusion and the stones 
of emptiness. They shall call the nobles thereof to the 
kingdom, but none shall be there; and 'all her princes 
shall be nothing. And thorns shall come up in her pa- 
laces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof; 
and it shall be a habitation for dragons, and a court for 
owls. The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet 
with the wild beasts of the island ; and the satyr (or 
hairy creature) shall cry to his fellow; the screech- 
owl also shall rest there, and find for herself a place of 
rest. There shall the great owl make her nest, and lay 
and hatch, and gather under her shadow; there shall 
the vultures also be gathered every one with her mate. 
Seek ye out of the book of the Lord and read ; no one 
of these shall fail, none shall want her mate ; for my 
mouth it hath commanded, and his Spirit it hath ga- 
thered them. And he shall cast the lot for them, and 
his hand hath divided it unto them by line ; they shall 
possess it for ever — from generation to generation shall 
they dwell therein. Isa. 34 : 5, 10-17. Concerning 
Edom, thus saith the Lord of hosts : Is wisdom no more 
in Teman? Is counsel perished from the prudent? I 
will bring the captivity of Esau upon him, the time 
that I will visit him. If grape-gatherers come to thee, 
would they not leave some gleaning grapes ? if thieves 
by night, they will destroy till they have enough. But 
I have made Esau bare, I have uncovered his secret 



84 PROPHECIES CONCERNING JUDEA [Ciiap. V. 

places, and he shall not oe able to hide himself. Be- 
hold they whose judgment was not to drink of the cup 
have assuredly drunken ; and art thou he that shall go 
altogether unpunished % Thou shalt not go unpunish- 
ed, but thou shalt surely drink of it. I have sworn by 
myself, saith the Lord, that Bozrah (the strong or for- 
tified city) shall become a desolation, a reproach, a 
waste, and a curse ; and all the cities thereof shall be 
perpetual wastes. Lo, I will make thee small among 
the heathen, and despised among men. Thy terrible- 
ness hath deceived thee and the pride of thine heart, 
O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, that 
boldest the height of the hill. Though. thou shouldest 
make thy nest as high as the eagle, I will bring thee 
down from thence, saith the Lord. Also Edom shall 
be a desolation ; every one that goeth by shall be asto- 
nished, and shall hiss at all the plagues thereof. As in 
the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the neigh- 
bor cities thereof, saith the Lord, no man shall abide 
there, neither shall a son of man dwell in it. Jer. 49 : 
7-10, 12-18. Thus saith the Lord, I will stretch forth 
mine hand upon Edom, and will cut off man and beast 
from it, and I will make it desolate from Teman. Ezek. 
25 : 13. The word of the Lord came unto me, saying, 
Son of man, set thy face against Mount Seir, and pro- 
phesy against it, and say unto it, Thus saith the Lord 
God, I will stretch out mine hand against thee, and I 
will make thee most desolate. I will lay thy cities waste, 
and thou shalt be desolate. — Thus will I make Mount 
Seir most desolate, and cut off from it him that passeth 
out and him that returneth. I will make thee perpetual 
desolations, and thy cities shall not return. When the 
whole earth rejoiceth I will make thee desolate. Thou 
shalt be desolate, Mount Seir, and all Idumea, even all 



Chap. V.] AND THE ADJOINING COUNTRIES. 85 

of it. ffnd they shall know that I am the Lord. Ezek. 
35 : 1, &c. Joel, 3 : 19. Edom shall be a desolate wil- 
derness. I have made thee small among the heathen, 
thou art greatly despised. — The pride of thine heart 
hath deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the clefts of 
the rock, whose habitation is high.— Shall I not de- 
stroy the wise men out of Edom, and understanding 
out of the mount of Esau ? — The house of Jacob shall 
possess their possessions, but there shall not be any 
remaining of the house of Esau. Obad. ver. 2, 3, 8, 17, 
18. I laid the mountains of Esau and his heritage 
waste for the dragons of the wilderness. Whereas 
Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return 
and build the desolate places ; thus saith the Lord of 
hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down ; and 
they shall call them the border of wickedness." Mai. 
1 : 3, 4. 

Is there any land, once inhabited and opulent, so 
utterly desolate? There is, and that land is Idumea. 
And all may now know that He who spoke such judg- 
ments concerning it, js the Lord. Idumea was situated 
to the south and south-east of Judea. It bordered on 
the east with Arabia Petraea, under which name it was 
included in the latter part of its history ; and it extend- 
ed southward to the eastern gulf of the Red Sea. A 
single extract from the travels of Volney will be found 
to be equally illustrative of the prophecy and of the 
fact. 

(, This country has not been visited by any traveler, 
but it well merits such an attention, for from the report 
of the Arabs of Bakir, and the inhabitants of Gaza, 
who frequently go to Maan and Karak, on the road of 
the pilgrims, there are to the south-east of the lake 
Asphaltites, (Dead Sea,) within three days' journey, 



86 PROPHECIES CONCERNING JUDEA [ Chap. V 

upward of thirty ruined towns absolutely aeserted, 
The Arabs, in general, avoid them on account of the 
enormous scorpions with which they swarm. We 
cannot be surprised at these traces of ancient popula- 
tion, when we recollect that this was the country of 
the Nabatheans, the most powerful of the Arabs, and 
of the Idumeans, who, at the time of the destruction 
of Jerusalem, were almost as numerous as the Jews. 
Besides the advantages of being under a tolerably 
good government, these districts enjoyed a conside- 
rable share of the commerce of Arabia and India, 
which increased their industry and population. We 
know that, as far back as the time of Solomon, the ci- 
ties of Astioum Gaber (Esion Gaber) and Ailah (Eloth) 
were highly frequented marts. The Idumeans, from 
whom the Jews only took their ports at intervals, must 
have found in them a great source of wealth and popu- 
lation."* 

Evidence which must have been undesigned, which 
cannot be suspected of partiality, and which no illus- 
tratian can strengthen, and no ingenuity pervert, is thus 
borne to the truth of the most wonderful prophecies. 
That the Idumeans were a populous and powerful na- 
tion, at a time long after the delivery of the prophe- 
cies j that they possessed a tolerably good government, 
(even in the estimation of Volney ;) that Idumea con- 
tained many cities; that these cities are now absolutely 
deserted, and that their ruins swarm with scorpions ; 
that it was a commercial nation, and possessed highly 
frequented marts; that it forms a shorter rout than an 
ordinary one to India ; and yet that it had not been 
visited by any traveler, are facts stated or proved by 
Volney. 

* Volney's Travels, vol. % p. 344, &c. 



Chap. V.J AND THE ADJOINING COUNTRIES. 87 

Although long a thoroughfare for the commerce of 
the surrounding nations, and possessed of highly fre- 
quented marts, it is with great difficulty that the tra- 
veler in these regions can penetrate on any side within 
the boundaries of Idumea. — And now, instead of being 
resorted to from every quarter, none pass through it. 

It is not the dread of the wide desert, into which it 
is now transformed, that alone occasions the extreme 
hazard of traversing it. The Arabs on its borders, 
and who migrate with their tents throughout Edom, 
and carry there their plunder from other regions, are 
a fierce and warlike race, notorious robbers, and at war 
even with the Arabs around them — and they threat- 
ened some travelers who reached their border with 
instant death if they attempted to pass through. And 
hence, while they used unconsciously the very words 
of one prophecy, their universal character, as well as 
their conduct, bears witness to another : " It shall be 
called the border of wickedness." 

Burckhardt, a learned and very enterprising traveler, 
entered Edom, disguised as an Arab, and was stripped 
of some rags that covered his wounded ancles. Cap- 
tains Irby and Mangles, and other English gentlemen, 
with several attendants, having obtained the protection 
of a most intrepid Arab chief, reached Petra, once the 
capital of Idumea, and after encountering the greatest 
difficulties and dangers, were soon forced to return. 
From the pr^ed account of their travels, and those 
of Burckhardt, much interesting information has been 
derived respecting Edom. 

The great difficulty of ascertaining the actual state 
of that country seems to be implied in the words of 
Scripture, in reference especially to the animals that 
were to possess it : "Seek ye out and find, not one of 



88 PROPHECIES CONCERNING JUDEA [Chap. V 

these shall fail." And while all the facts have not 
heretofore been ascertained, neither is the time of the 
final judgments on the land yet fully come. Judea, 
Amnion, Moab, and Philistia, according to the sure 
word of prophecy, are to be brought back from deso- 
lation, and to be possessed by the people of Israel. 
But when the controversy of Zion shall be passed, of 
Edom it is said, by the Lord, "When the whole earth 
rejoiceth I will make thee desolate." 

Every new fact, descriptive of the state of Edom, is 
an echo of the prophecies; yet Burckhardt never 
once alluded to them ; and as his sole object was to ex- 
plore the country, they seem to have been wholly fo- 
reign to his view. 

Of the eastern part of Edom he says, "All this 
country is a desert ; and Maan (or Teman, as marked 
in the map prefixed to his travels,) is the only inhabited 
place in it." "I will make it desolate from Teman." 
In the interior of Idumea, "the whole plain presented 
to the view an expanse of shifting sands. The depth 
of sand precludes all vegetation of herbage." — "On 
ascending the western plain, we had before us an im- 
mense expanse of dreary country, entirely covered 
with black flints, with here and there some hilly chain 
rising from the plain." "If grape-gatherers come to 
thee, would they not leave some gleaning grapes ? but 
I have made Esau bare. I will make thee most deso- 
late. I will stretch out upon Edom thf^ine of confu- 
sion and the stones of emptiness." 

"The traces of many towns and villages" are to be 
seen in Edom ; but the sand is in some places so very 
deep, that there is not the slightest appearance of a 
road, or of any work of human art, though a Roman 
road passed directly through the country. Of the re- 




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Chap. V.J AND THE ADJOINING COUNTRIES. 81) 

mains of ancient cities still exposed to view, Burck- 
hardt describes tiie ruins of a large town, of which 
nothing remains but broken walls and heaps of stones; 
the ruins of several villages in its vicinity; the -ruins 
of an ancient city ; and the extensive ruins of Gheran 
del Arindela, an ancient town of Palestina Tertia. H6 
enumerates nine different ruined places inDjebal Shera, 
(Mount Seir,) and states, that of the towns laid down 
in D'Anville's map, Thoana excepted, no traces remain 
" I will lay thy cities waste, and thou shalt be desolate, 
O Mount Seir, I will make thee perpetual desolations, 
and thy cities shall not return.' 5 

Yet the ruins of these cities are not the chief monu- 
ments of the ancient greatness of Edom. Its capital 
city, now without an inhabitant,* except the wild ani- 
mals to which it was allotted more than a thousand 
years before it ceased to be tenanted by men, presents 
one of the most wonderful and singular scenes that 
can possibly be conceived, •[n the vicinity of Mount 
Seir, the extensive ruins of a large city, — heaps of 
hewn stones, foundations of buildings, fragments of 
columns, and vestiges of paved streets, are spread over 
a valley which is enclosed on each side by perpendicu- 
lar cliffs, varying from four hundred to seven hundred 
feet in height, which are hollowed out into innumera- 
ble chambers of different dimensions, rising in the cliffs, 
tier above tier, till " it seems impossible to approach 
the uppermost." Columns also rise above columns, 
and adorn the fronts of the dwellings; horizontal 
grooves, for the conveyance of water, run along the 
face of the cliffs ; "flights of steps" formed the means 
of ascent, and the summit of the heights, in various 
places, is covered with pyramids cut out of the rock. 
The identity of the scene, as described by the prophet, 



90 PROPHECIES CONCERNING JUDEA [Chap V. 

in all the terribleness of the human power which then 
pertained to it, and as depicted in the desolate aspect 
it now exhibits, is such as cannot be mistaken. "Thy 
terribleness hath deceived thee, and the pride of thine 
heart, O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock 
that holdest the height of the hill; though thou shouldst 
make thy nest as high as the eagle, I will bring thee 
down from thence, saith the Lord ; also Edom shall be 
a desolation." 

The mausoleums and sepulchres are very numerous 
and magnificent. They are of various periods and or- 
ders of architecture. One of them, in particular, is de- 
scribed as a work of immense labor and colossal di- 
mensions, in perfect preservation, containing a chamber 
sixteen paces square and above twenty-five feet high, 
with a row of columns in front thirty-five feet high ? 
crowned with a pediment highly ornamented, &c. " all 
cutout of the rock." And great, it is justly said, must 
have been the opulence o£ a city which could dedicate 
such monuments to the memory of its rulers. But the 
time is come when "they shall call the nobles thereof 
to the kingdom, (or rather they shall call, or summon, 
the nobles thereof,) but there shall be no kingdom there, 
and all her princes shall be nothing." 

The city was the see of a bishop for several centuries ; 
and there are many edifices of the Roman and Grecian 
architecture, which proves that they were built long 
after the Christian era. "They shall build, but T will 
tli row down." 

"Thorns shall come in her palaces, nettles and bram- 
bles in the fortresses thereof." In Idumea each Be- 
douin (or wandering Arab) carries in his girdle a pair 
of small pincers to extract the thorns from his feet.- "I 
will make thee small among the nations, thou art great- 



Chap. V. | AND THE ADJOINING COUNTRIES. 91 

ly despised." So desolate a region as Edom is now be- 
come small among the nations. Instead of its ancient 
opulence and commerce, the picking of gum arabic 
from the thorny branches of the talk-trees is their 
p«or occupation, and the only semblance of industry 
practised there by the Arabs. Instead of the superb 
structures of antiquity, they have only a few miserable 
huts; their tents are low and small; and some of them 
are destitute of any tents or shelter. The public au- 
thorities at Constantinople, when asked for a firman, or 
letter of protection to a traveler, to visit the ruins of 
Petra, denied all knowledge of such a place. How 
greatly is it despised ! 

"Shall I not destroy the wise men out of Edom, and 
understanding out of the mount of Esau ?" Sir Isaac 
Newton traces the origin of letters, astronomy and 
navigation to the Edomites. The book of jteb is as 
splendid and lasting a proof of the eloquerae that 
pertained to Edom, as magnificent palaces, hewn out 
of the cliffs, are indestructible memorials of their 
power. But so entirely has understanding departed 
out of the mount of. Esau, that the wild wanderers 
who now traverse it, consider the remains of antiquity 
as the work of genii ! To clear away a little rubbish, 
merely to allow the water to flow into an anqtent cis- 
tern, in order to render it useful to themselves, "is an 
undertaking far beyond the views of the wandering 
Arabs." They cherish sentiments the most supersti- 
tious and absurd ; and no Temanite can now discourse 
like Eliphaz of old. " Wisdom is no more in Teman, 
and understanding has perished out of the mount of 
Esau." 

The cormorant, according to our translation, is men- 
tioned the first in order of the animals that were to be 



92 PROPHECIES CONCERNING JUDEA | Chap. V 

found in Edom; but the word in the original is kat; 
and there are instances in which it is written kata. 
Burckhardt, altogether unconscious of this, for he ha- 
zards a different supposition, relates that " the bird katta 
is met with in immense numbers. They fly in such 
large flocks that the Arab boys often kill two or three 
of them at a time, merely by throwing a stick among 
them. 5 ' They possess it. 

" The owl and the raven (or crow) shall dwell in 
it." Owls have now "their lonely habitation" in the 
clefts of the rock where many of the children of Esau 
dwelt. "The fields of Tafyle," situated in the imme- 
diate vicinity of Edom, "are frequented by an immense 
number of crows." — Edom is famed among the Arabs 
for its ravens. 

"It shall be a habitation for dragons" (serpents) 
The s^ement by Volney, derived by information from 
the Anros, of the enormous scorpions with which the 
ruins of its cities swarm, and the similar testimony 
borne by a learned traveler, Dr. Shaw, who states that 
it abounds with lizards and vipers, may suffice, in lieu 
of more direct proof, to shQW how the heritage oi 
Esau is laid waste for the dragons of the wilderness. 

"The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with 
the w^d beasts of the island." It is here worthy of" 
remarT, that the emperor Decius caused fierce lions 
and lionesses to be transported from Africa to the bor- 
ders of Palestine and Arabia, or Edom, that, propa- 
gating there, they might act as an annoyance to the 
barbarous Saracens. And thus transported from a dis- 
tant desert, animals pertaining to different regions 
might literally be said to meet there 

" The satyr shall dwell there." The satyr is a fabu- 
lous animal. And the word (soir) should have been 



Chap. V. | AND THE ADJOINING COUNTRIES. 93 

translated the goat, as different commentators have 
remarked, without any reference to, or knowledge 
of the fact, as relating to Edom, where, as has only re- 
cently been ascertained, "herds of mountain goats pas- 
ture in flocks of forty or fifty together." — They dwell 
there. 

But the words of prophecy themselves command 
the strictest scrutiny into their truth, and the task yet 
remains " to seek out and find," in reference to the ani- 
mals that were all to be gathered unto Edom, " that no 
one of these shall fail, and that none shall want her 
mate."* 

"Thou shalt be desolate, O Mount Seir, and they 
shall know that I am the Lord." The dispersion of 
the Jews, and the desolation of Judea, do not more 
clearly accredit every word which the Lord has spoken 
against them, than each land of the ancient enemies 
of the Jews bears witness, in like manner, that the God 
of Israel, he is the Lord. The Edomites have been cut 

* Two French travelers, one of them the distinguished natural- 
ist M. Laborde, of the French Institute, have very recently- 
visited Petra; and in a letter from thence, which has been trans- 
mitted to Europe, and partly published in some literary jour- 
nals, they speak of a M range of gigantic columns, of which the 
effect is indescribable." " We have seen," they add, " the ruins 
of Balbeck, the long ranges of columns of Palmyra, the street 
and the oval of Djerash, but all these were far behind these im- 
mense piles of two or three stages of columns, this square 
league of rock, excavated and strewed with the most splendid 
ruins. We were in a continued ecstacy." The Kamel Pharaon, 
treasury of Pharaoh, " consisting of two stages of columns, in- 
terspersed with the richest ornaments, curious bas-reliefs, and 
great equestrian statues, presented the most extraordinary 
appearance that we had ever seen, and of which the finest 

irawing could give but a faint idea." 



94 PROPHECIES CONCERNING JUDEA [Chap. V, 

off for ever, and there is none remaining of the house 
of Esau. In their stead his word hath commanded 
and his Spirit hath gathered wild animals by name, 
while the people of his curse have been extirpated 
from off the face of the earth. And Edom, notwith- 
standing the terribleness of its strength of old, and the 
magnificence of its desolated and deserted habitations 
now, lies stricken with a judgment that shall never be 
repealed. The word of the Lord against it has not 
returned unto him void ; it never goes causelessly forth ; 
and it ever unerringly fulfills the purpose for which 
he sent it. And since the Jews and their enemies have 
assuredly "drunken of the cup," is it either the hypo- 
crite or the unbeliever, in a Christian land, that shall 
pass unpunished? 

The enemies of the Gospel might take warning from 
the fate of the enemies of Israel, who have been cut 
off according to the word of the Lord, and whose very 
land, that especially of Esau, for his violence against 
his brother Jacob, has been scathed with a curse that 
shall cleave to it for ever. The Most High God will 
avenge the quarrel of his "everlasting covenant," as 
well as of that which was to be disannulled. And 
though the enemies of the Christian faith were to 
league together, as did the confederated tabernacles 
of Edom against Judah, all the terribleness of their 
strength, wherein they trusted, must finally become 
like the chaff before the wind, or the rolling thing be- 
fore the whirlwind, and they themselves fall, like 
Edom, never to rise again. For who hath hardened 
himself against God and hath prospered ? And if they 
will not read from the book of the Lord these words 
which were first penned on Edom, they may behold 
how they are now written over its "desolate wilder- 



Chap. V. | AND THE ADJOINING COUNTRIES. 95 

ness," and engraved on its "gigantic columns,'" as on a 
monument, and read them there, that their hearts may 
not be hardened any more, like granite or adamant, 
lest God should set a seal upon themselves, in answer 
to the question — a seal that would' be fixed upon the 
?oul, though the earth were removed out of its place 
A word may here be spoken even to the wise. Were 
any of the sons of men to be uninstructed in the fear 
of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom, and in 
the knowledge of his word, which maketh wise unto 
salvation, and to be thus ignorant of the truths and 
precepts of the Gospel, which should all tell upon every 
deed done in the body ; what in such a case — if all theii 
superior knowledge were unaccompanied by religious 
principles— would all mechanical and physical science 
eventually prove but the same, in kind, as the wisdom 
of the wise men of Edom ? And were they to perfect 
in astronomy, navigation, and mechanics, what, accord- 
ing to Sir Isaac Newton, the Edomites began, what 
would the moulding of matter to their will avail them 
as moral and accountable beings, if their own hearts 
were not conformed to the divine will ; and what would 
all their labor be at last, but strength spent for naught ? 
For were they to raise column above column, and again 
to hew a city out of the cliffs of the rock, let but such 
another word of that God, whom they seek not to 
know, go forth against it, and all their mechanical in 
genuity and labor would just end in forming — that 
which Petra is, and which Rome itself is destined to 
be — " a cage of every unclean and hateful bird." The 
experiment has already been made; it may well and 
wisely be trusted to, as much as those which mortals 
make ; and it is set before us, that, instead of provoking 
the JLord to far worse than its repetition in personal 



90 PROPHECIES CONCERNING JUDEA, &c. [Chap. V 

judgments against ourselves, we may be warned by 
the spirit of prophecy, which is the testimony of Jesus, 
to hear and to obey the words of him — " even of Jesus, 
who delivereth from the wrath to come." For how 
much greater than any degradation to which hewn but 
unfeeling rocks can be reduced, is that of a soul, which, 
while in the body, might have been formed anew after 
the image of an all holy God, and made meet for be- 
holding his face in glory — passing from spiritual dark- 
ness into a spiritual state, where all knowledge of earth- 
ly things shall cease to be power — where all the riches 
of this world shall cease to be gain — where the want 
of religious principles and of Christian virtues shall 
leave the soul naked, as the bare and empty dwellings 
in the clefts of the rocks — where the thoughts of world- 
ly wisdom, to which it was inured before, shall haunt 
it still, and be' more unworthy and hateful occupants 
of the immortal spirit than are the owls amid the pa- 
laces of Edom — and where all those sinful passions* 
which rested on the things that were seen, shall be 
like unto the scorpions, that none can now scare away 
from among the wild vines, which are there entwined 
around the broken altars where false gods were wor- 
shipped. 

But as none that exalt themselves against the Lord 
shall prosper, but shall all be brought down, though 
their nest were as high as the eagle; so none that wait 
upon the Lord, and put their trust in him, shall ever 
be dismayed, but shall renew their strength and mount 
up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be 
weary, they shall walk and not faint : whatever their 
occupation be, they forget not their high calling. The 
more closely they see into the works of nature, the 
more carefully do they consider the operations of the 



Dcap. VI. ] NINEVEH. i>7 

hands of the great Architect of the universe. Whatever 
else they learn, they diligently search the Scriptures, 
and ever find them full of true wisdom. The whole 
word of God is unto them as a well of water springing 
up unto eternal life; and unto them, in a higher sense 
bail to the Israelites of old, " there shall come water 
by the way of Edom." The literal prophecies concern- 
ing it, like all Scripture beside, will be profitable unto 
them for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for 
instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may 
be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. 
And that from thence they mayj through the grace of 
God, be thus furnished, now that the judgments of God 
have fallen on Edom, it behoves all who are called by 
the name of the Lord, who would account themselves 
his adopted children through Christ Jesus, and all who 
would not wish to be, like the Edomites, " a people 
against whom the Lord hath indignation for ever," to 
consider seriously whether their piety toward God, 
and the deeds which they are doing in the body, be 
such as render a right answer to the appeal which 
God made unto the priests as well as to the people 
of Israel, when he denounced his judgments against 
Edom. " If I be a Father, where is mine honor ; and 
jf I be a Master, where is my fear V* 



CHAPTER VI 

Nineveh, Babylon, Tyre, Egypt. 
NINEVAH. 

To a brief record of the Creation, of the antediluvian 
world, ;uid of the dispersion and different settlements 

Keith on P. 7 



98 NINEVEH. [Chap. VI. 

of mankind after the deluge, the Scriptures of the Old 
Testament add a history of the Hebrews for the space 
of fifteen hundred years, from the days of Abraham to 
the era of the last of the prophets. While the histori- 
cal part of Scripture thus traces, from its origin, the 
history of the world, the prophecies give a prospective 
view, which reaches to its end. And it is remarkable 
that profane history, ceasing to be fabulous, becomes 
clear and authentic about the very period when sacred 
history terminates, and when the fulfillment of those 
prophecies commences which refer to other nations 
beside the Jews. 

Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire, was, for 
many ages, a very extensive and populous city. Its 
walls are described by heathen historians as having 
been a hundred feet in height, sixty miles in compass, 
with fifteen hundred towers, each two hundred feet 
high. This " exceedingly great city" having repented 
at the preaching of Jonah, its destruction was averted 
for a time ; but relapsing into iniquity, it was swept 
away, so that there are now but slight vestiges of it to 
be seen. The Assyrians grievously oppressed the 
Israelites, took Samaria, and carried the ten tribes into 
captivity. 2 Kings, 17 : 5, 6; 18 : 10-13, 34; Ezra, 
4 : 2. They took also all the fenced cities of Judah, 
and exacted a heavy tribute from the Jews. But the 
glory and the power of Assyria, and of its capital city, 
are departed ; like that of the mighty host of Senna- 
cherib its king, when smitten, in a night, by an angel 
of the Lord. 

A Greek historian, who repeatedly alludes \p an an- 
cient prophecy concerning it as known to the Ninevites, 
in describing the manner of its destruction, relates, that 
the Assyrian army was suddenly assaulted bv the 



Chap. VI.J NINEVEH. 99 

Medes in a time of festivity, when they had been sup- 
plied with much wine ; and that, unable to resist the 
enemy, a great part of them were destroyed ; that the 
river, having increased to an excessive and unexampled 
height by heavy and long-continued rains, broke down 
a great extent of the wall, opened an entrance for the 
enemy, and overflowed the lower part of the city ; thai 
the king in his desperation, and deeming the prediction 
accomplished, heaped an immense funeral pile, and 
having set fire to it and to the palace, was himself con- 
sumed together with his household and his wealth; 
and finally, that the Medes, having taken the city after 
a siege of three years, carried away many talents of 
silver and gold to Ecbatana. " While they are drunken 
as drunkards they shall be devoured as stubble fully 
dry. With an overflowing flood He will make an utter 
end of the place thereof. The gates of the rivers shall 
be opened. Nineveh is of old like a pool of water. 
The gates of thy land shall be set wide open unto thine 
enemies; the fire shall devour thy bars. Fortify thy 
strong holds — there shall the fire devour thee; take ye 
the spoil of silver, take the spoil of gold ; for there is 
none end of the store and glory out of all the pleasant 
furniture." Nahum, 1 : 8, 10 ; 2 : 6, 8, 9 ; 3 : 13-15. 

The utter destruction ai.J. perpetual desolation oi 
Nineveh were foretold. " The Lord will make an ut- 
ter end of the place thereof. Affliction shall not rise 
up the second time. The merchants of Nineveh, who 
were multiplied above the stars of heaven, and even 
her crowned, who were as locusts and great caterpil- 
lars, they flee away, and their place is not known where 
they were. He will make Nineveh a desolation, and 
dry like a wilderness. Nahum, 1 : 8, 9 ; 3 : 16, 17 ; Zeph, 
2 : 13-15. The very site of Nineveh was long un 



100 Babylon. [Chap. VI. 

known. It has of late been visited by different travelers. 
It is now an extended waste, interspersed but sparing- 
ly with heaps of rubbish. The "principal mounds" 
which are few in number, are in many places over- 
grown with grass, and resemble the mounds left by the 
intrenchments and fortifications of ancient Roman 
camps. The appearance of other mounds and ruins, 
"less marked" than even these, extend for ten miles, 
and " seem to be the wreck of former buildings."* 
There is not one monument of royalty, nor one token 
of splendor : the place is not known where they were. 
There are not even " bricks, stones, or other materials 
of building," discernible in the principal mounds. It is 
" a desolation — an utter ruin — empty, void, and waste." 
The very ruins have perished ; and it is less than the 
wreck of what it was. It shows no signs of the great- 
ness of its kings, nobles, or merchants : but even the 
want of these proclaims the truth of the word of God. 

BABYLON. 

Babylon rivalled Nineveh in its greatness and wick- 
edness. And now the ruins of these once hostile cities, 
which vied with each other, and both of which op- 
pressed and led captive, the one the Israelites, the other 
the Jews, show that each of them has borne its pre- 
dicted " burden," and that the vision which the pro- 
phets of Israel saw respecting them is true. The ac- 
counts are now as ample, and the witnesses as nume- 
rous, of its present desolation, as of its ancient greatness. 

Herodotus, Xenophon, Strabo, Pliny, Diodorus Si- 
culus, and Quintus Curtius, who are all celebrated 
Greek or Roman writers, describe the ancient great- 

* Buckingham's Travels in Mesopotamia, vol. 2, p. 49, 51, (>2. 



Chap. VI. J BABYLON. 101 

ness of Babylon. Their descriptions of it vary con- 
siderably, as referring to its state at different periods; 
but all concur in relating its wonderful magnificence, 
which is manifest to this day in the immense masses 
of its ruins. The testimony of Herodotus, the earliest 
of these writers, who lived about two hundred and fifty 
years after Isaiah, is particularly valuable, as he visited 
Babylon, and wrote from what he saw and examined 
on the spot. The walls of Babylon, before their height 
was reduced to seventy-five feet by Darius Hystaspes, 
were above three hundred feet high ; they were eighty- 
seven feet broad, and forty-eight miles in compass. The 
temple of Belus, six hundred feet in height; the artifi- 
cial hanging gardens, which, piled in successive ter- 
races, towered as high as the walls ; the embankments 
which restrained the Euphrates; the hundred brazen 
gates; the palace built by Nebuchadnezzar, surrounded 
by three walls eight miles in compass ; and the adjoin- 
ing artificial lake, the circumference of which was far 
more than a hundred miles, and its depth, by the lowest 
account, thirty-five feet; all displayed many of the 
mightiest works of mortals concentrated in a single 
spot. The great Babylon was the glory of kingdoms, 
and the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, the golden 
city, the lady of kingdoms, and the praise of the whole 
earth. The Scriptures, which thus describe it, mark 
minutely every stage of its fall till it should become 
what now it is — a complete desolation. And every 
feature of its present aspect is delineated i-n the pro- 
' phecies with all the precision with which they could 
now be drawn by the traveler who looks on fallen Ba- 
bylon itself. 

Concerning the siege of Babylon, Herodotus and 
Xenophon relate, in exact concordance with what Isai- 



102 BABYLON. [Chap. VI. 

ah and Jeremiah had foretold, that the Medes and Per- 
sians, united under Cyrus, (who was prophesied of by 
Isaiah, above a hundred years before he was born, as 
raised up by God to subdue nations before him, and to 
be his instrument in punishing his enemies and de- 
livering his own people,) came up upon Babylon and 
besieged it; — that the Babylonians, inclosed within 
their impregnable walls, could not by any means be 
provoked to a combat in open field, but remained in 
their holds and forbore to fight; — that the device was 
adopted by Cyrus of turning the waters of the Eu- 
phrates, which flowed through the city, into the lake, 
whereby a snare was laid for Babylon ;r— that the wa- 
ters of the river being thus dried up, so as to allow 
men to go over dry-shod, the enemy entered by its 
channel ; — that, from the negligence of the guards, the 
gates leading from the river to the city were not shut ; 
— that the Median and Persian army thus entering into 
the midst of the city by stratagem, and as if by stealth, 
designedly, during the night of an annual Babylonish 
festival, Babylon was taken when it was not aware ; — 
that its princes, captains, and mighty men, when repos- 
ing after their feasts, and after they were drunken, 
were suddenly slaughtered, and slept the sleep (A 
death ; — and that Babylon, which had never been con- 
quered before, was thus taken without resistance, in a 
moment, and in a manner which, till accomplished, 
was unknown to the king and to the inhabitants, whc 
were not aware of their danger (the city being so very 
extensive) till one post ran to meet another, and one 
messenger to meet another, with the tidings that the 
enemy were within it, and that Babylon was taken 
Isa. 21 : 2 ; 45 : 1 ; 44 : 27. Jer. 50 : 38 ; 51 : 11, 27, 30, 
36, 57. 



Chap. VI.] BABYLON. 103 

The gradual decline of Babylon throughout succeed- 
ing ages is also traced in the prophecies. "Sit on the 
dust, there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans." 
Isa. 47: 1. Babylon ceased to be the seat of govern- 
ment, and was reduced from an imperial to a tributary 
city- "All the graven images of her gods shall be 
broken unto the ground. — I will punish Bel (the tem- 
ple of Belus) in Babylon, and I will bring forth out of 
his mouth that which he hath swallowed up." Jer. 51 : 
44, 47, 52. "Xerxes (a successor of Cyrus on the 
throne of Persia) seized the sacred treasures, and plun- 
dered or destroyed the temples and idols of Babylon." 
— "Take balm for her pain, if so be she may be healed. 
We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed." 
Jer. 51 : 8, 9. 

Alexander the Great attempted to restore Babylon 
to its former glory, and designed to make it the me- 
tropolis of a universal empire. Ten thousand men 
were employed in repairing the embankments of the 
Euphrates and the temple of Belus. But the death of 
Alexander when in the prime of life, put an end to 
the work; — "she was not healed." "They shall re- 
move, they shall depart, both man and beast." Jer. 50: 
3. Abofit a hundred and thirty years before the Chris- 
tian era, a Parthian conqueror destroyed the fairest 
parts of Babylon ; and many of the inhabitants, toge- ■ 
ther with their effects, were removed into Media. The 
neighboring city of Seleucia also drained it of a great 
part of its population. 

After the commencement of the Christian era, Baby- 
lon was only partially inhabited; and a wide space 
within the walls was cultivated. It diminished as Se- 
leucia increased, and the latter, which was very popu- 
lous, became the greater city. Babylon became gradu- 



104 BABYLON. [Chap. VI 

ally more and more desolate, till, in the fourth century 
its walls formed an incisure for wild beasts, and the 
place where the golden city had stood, which reigned 
over the nations, was converted into a field for the 
chase — a hunting place for the pastime of the Persian 
inonarchs. The name of Babylon was cut off from 
the history of the world. And a long interval suc- 
ceeded without any record concerning it. And the 
progress of ages has brought it at last to that utter de- 
solation which the prophets testified that it would 
finally become. 

The ruins of Babylon, the site or situation of which 
has been completely ascertained, have been visited and 
described, of late, by Mr. Rich, formerly British resi- 
dent at Bagdad ; Mr. Kinnier, author of the Memoir of 
Persia ; Sir Robert Ker Porter, Captain Frederick, Mr. 
Buckingham, and Major Keppel. There is some di- 
versity of opinion among these witnesses as to what 
particular palace or edifice of ancient Babylon is to 
be considered as now represented by a particular 
mound or heap; but the greatness of the desolation 
is visible to all, and admits neither of denial nor dis- 
pute. For, from being the "glory of kingdoms," Ba- 
bylon is now the greatest of ruins; and after ^e lapse 
of two thousand four hundred years, it exhibits to the 
view of every traveler the precise scene defined in pro- 
phecy ; and it could not now be described in more ap- 
propriate and graphic terms than the following, though 
such words had never been known to be its "burden." 

"The name and remnant are cut off from Babylon. 
There the Arabian pitches not his tent ; there the shep- 
herds make not their folds; but wild beasts of- the de- 
sert lie there, and their houses are full of doleful crea 
tures, &c. It is a possession for the bittern, and ? 



Chap. VI. J BABYLON. * 105 

dwelling-place for dragons — a wilderness, a dry land, 
and a desert — a burnt mountain — empty — wholly deso- 
late — pools of water — heaps — and utterly destroyed— 
a land where no man dwelleth — every one that goeth 
by it is astonished, 51 &c. Isa. 13: 19, &c; 14:22, &c. 
Jerem. 50 : 13, 23, 39, &c. ; 51 : 13, 26, &c. 

The superstitious dread of evil spirits, and the natu- 
ral terror at the wild beasts which dwell among the 
ruins of Babylon, restrain the Arab from pitching his 
tent, or shepherds from making their folds there. The 
princely palaces and habitations of Babylon, utterly 
destroyed, are now nothing but unshapely heaps of 
brick and rubbish ; along the sides, or on the summits 
of which, instead of the stately chambers which once 
they formed, are now caverns where porcupines creep, 
and owls and bats nestle; where "lions" find a den, 
and "jackals, hyaenas, and other noxious animals, an 
unmolested retreat;" from which "issues a loathsome 
smell;" and "the entrances to which are strewed with 
bones of sheep and goats." Though utterly destroyed, 
"their houses are full of doleful creatures, and owls 
dwell there and satyrs dance there. The wild beasts 
lie there and cry in their desolate houses; it shall 
be no more inhabited for ever," &c. On the one 
side of the Euphrates, the canals being dry, and the 
crumbled bricks on an elevated surface exposed to the 
scorching sun, these "sun-burnt ruins" cover an "arid 
plain," and Babylon is a wilderness, a dry land, and a 
desert. On the other, the embankments of the river, 
and with them the vestiges'of ruins over a large space, 
have been swept away; the plain is in general "mar- 
shy, and in many places inaccessible," especially after 
the annual overflowing of the Euphrates; "no son oi 
man doth pass thereby ; the sea, or river, is come upon 



106 * BABYLON. | Chap. VI 

Babylon, she is covered with the multitude of the 
waves thereof. 5 ' At that season also "large depo- 
sits of the waters," as Sir Robert Ker Porter, in his 
vivid description of the ruins of Babylon, remarks, 
"are left stagnant between the ruins;" again verify^ 
ing the threat denounced against it, — I will make 
thee a possession for the bittern, and pools of water. 
The same author states, that " the abundance of the 
country is gone as clean away as if the besom of 
destruction had swept it from north to south. Isa. 
14:23. And the "View of Babylon," inserted in his 
travels, is truly a picture of utter desolation, presenting 
its heaps to the eye, and showing how, as if literally 
buried under them, — "Babylon is brought down to 
the grave." 

Fallen Babylon bears another mark of judgment, 
which has not been effected by the overflowings of the 
Euphrates, by the ravages of wild beasts, by the de- 
vastations of time, nor by the rapacity of man. There 
are, on the ruins of Birs Nimrod, or temple of Belus, 
which was standing after the beginning of the Chris- 
tian era, large fragments of brick- work that have been 
"completely molten," and that ring like glass, which 
must not only have been subjected to a heat "equal to 
that of the strongest furnace," but which, being vitri 
fled all around, " bear evident proof," as Mr. Bucking- 
ham remarks, "of the operation of fire having been 
continued on them, as well after they were broken 
down as before," and bear as evident proof that the 
ruin resembles, to use injustice the words of Major 
Keppel, "what the Scriptures prophesied it should be- 
come, a burnt mountain." Jer. 51 : 25. It is still wor- 
thy, from its mere immensity, of being a relic of Baby- 
lon the great, for, though a mass of ruins, it is still two 



Chap. VI.) BABYLON. 107 

hundred and thirty-five feet high. <c From the summit 
we had a distinct view," says Major Keppel, " of the 
heaps which constitute all that now remains of ancient 
Babylon; a more complete picture of desolation could 
not well be imagined. The eye wandered over a bar- 
ren desert, in which the ruins were nearly the only in- 
dication that it had ever been inhabited. It was im- 
possible to behold this scene and not to be reminded 
how exactly the predictions of Isaiah and Jeremiah 
have been fulfilled, even in the appearance Babylon 
was doomed to present : that she should never be in- 
habited ; that the Arabian should not pitch his tent 
there; that she should become heaps; that her cities 
should be a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness." 
" The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly bro- 
ken." They were so broad that, as ancient historians 
relate, six chariots could be driven on them abreast. 
They existed for more than a thousand years after the 
prophecy was delivered. They were numbered among 
" the seven wonders of the world." And what can be 
more wonderful now, or what could have been more 
inconceivable by man when Babylon was in its strength 
and glory, than that the broad walls of Babylon should 
be so utterly broken that it can scarcely be determined 
with certainty that even a vestige of them remains? 
The trench out of which they were formed must now, 
in a great measure, be filled with them again : for both 
have alike disappeared. Captain Frederick could dis- 
cover no appearance of the wall, after an active search 
of six days. One of the chapters, sixty pages in length, 
of Mr. Buckingham's Travels, is entitled " Search after 
the walls of Babylon." Major Keppel, after stating 
that he and those who accompanied him having, in 
common with other travelers, totally failed in discover- 



JOB BABYLON. [Chap. VI 

ing any trace of the city walls, adds, tkst "the divine 
predictions against Babylon have been so literally ful- 
filled in the appearance of the ruins, that I am dispos- 
ed to give the fullest signification to the words of Je- 
remiah, — the broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly 
broken." Jerem. 51 : 58. 

" Who hath declared this from ancient time ? Who 
hath told it from that time? Have not I the Lord, 
and there is no God beside me? Has not the day o* 
the Lord come against Babylon as a destruction from 
the Almighty ?" And when we see the proudest works 
of man thus brought to the dust, where is the human 
strength, or wisdom, or beauty, or greatness, in which 
any ought to glory; and whose name alone is it that 
ought ever to be feared, and that shall be exalted for 
ever, but that of the Lord, who hath performed his 
every purpose against Babylon ? And seeing that the 
glory of kingdoms is thus fallen, what earthly posses- 
sion or privilege deserves to be prized like the citizen- 
ship of that kingdom which alone can never be moved ? 
and how worthless in comparison shall they all at last 
prove, even as the dust of fallen Babylon ! And what 
other stay need the true Christian seek, or what human 
fear need he dread, while he puts his trust in that God, 
according to whose word the broad walls of Babylon 
have been utterly broken ? And if the life on their lips, 
and the breath in their nostrils, and the graves of their 
brethren and forefathers, cannot teach the worldly, 
the careless, and the nominal Christian, that pride was 
not made for man, let them go and look for the walls 
of Babylon, and stand on the blasted ruins of the tem- 
ple of Belus. There they may learn, visibly illustrated. 
the truth of that word of God " All that is in the 
world, the lust of the eye and the pride of life, is not 



Chap. VI.J tyre. 109 

of the Father, but of the world. \nd the world pass- 
eth away, and the iashion thereof." O that all such 
would remember, " He that doeth the will of God 
abideth for ever." 



Tyre, situated at the eastern extremity of the Medi 
terranean Sea, and to the north of Palestine, was for a 
long period the greatest commercial city in the world. 
Its opulence and extensive commerce are described by 
various heathen authors, and are eloquently delineated 
in the 26th, 27th, and 28th chapters of Ezekiel; in 
which the various characteristics of its then existing 
greatness are contrasted with the varied changes and 
humiliations it would undergo, till it should become a 
" place whereon fishers would dry their nets." We 
may here again refer to the testimony of Volney, who 
not only describes Tyre as having been " the theatre 
of an immense commerce and navigation — the nursery 
of arts and science, and the city of perhaps the most 
industrious and active people ever known ;" but who 
also quotes, as " a valuable fragment of antiquity," 
Ezekiel's splendid description of its greatness and 
clear announcement of its future desolation ; and ex- 
pressly acknowledges that " the vicissitudes of time, 
or rather the barbarism of the Greeks of the lower em- 
pire, and the Mahometans, have accomplished this pre- 
diction." Volney's Travels, vol. 2, p. 210-212. The 
barbarism of the Mahometans, which finally completed 
the desolation of Tyre and the accomplishment of the 
prophecy, did not commence till twelve centuries after 
the "fragment of antiquity" which recorded its des- 
tiny was written. But no length nor " vicissitudes of 



110 TYRE. [.Chap. VI 

time" can conceal any event from the all-seeing eye 
of God. 

The destruction of old Tyre (which was situated on 
the continent of Phoenicia) by Nebuchadnezzar, king 
of Babylon ; the dispersion of the inhabitants, and Jieir 
flight by sea into other regions; the subsequent resto- 
ration (after the downfall of the Babylonian monarchy) 
of its commerce and wealth in that part of the city, or 
New Tyre, which was built on an island half a mile 
distant from the shore; the siege and destruction of 
this latter by Alexander the Great; the casting of the 
stones, and timber, and dust, (the ruins of the old or 
continental city,) into the midst of the water, yea, the 
scraping of her dust from off her, which were done by 
that conqueror, (as the historians of his life relate,) in 
forming a mound from the shore to the island, in car- 
rying on the siege of the new city; the smiting of the 
power of this latter in the sea by her capture, and the 
annihilation of her commerce ; the burning of the city ; 
the slaughter of many of her inhabitants, and the sell- 
ing of others into captivity, form the most prominent, 
historical facts relative to Tyre, and are each the ful- 
fillment of a prophecy. The destruction of the first 
city by Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldeans took place 
in the year 573 before Christ; the insular city began 
to flourish 70 years after, and its siege and capture 
took place 330 years before the birth of the Savior. 
The prophecies which predicted these two separate de- 
structions of Tyre appertain to both, some expressions 
being applicable to the former, and some only to the 
latter; but all have been strikingly accomplished. 

Ammon is yet a stable for camels ; the cities of Aroer, 
in Moab, are for flocks to lie down ; the desolate habi- 
tations of Edom remain; Nineveh is grassy mounds ; 



Chap. VI. J TYRE. Ill 

Babylon is heaps; but from off Tyre on the continent 
the very dust was scraped. It has been sought for, but 
has not been found. After the ruins of old Tyre had 
been cast into the midst of the water — materials having 
failed in consequence of the demolition of the first 
mound — the earth or soil was gathered up, as a Roman 
historian. Quintus Curtius, relates, and the dust of old 
Tyre covered a passage for the enemy through the sea 
unto the new. The mound still exists. 

Such, however, was the celebrity of Tyre, and its 
adaptation for commerce, that it was soon rebuilt on 
the island, and long continued to flourish. An elegant 
temple and many churches were built there after the 
Christian era. Her merchandise and her hire, accord- 
ing to the prophecy, were holiness to the Lord. But 
the Christian churches in the East degenerated like 
those in the West — idolatry prevailed, transgressions 
came to the full. The Saracens, and afterward the 
Turks, (the first and the second " wo,") overspread 
many a fertile region ; and Tyre, though it continued 
a commercial city of importance till within the period 
of the last six hundred years, had become in the last 
century what, from the beginning, prophecy had de- 
clared it eventually would be — like the top of a rock — 
" a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the 
sea." Ezek. 26 : 5. " The whole village of Tyre," says 
Volney, " contains only fifty or sixty poor families, 
who live obscurely on the produce of their little 
ground and a trifling fishery." " The port of Tyre," 
as seen and described by Dr. Shaw, " small as it is, is 
choked up to that degree with sand and rubbish, that 
the boats of those fishermen who now and then visit 
this once renowned emporium, and dry their nets upon 
its rocks and ruins, can with great difficulty only be 



112 TYRE. [Chap. VJ. 

admitted." Bruce describes the site of Tyre as a " rock 
whereon fishers dry their nets." The " mart of na- 
tions," is a fishing village; the walls of Tyrus and her 
towers are broken down; and fishermen spread their 
nets where " the princes of the sea" dwelt in their plea- 
sant houses, and in the place from whence "the kings 
of the earth were enriched with the multitude of its 
riches and merchandise." 

Tyrus sends not forth any merchandise to the na 
tions now; but it sends forth a voice that may well 
reach further than all its traffic ever did, and be more 
profitable, as it has been more enduring, than all its 
fine linen, embroidered work, benches of ivory, pre- 
cious clothes, ebony, emeralds, purple, agate, spices, 
fruits, wines, and all the multitude of its wares. Ezek. 
27. And while all the ends of the earth may give au- 
dience unto that voice which cometh from the Lord, it 
may especially be heard by those who have succeeded 
to the commerce of the Tyrians, lest, being lifted up 
and corrupted as these people, their punishment should 
be the same. And now, when the noise of their songs 
has ceased, and the sound of their harps is no more 
heard; and when the princes of the sea have come 
down from their thrones; their predicted fate, which 
has been fulfilled, imparts to all who would err like 
them, a solemn warning to cultivate another and a bet- 
ter wisdom (such as once was taught by the fishermen 
of Galilee) than that " great wisdom and traffic" by 
which they increased their riches, and their heart was 
lifted up, but which could not save them from " the 
day of their ruin." 

And all the mariners and pilots, and all that handle 
the oar, and the occupiers of merchandise, may hear 
the word of the Lord addressed unto all such, while 



Chap. VI.J TYRE. 113 

yet Tyrus was a merchant of the people of many isles. 
Their portion was to cry bitterly, to cast dust upon 
their heads, and to take up a lamentation for Tyre. 
For iniquity was found in it; it had sinned. Provoke 
not then the Lord to jealousy; are ye stronger than 
he ? Provoke not the Lord to anger, nor think that 
ye could abide his wrath. Profane not his name. For 
it is written in words as plain as those of any judgment 
that has already been fulfilled, and in the same book — 
nay, it was written upon a table of stone by the finger 
of God, which they never were—" Thou shalt not take 
the name of the Lord thy God in vain ; for the Lord 
will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in 
vain." According to the word of the Lord — the stones, 
the timber, and the dust of old Tyre were cast into 
the midst of the waters; the dust was scraped from off 
it — and the " mart of nations" became a place for the 
spreading of nets in the midst of the sea. Imprecate 
not, therefore, any curse upon others or yourself, for 
you may here see that God, who ever hears you, is able 
to give effect unto the swearer's prayer, to return his 
profane and blaspheming words into his bosom, and to 
make his cursing come upon him. The long-suffering 
patience of God will not always strive with ungodly 
men. Yet what else restrains him from rendering unto 
them the condemnation for which they so often cry 
aloud with their lips and with their lives? Surely the 
goodness of God, in withholding from them what they 
ask, and what they merit, should lead them to repent- 
ance, and to fear the great and glorious name — the 
Lord thy God. In reading and remembering the words 
of Christ and his apostles, be never unmindful of these, 
Swear not at all — above all things, swear not. Let faith 
in him be the oole-star of. your voyage through life; 

Keith on F g 



114 tyre. [Chap. VI. 

let his word, for it is the will of God concerning you, 
be the chart by which you ever steer ; and whatever 
shallows or rocks may encompass your course, on 
none will you then make shipwreck of faith and a 
good conscience, but will reach at last the haven oi 
eternal rest. Fear God, and you need have no other 
fear. There is a fountain opened for sin and for un- 
cleanness, where guilt may be purged away, even 
though it were of Tyrian dye ; and where the heart, 
sprinkled from an evil conscience, may be purified for 
the habitation of a holy God. There is " a mart " which 
Jesus too has opened up, where even those who once 
covered themselves with cursing as -with a garment, 
may for ever lay aside their besetting sin, and ex- 
change it for those white robes of righteousness in 
which the children of a Redeemer's kingdom are clad. 
There is an ornament, even that of a meek and quiet 
spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price, and 
which'ought to be far more highly prized than all " the 
chests of rich apparel" of which the proudest Tyrian 
could have ever boasted. There is a "merchandise" 
in which there is true wisdom and lasting gain, and in 
which you should never cease from trafficking till you 
be enabled certainly to find and securely to keep " the 
pearl of great price." And since you may wash and 
be clean, while you think on the sufferings of the Son 
of God for the sins of men, think also on the gifts he 
bestows upon men, and be not slack to barter the plea- 
sures of sin for a season, for treasures in heaven that 
shall never fade. The wicked shall be cast into outer 
darkness, as old Tyre was cast, where still it lies in 
the midst of the waters; but the eternal inheritance of 
the righteous — where no billows can come over them 



Chap. VI.j egypt. 115 

any more — shall be gladness and glory in the midst 
of the paradise of God. 

Egypt. 

Egypt was one of the most ancient and one of the 
mightiest of kingdoms. The imperishable pyramids, 
and the ruins of its cities and temples, together with 
the splendid "tombs of the kings," several of which 
have of late been opened by Belzoni, are now the chief, 
and nearly the only indications of its ancient glory. 
The abundance and magnificence of these surpass de- 
scription, as the number of its cities and towns in an- 
cient times, stated by Herodotus at twenty thousand, 
exceeds belief. That eminent author, who is styled 
the father of history, describes Egypt as being, both 
by nature and art, the most fruitful of all lands, and as 
containing more wonders than all other regions. Egypt 
is still full of wonders, though its ancient cities and 
temples are now in ruins. These have been largely 
described by Norden, Denon, Hamilton, Burckhardt, 
Belzoni, and others. Those stupendous temples, abound- 
ing with massy and lofty columns, are profusely co- 
vered with hieroglyphics, and though they were erect- 
ed by mortals who had changed the glory of the un- 
corruptible God into an image made like to corruptible 
man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping 
things, seem destined to pay homage to the one living 
and true God, the God of Israel, by illustrating the 
historical as well as prophetic truth of his word. 

Egypt was the theme of many prophecies which 
were fulfilled in ancient times, as Bishop Newton has 
Shown in his Dissertations on the Prophecies; and it 
bears to this day, as it has borne throughout many 



116 egypt. I Chap. VI 

ages, the marks with which prophecy had stamped its 
destiny. Ezek. 29 : 14, 15; 30 : 7, 12, 13; 32 : 15. 

Egypt could truly boast of a long race of kings; ano 
had continued, without interruption, a mighty kingdom 
from the earliest ages of the world. Its history, in this 
as in other respects, has, since the era of the prophets, 
been wholly reversed. But, however contrary to all 
human probability, and to all former experience, they 
plainly foretold that reversal. 

Invaded and subdued by Nebuchadnezzar, king of 
Babylon, according to the word of the Lord, both by 
Jeremiah, 46 : 13, and by Ezekiel, 30 : 10, subjected 
afterward by the Persians under Cambyses, and to the 
Macedonians by Alexander the Great, Isa. 19 : 1-33, 
Egypt was, after his death, governed for nearly three 
centuries by the Ptolemies, the descendants of one of 
his generals, at which time it was an opulent kingdom, 
till, about thirty years before the Christian era, it came 
under the Roman yoke; and Saracens, Mamelukes, 
and Turks have since successively ruled over it. Its 
history shows the completion of the prophecies con- 
cerning it. 

God had declared by Ezekiel, 29 : 14, 15 ; 30 : 12, 13, 
" They shall be a base kingdom. It shall be the basest 
of kingdoms ; neither shall it exalt itself any more 
among the nations. The pride of her power shall 
come down. I will sell the land into the hand of the 
wicked ; and I will make the land waste, and all that is 
(herein, by the hand of strangers. I the Lord have 
spoken it. There shall be no more a prince of the land 
of Egypt. The sceptre of Egypt shall depart away." 

" Such," says Volney, " is the state of Egypt. De- 
prived twenty-three centuries ago of her natural pro- 
prietors, she has seen her fertile fields successively a 



Chap. VI. | egypt. 117 

prey to the Persians, the Macedonians, the Romans, 
the Greeks, the Arabs, the Georgians, and, at length, the 
the race of Tartars, distinguished by the name of Otto- 
man Turks. The Mamelukes, purchased as slaves, 
and introduced as soldiers, soon usurped the power 
and elected a leader. If their first establishment was 
a singular event, their continuance is not less extraor- 
dinary. They are replaced by slaves brought from 
their original country. The system of oppression is 
methodical. Every thing the traveler sees or hears 
reminds him he is in the country of slavery and tyran- 
ny. In Egypt there is no middle class, neither nobility, 
clergy, merchants, nor landholders. Ignorance, dif- 
fused through every class, extends its effects to every 
species of moral and physical knowledge," &c. Yol- 
ney's Travels, vol. i. p. 74, 103, 110, 190, &c. " A more 
unjust and absurd constitution," says Gibbon, "can- 
not be devised than that which condemns the natives 
of a country to perpetual servitude under the arbitrary 
dominion of strangers and slaves. Yet such has been 
the state of Egypt above 500 years. The most illustri- 
ous sultans of the Baharite and Borghite dynasties 
were themselves promoted from the Tartar and Cir- 
cassian bands; and the four-and-twenty beys, or mili- 
tary chiefs, have ever been succeeded, not by their sons, 
but by their servants." Hist, of Decl. of Rom. Empire, 
vol. vi. p. 109, 110. 

On a review of the prophecies relative to Nineveh, 
Babylon, Tyre, Egypt, Judea, and all the adjoining 
territories, is it not a fact vvhich can admit of no dis- 
putation, and which needs no argument to support it, 
but which rests on the testimony of unbelievers no less 
than of Christians, that the fate of all these cities and 



1 18 EGYPT. L Chap. VI. 

countries, in reierence to their past history and present 
state, demonstrates the truth of the prophecies concern- 
ing them, and that all these prophecies, ratified by 
Uie events, give the most decisive proof that those holy 
men of old, who all testified of Jesus, spake as they 
were moved by the Holy Ghost ? No word can be more 
sure, in regard to past and present things, than theirs 
was in regard to the future. The desolations were the 
work of man, and were all effected by the enemies of 
Christianity ; and it is the prediction of these literal 
facts, in all their particulars and minuteness, infinitely 
surpassing human foresight, which is the word of God 
alone. The ruin of empires, while it'proves the truth 
of every tittle of these predictions, is thus a miraculous 
confirmation and proof of the inspiration of the Scrip- 
tures. By what fatality is it then, and how much 
does it show the weakness of their cause, that infidels 
should have chosen for the display of their power this 
very field, where, without conjuring, as they have done, 
a lying spirit from the ruins, they might have read 
the fulfillment of the prophecies on every spot ? Every 
fact related by Volney is a witness against all his specu- 
lations — and out of his own mouth is he condemned. 
Can any purposed deception be greater or more glaring 
than to overlook these prophecies, and to attempt to 
raise an argument against the truth of Christianity 
from those very facts which, attesting their fulfillment, 
thereby so clearly establish it? Or can any evidence 
of divine inspiration be more convincing and clear than 
to view, in conjunction, all these marvellous predictions 
and thefr perfect completion? 



Chap. VII. j THE ARABS, &c. 110 

CHAPTEi: VIS. 
The Arabs, 8fC. 

The long : continued slavery of the Africans, the de- 
scendants of Canaan, of whom it was said, "A servant of 
servants shall he be unto his brethren," and the esta- 
blishment of European colonies in Asia, or the enlarg- 
ing -of Japheth, whose descendants peopled Europe ; 
and their dwelling in the tents of Shem, whose dwell- 
ings were unto the east, or Asia, Gen. 10 : 5, 6, 18, 19, 
30, confirm to this day the truth of those words which 
were spoken by Noah — " Cursed be Canaan ; a servant 
of servants shall he be unto his brethren. Blessed be 
the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant. 
God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the 
tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be' his servant." Gen. 
9 : 25-27. 

Of Ishmael, from whom the Arabs claim their de- 
scent, it was said by the angel of the Lord, before his 
birth, " He shall be a wild man ; his hand shall be against 
every man, and every man's hand shall be against him ; 
and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. 
I will make him fruitful, and multiply him exceedingly ; 
and I will make him a great nation." And unto nis 
mother Hagar it was said, " I will multiply thy seed 
exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multi- 
tude." Gen. 16 : 10, 12 ; 17 : 20. The descendants of 
Ishmael have been multiplied exceedingly. His seed 
cannot be numbered for multitude. The history of the 
Arabs needs not to be detailed : they are universally 
known to be. a wild people ; their hand is against every 
man, and every man's hand is against them. In the 



120 THE ARABS, & c . [^hap. VII. 

words of Gibbon the historian, which strikingly assimi- 
late with those of the prophecy, they are " armed against 
mankind ;" and the distinct marks of prophetic truth 
which the Arabs yet exhibit, cannot be better repre- 
sented than in the words of an intelligent and obser- 
vant eye-witness, who thus describes them after having 
visited an Arab camp, and examined the peculiarities 
of their race : "Oh the smallest computation, such must 
have been the manners of these people for more than 
three thousand years. Thus in all things verifying the 
prediction given of Ishmael at his birth, that he, in his 
posterity, should be a wild man, and always continue 
to be so, though they shall dwell for ever in the pre- 
sence of their brethren.* And that an acute and active 
people, surrounded for ages by polished and luxurious 
nations, should, from their earliest to their latest times, 
be still found a wild people dwelling in the presence o* 
all their brethren, (as we may call these nations,) unsub- 
dued and unchangeable, is indeed a standing miracle — 
one of those mysterious facts which establish the truth 
of prophecy." Sir Rob. Ker Porter's Travels, vol. i. 
p. 304. 

Recent discoveries have also brought to light the mi- 
raculous preservation and existence as a distinct people, 
of a less numerous but not less interesting race — "a 
plant which grew up under the mighty cedar of Israel, 
but was destined to flourish when that proud tree was 
levelled to the earth. ,; " Thus saith the Lord of hosts, 
the God of Israel, Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not 
want a mar. to stand before me for ever." Jer. 35 : 19. 
The Beni Rechab (sons of Rechab) still exist, a " dis- 

* The Jews, the Edomites, the Moabites, Amalekites, and 
Ammonites, were literally their brethren, being, like them, de- 
scendants of Abraham, and all neighboring nations. 



Chap. VII].] SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. 121 

tinct and easily distinguishable people." They boast ol 
their descent from Rechab, profess pure Judaism, and 
all know Hebrew. Yet they live in the neighborhood 
of Mecca, the chief seat of Mahometanism, and their 
number is stated to be sixty thousand. The account 
given of them by Benjamin of Tudela, in the twelfth 
century, (Basnage's Hist. p. 620,) has very recently been 
confirmed by Mr. Wolff; and as he witnessed, and heard 
from an intrepid "Rechabite cavalier," there is not 
wanting a man to stand up as a son of Rechab 



CHAPTER VIII. 

The Seven Churches ofAsta. 

Brief and incomplete as has been the summary view, 
given in the foregoing pages of the Evidence of Pro- 
phecy, yet do not the joint clearness of the prophecies 
themselves, and the profusion of precise facts which 
show their literal fulfillment, bid defiance to the most 
subtle sceptic to forge or feign the shadow of a just rea- 
son to prove how they could all have been spoken, ex- 
cept by inspiration of God 1 The sure word of prophecy 
has indeed unfolded many adesolation which has come 
upon the earth ; but while it thus reveals the operation, 
in some of its bearings, of the " mystery of iniquity," 
it forms itself a part of the " mystery of godliness :" 
and it is no less the testimony of Jesus, because it shows, 
as far as earthly ruins can reveal, the progress and the 
issue of the dominion of "other lords" over the hearts 
of the children of men. The sins of men have caused, 
and the cruelty of men has effected, the dire desolations 
which the word of God foretold. Signs and tokens of 



122 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. [Chap. VIII. 

[lis judgments there indeed have been, yet they are 
never to be found but where iniquity first prevailed. 
And though all other warnings were to fail, the sight 
of his past judgments, and the sounding of those that 
are to come, might teach the unrepenting and uncon- 
verted sinner to give heed to the threatenings of his 
word, and to the terrors of the Lord, and to try his 
ways and turn unto God, while space for repentance 
may be found, ere, as death leaves him, judgment shall 
find him. And may not the desolations which God has 
wrought upon the earth, and that accredit his word, 
wherein life and immortality are brought to light, 
teach the man whose God is the world, to cease to ac- 
count it worthy of his worship and of his love, and to 
abjure that " covetousness, which is idolatry," till the 
idol of mammon, in the temple within, shall fall, as fell 
the image of Dagon before the ark of the Lord in which 
" the testimony " was kept ? 

But naming, as millions do, the name of Christ, 
without departing from iniquity, there is another warn- 
ing voice that may come more closely to them all. And 
it is not only from the desolate regions where heathens 
dwelt, which show how holy men of old spake as they 
were moved by the Holy Ghost; but also from the 
ruins of some of the cities where churches were formed 
by apostles, and where the religion of Jesus once ex- 
isted in its purity, that all may learn to know that God 
is no respecter of persons, and that he will by no means 
clear the guilty. " He that hath an ear let him heai 
what the Spirit saith unto the churches." 

What church could rightfully claim or ever seek 
higher title than that which is given in Scripture to the 
<*even churches of Asia, the angels of which were the 
seven stars in the right hand of Him who is the first 



Chap. VIII.] THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF AS'A. 123 

and the last— of Him that liveth and was dead, and is 
alive for evermore, and that hath the keys of hell and 
of death; and which themselves were the seven golden 
candlesticks in the midst of which he walked 1 And who 
that hath an ear to hear, may not humbly hear and great- 
ly profit by what the Spirit said unto them? Rev. 2 and 3. 

The Church of Ephesus, after a commendation of 
their first works, to Which they were commanded to 
return, were accused of having left their first love, and 
threatened with the removal of their candlestick out 
of its place, except they should repent, ch. 2:5. 
Ephesus is situated nearly fifty miles south of Smyr- 
na. It was the metropolis of Lydia, and a great and 
opulent city, and (according to Strabo) the greatest 
emporium of Asia Minor. It was chiefly famous for 
the temple of Diana, "whom all Asia worshipped," 
which was adorned with 127 columns of Parian mar- 
ble, each of a single shaft, and sixty feet high, and 
which formed one of the seven wonders of the world. 
The remains of its magnificent theatre, in which it is 
said that twenty thousand people could easily have 
been seated, are yet to be seen. Acts, 19 : 29. But "a 
few heaps of stones, and some miserable mud cottages, 
occasionally tenanted by Turks, without one Christian 
residing there,* are all the remains of ancient Ephesus." 
It is, as described by different travelers, a solemn and 
most forlorn spot. The Epistle to the Ephesians is 
read throughout the world ; but there is none in Ephe- 
sus to read it now. They left their first love, they re- 
turned not to their first works. Their candlestick has 
been removed out of its place, and the great city of 
Ephesus is no more. 

The Church of Smyrna was approved of as "rich," 

* Arundle's visit to the seven Churches of Asia, page 27. 



124 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. [Chap. VIII 

and no judgment was denounced against it. The} 
were warned of a tribulation of ten days, (the tei/ 
years' persecution by Diocletian,) and were enjoined 
to be faithful unto death, and they would receive a 
cr<Dwn of life. Ch. 2: 8-11. And, unlike to the faU 
of the more famous city of Ephesus, Smyrna is stili 
a large city, containing nearly one hundred thousand 
inhabitants, with several Greek churches; and an Eng 
lish and other Christian ministers have resided in it 
The light has indeed become dim, but the candlestick 
has not been wholly removed out of its place. 

The Church of Pergamos is commended for holding 
fast the name of the Lord, and not denying his faith, 
during a time of persecution, and in the midst of a 
wicked city. But there were some in it who held doc- 
trines and did deeds which the Lord hated. Against 
them he was to fight with the sword of his mouth ; 
and all were called to repent. But it is not said, as of 
Ephesus, that their candlestick would be removed out 
of its place. Ch. 2 : 12-16. Pergamos is situated to 
the north of Smyrna, at a distance of nearly sixty-four 
miles, and "was formerly the metropolis of Hellespon- 
tic Mysia." It still contains at least fifteen thousand 
inhabitants, of whom fifteen hundred are Greeks, and 
two hundred Armenians, each of whom have a church." 

In the Church of Thyatira, like that of Pergamos, 
some tares were soon mingled with the wheat. He 
who hath eyes like unto a flame of fire discerneth both. 
Yet, happily for the souls of the people, more than for 
the safety of the city, the general character of that 
church, as it then existed, is thus described : "I know 
thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy 
patience, and thy works ; and the last to be more than 
the first." Ch. 2 : 19. But against those, for such there 



Chap VIII. J THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. 125 

were among them, who had committed fornication, 
and eaten things sacrificed unto idols, to whom the 
Lord gave space to repent of their fornication, and 
they repented not, great tribulation was denounced; 
and to every one of them was to be given according 
to their works. These, thus warned while on earth 
in vain, have long since passed, where all are daily 
hastening, to the place where no repentance can be 
found, and no work be done. "But unto the rest in 
Thyatira (as many as have not known the depths of 
satan) I will put upon you, saith the Lord, none other 
burden." Ver. 24. There were those in Thyatira who 
could save a city. It still exists, while greater cities 
have fallen. Mr. Hartley, who visited it in 1826, de- 
scribes it as "embosomed in cypresses and poplars. 
The Greeks are said to occupy three hundred houses, 
and the Armenians thirty. Each of them have a 
church." # 

The Church of Sardis differed from those of Perga 
mos and Thyatira. They had not denied the faith, 
but the Lord had a few things against them, for there 
were some evil doers among them, and on those, if 
they repented not, judgment was to rest. But in Sar- 
dis, great though the city was, and founded though the 
church had been by an apostle, there were only a few 
names which had not defiled their garments. And to 
that church the Spirit said, "I know thy works, that 
thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead." But 
the Lord is long-suffering, not willing that any should 
perish, but that all should come to repentance. And 
the church of Sardis was thus warned — "Be watchful, 
and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready 
to die; for I have not found thy works perfect before 
God. Remember, therefore, how thou hast received 



120 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. [ Chap. VIII 

and heard, and hold fast and repent. If therefore thou 
shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and 
thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee." 
Ch. 3 : 2, 3. 

The state of Sardis now, is a token that the warning 
was given in vain ; and shows that the threatenings ol 
the Lord, when disregarded, become certain judgments. 
Sardis, the capital of Lydia, was a great and renowned 
city, where the wealth of Croesus its king was accu- 
mulated, and became even a proverb. But now a few 
wretched mud huts, "scattered among the ruins," are 
the only dwellings in Sardis, and form the lonely home 
of Turkish herdsmen, who are its only inhabitants. 
As the seat of a Christian church, it has lost — all it 
had to lose — the name. "No Christians reside on the 
spot." 

"And to the angel of the Church in Philadelphia 
write, These things saith He that is holy, He that is 
•true, He that hath the key of David, He that open- 
eth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man 
openeth : — I know thy works : behold, I have set be- 
fore thee an open door, and no man can shut it ; for 
thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and 
hast not denied my name. — Because thou hast kept 
the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from 
the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the 
world." Ch. 3:9, 10. The promises of the Lord are 
as sure as his threatenings. Philadelphia alone long 
withstood the power of the Turks, and, in the words 
of Gibbon, "at length capitulated with the proudest ol 
the Ottomans. Among the Greek colonies and church- 
es of Asia," he adds, "Philadelphia is still erect : a co- 
lumn in a scene of ruins" Chap. 64. "It is indeed 
an interesting circumstance," says Mr. Hartley, (: to 



Chap. V1IL] THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. 127 

find Christianity more flourishing here than in many 
other parts of the Turkish empire: there is still a nu- 
merous Christian population ; they occupy 300 houses 
Divine service is performed every Sunday in five 
churches." Nor is it less interesting in these event- 
ful times, and notwithstanding the general degeneracy 
of the Greek church, to learn that the present hishop 
of Philadelphia accounts "the Bible the only founda- 
tion of all religious belief;" and that he admits that 
4 abuses have entered into the church, which former 
ages might endure, but the present must put them 
down." — It may well be added, as stated by Mr. Hart- 
ley, "The circumstance that Philadelphia is now call- 
ed Allah-Shehr, the city of God, when viewed in con- 
nection with the promises made to that church, and 
especially with that of writing the name of the city 
of God upon its faithful members, is, to say the least, 
a singular concurrence." . From the prevailing iniqui- 
ties of men many a sign has been given how terrible 
are the judgments of God. But from the fidelity of 
the church in Philadelphia of old, in keeping his word, 
a name and memorial of his faithfulness has been left 
on earth, while the higher glories, promised to those 
that overcame, shall be ratified in heaven; and toward 
them, but not them only, shall the glorified Redeemer 
confirm the truth of his blessed words, "Him that 
overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my 
God;" even as assuredly as Philadelphia, when all else 
fell around it, "stood erect," our enemies themselves 
being judges, "a column in a scene of ruins." 

"And unto the angel of the Church of the Laodi- 
ceans write, — These things saith the Amen, the faith- 
ful and true Witness, the beginning of the creation of 
God; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold 



128 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. [Chap. VIII. 

nor hot. I would thou wert cold or hot. So then be- 
cause thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I 
will spew thee out of my mouth. Because thou say- 
est, I am rich and increased with goods, and have need 
of nothing ; and knowest not that thou art wretched, 
and. miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I coun- 
sel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou 
mayest be rich ; and white raiment, that thou mayest 
be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do 
lot appear; and anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, 
that thou mayest see." Rev. 3 : 14, &c. All the other 
churches were found worthy of some commendation, 
and there was some blessing in them all. The church 
nf Ephesus had labored and not fainted, though she 
had forsaken her first love ; and the threatened punish- 
ment, except she repented, was the removal of her 
candlestick out of its place. A faithless and wicked 
<ew polluted, the churches of Pergamos and Thyatira 
'>y their doctrines or by their lives ; but the body was 
sound, and the churches had a portion in Christ. Even 
in Sardis, though it was dead, there was life in a few 
who had not defiled their garments; "and they shall 
walk with me in white, said the Lord, for they are 
worthy." 

But in what, the Spirit said to the church in Lao- 
dicea, there was not one word of approval ; it was luke- 
warm without exception, and therefore it was wholly 
loathed. The religion of Jesus had become to them 
as an ordinary matter. They would attend to it just 
as they did to other things which they loved as well. 
The sacrifice of the Son of God upon the cross was 
nothing thought of more than a common gift by man. 
They were not constrained by the love of Christ more 
than by other feelings. They could repeat the words 



Chap. VIII.J THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. 129 

of the first great commandment of the law, and of the 
second, that is like unto it ; but they showed no sign 
that the one or the other was truly a law to them. 
There was no Dorcas among them, who, out of pure 
Christian love, made clothes for the poor. There was 
no Philemon, to whom it could be said, " The church 
in thy house," and who could look on a servant as " a 
brother beloved." There was no servant who looked 
to the eye of his Father in heaven more than to that of 
his master on earth, and to the recompense of eternal 
reward more than to the hireling wages of a day : and 
who, by showing all good fidelity, sought to adorn the 
doctrine of God his Savior in all things. There was 
nothing done, as every thing should be, heartily, as to 
the Lord, and not unto men. The power of the world 
to come, and of that which now is, hung, as it were, 
even balanced in their minds ; each had its separate 
influence and weight, even to a scruple ; and they were 
kept distinct, as if there should never be any interfer- 
ence between them, or as if they were to hang in sepa- 
rate scales. 

This was given unto the world, and that unto God, 
as if these Christian men had been full of the faith, that 
the revealed will of the Most High had no title to a 
supreme ascendancy over them, that all " the deeds 
done in the body would never be brought into judg- 
ment, and that lukewarmness was requital enough for 
redeeming love. Their only dread seemed to be lest 
they should be righteous overmuch. And for fear of 
that, which would have been inconsistent with their 
character, though not with their profession, they dis- 
regarded the words of one who was wiser than Solo- 
mon, and who had laid down his life for their sakes : 
they did not strive to enter in at the strait gate; to be 

Keith on P. 9 



130 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF AHIA. [Chap. VIIJ. 

perfect was no purpose of theirs ; there was no fight in 
their faith, no running in their race, no wrestling in 
• their warfare, no victory in their work. Yet they 
could show a goodly form or frame-work of religion, 
on which they had raised many a high hope. 

They trusted to redemption through Christ, while 
they were not redeemed from sin, nor actuated by the 
love of God. They used the means of grace, but ne- 
glected the end for which that grace had appeared. 
They were rich, they thought, and increased with 
goods, and had need of nothing. But they wanted 
zeal; and all they had was nothing worth. Whatever 
they vainly imagined themselves to be, the Spirit knew 
them truly, and told them what they were, even wretch 
ed, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. 
They had done no 'evil, they thought, but they did 
little good. And they neither felt nor lived as if they 
knew that whatsoever is not of faith is sin. Their luke- 
warmness was worse, for it rendered their state more 
hopeless than if they had been cold. For sooner 
would a man in Sardis have felt that the chill of death 
was upon him, and have cried out for life, and called 
to the physician, than would a man of Laodicea, who 
could calmly count his even pulse, and think his life 
secure, while death was preying on his vitals. The 
character of lukewarm Christians, a self-contradicting 
name, is the same in every age. Such was the church 
of the Laodiceans. But what is that city now, or how 
is it changed from what it was ? 

Laodicea was the metropolis of the Greater Phrygia; 
and, as heathen writers attest, it was an extensive and 
very celebrated city. Instead of then verging to its 
decline, it arose to its greatest eminence only about the 
beginning of the Christian era. " It was the mother- 



Chap. VI [I.J THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. 131 

church of sixteen bishoprics." Its three theatres, and 
the immense circus, which was capable of containing 
upward of thirty thousand spectators, the spacious re- 
mains of which (with other ruins buried under ruins) 
are yet to be seen, give proof of the greatness of its an- 
cient wealth and population, and indicate too strongly 
that, in that city where Christians were rebuked, with- 
out exception, for their lukewarmness, there were mul 
titudes who were lovers of pleasure more than lovers 
of God. The amphitheatre was built after the Apoca- 
lypse was written, and the warning of the Spirit had 
4?een given to the church of the Laodiceans to be zea- 
lous and repent; but whatever they there may have 
heard or beheld, their hearts would neither have been 
quickened to a renewed zeal for the service and glory 
of God, nor turned to a deeper sorrow for sin, and to 
a repentance not to be repented of. But the fate of 
Laodicea, though opposite, has been no less marked 
than that of Philadelphia. There are no sights of 
grandeur, nor scenes of temptation around it now. Its 
own tragedy may be briefly told. It was lukewarm, 
and neither cold nor hot ; and therefore it was loath- 
some in the sight of God. It was loved, and rebuked, 
and chastened in vain. And it has been blotted from 
the world. It is now as desolate as its inhabitants 
were destitute of the fear and love of God; and as the 
church of the Laodiceans was devoid of true faith in 
the Savior, and zeal in his service. It is, as described 
in his Travels by Dr. Smith, " utterly desolated, and 
without any inhabitant, except wolves, and jackals, 
and foxes." It can boast of no human inhabitant, ex- 
cept occasionally when wandering Turkomans pitch 
their tents in its spacious amphitheatre. The " finest 
sculptured fragments" are to be seen at a considerable 



132 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. [Chap. Vlt* 

depth, in excavations which have been made among 
the ruins. Arundel's Travels, p. 85. And Col. Leake 
observes, " There are few ancient cities more likely 
than Laodicea to preserve many curious remains of 
antiquity beneath the surface of the soil ; its opulence, 
and the earthquakes to which it was subject, rendering 
it probable that valuable works of art were often there 
buried beneath the ruins of the public and private edi- 
fices." A fearful significancy is thus given to the ter- 
rific denunciation, " Because thou art lukewarm, and 
neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth." 

" He that hath ears to hear, let him hear what the 
Spirit saith unto the churches." The Spirit searcheth 
all things, yea, the deep things of God. Each church, 
and each individual therein, was weighed in the ba- 
lance of the sanctuary, according to their works. Each 
was approved of according to its character, or rebuked 
and warned according to its deeds. Was the church 
itself pure, the diseased members alone were to be cut 
off. Was the church itself dead, yet the few names 
in which there were life, were all written before God, 
and not one of those who overcame would be blotted 
out of the book of life. All the seven churches were 
severally exhorted by the Spirit according to their 
need. The faith delivered to the saints was preached 
unto them all; and all, as Christian churches, possessed 
the means of salvation. The Son of man walked in 
the midst of them, beholding those who were, and 
those who were not his. 

By the preaching of the Gospel, and by the written 
word, every man in each of the churches was warned, 
and every man was taught in all wisdom, that every 
man might be presented perfect in Christ Jesus. And 
in what the Spirit said unto each and all of the churches, 



Shap. VIII.] THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. 133 

which he that hath ears to hear was commanded tc 
near, the promise of everlasting blessedness, under a 
variety of the most glorious representations, was given, 
without exception, restriction, or reservation, to him 
that overcometh. The language of love, as well as of 
remonstrance and rebuke, was urged even on the luke- 
warm Laodiceans. And if any Christian fell, it was 
from his own resistance and quenching of the Spirit ; 
from his choosing other lords than Jesus to have do- 
minion over him ; from his lukewarmness, deadness, 
and virtual denial of the faith ; and from his own wil- 
ful rejection of freely offered and dearly purchased 
grace, sufficient, if sought, and cherished, and zealously 
used, to have enabled him to overcome and triumph 
in that warfare against spiritual wickedness to which 
Christ hath called his disciples ; and in which, as the 
finisher of their faith, he is able to make the Christian 
more than conqueror. 

But if such, as the Spirit described them and knew 
them to be, were the churches, and Christians then, 
what are the churches and what are Christians now 1 
Or rather, we would ask of the reader, what is your 
own hope toward God, and what the work of your 
faith? If, while Christianity was in its prime, and 
when its divine truths had scarcely ceased to reach 
the ears of believers from the lips of apostles, on whose 
heads the Spirit had visibly descended, and cloven 
tongues, like as of fire, had sat; if, even at that time, 
one of the seven churches of Asia had already de- 
parted from its first love; if two others were partially 
polluted by the errors in doctrine, and evils in the 
practice, of some of their members; if another had 
only a few names that were worthy, and yet another 
none; and if they, who formed the last anil worst of 



134 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. [Chap. VIII. 

these, thought themselves rich and increased with 
goods, and that they had need of nothing ; and knew 
not that, being lukewarm, they were wretched, and 
miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked; have you 
an ear to hear or a heart to understand such know- 
ledge ? and do you, professing yourself a Christian, as 
they also did, see no cause or warning here to question 
and examine yourself, even as the same Spirit would 
search and try you, of your works, and charity, and 
service, and faith, and patience ? 

What is your labor of love, or wherein do you labor 
at all for his name's sake, by whose name you are 
called? What trials does your faith patiently endure, 
what temptations does it triumphantly overcome ? Is 
Christ in you the hope of glory, and is your heart pu- 
rified through that blessed hope? To a church, we 
trust, you belong; but whose is the kingdom within 
you? What principles ever actuate you which Christ 
and his apostles taught ? Where, in your affections 
and life, are the fruits of the Spirit — love, joy, peace, 
long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, tempe- 
rance? Turn the precepts of the Gospel into ques- 
tions, and ask thus what the Spirit would say unto 
you, as he said unto the churches. 

What the Spirit said unto primitive and apostolic 
churches, over which " the beloved disciple" person- 
ally presided, may suffice to prove that none who have 
left their first love, if ever they have truly felt the love 
of Jesus — that none who are guilty of seducing others 
into sin and uncleanness — that none who have a name 
that they live, and are dead — end that none who are 
lukewarm, are worthy members of any Christian com- 
munion; and that, while such they continue, no Chris- 
tian communion can be profitable to them. But unto 



Chap. VIII. J THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. 135 

them is "space to repent" given. And to them the 
word and Spirit speak in entreaties, encouragements, 
exhortations, and warnings ; that they may turn from 
their sins to the Savior, and that they may live and not 
die. But were there one name in Sodom, or a few in 
Sardis, that are the Lord's, he knows and names them 
every one ; and precious in his sight is the death of 
his saints. Some, on the other hand, may be sunk into 
the depths of satan, though in outward fellowship with 
a church, were such to be found, as pure as once was 
that of Thyatira. Whatever, therefore, the profession 
of your faith may be, seek the kingdom of God and 
his righteousness ; that kingdom which is righteous 
ness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, and that 
righteousness which is through faith in Christ, who 
gave himself for the church, that he might sanctify 
and cleanse it. And whatever dangers may then en- 
compass you around, fear not — only believe 5 all things 
are possible to him that believeth. 

It was by keeping the word of the Lord, and not de 
nying his faith, by hearing what the Spirit said, that 
the church of Philadelphia held fast what they had, 
and no man took their crown, though situated directly 
between the church of Laodicea, which was lukewarm, 
and Sardis, which was dead. And dead as Sardis was, 
the Lord had a few names in it which had not defiled 
their garments — Christians, worthy of the name, who 
ived, as you yourself should ever live, in the faith of 
the Lord Jesus — dead unto sin, and alive unto righte- 
ousness ; while all around them, though naming the 
name of Jesus, were dead in trespasses and sins. Try 
your faith by its fruits ; judge yourself that you be not 
judged ; examine yourself whether you be in the faith ; 
prove your own self; and with the whole counsel of 



136 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. [Chap. VIII. 

God, as revealed in the Gospel, open to your view, let 
the rule of your self-scrutiny be what the Spirit said 
unto the churches. 

Many prophecies remain which are not here noticed. 
But were any gainsayers to ask for more obvious facts 
and some demonstration of the truth of prophecy, 
which your own ears might hear and your eyes see, 
you have only to hear how they speak evil of the 
things that they understand not — how they speak great 
swelling words of vanity to allure others, promising 
them liberty while they themselves are the children of 
corruption ; you have only to look on these scoffers, 
and mockers, and false teachers, who. have come in 
the last times ; who walk after their own lusts, who 
despise government, who are presumptuous and self- 
willed, and who foam out their own shame, to hear 
and to see the loud and living witnesses of the truth of 
God's holy and unerring word. 2 Pet. 3:3; Jude, 13. 
Such have been, and such are, the enemies of the Chris- 
tian faith. Yet it calls them from darkness to light, 
and from death to life. Turn ye, turn ye: why, it 
asks of these boasters of reason, why will ye die? 

If you have seen any wonderful things out of the 
law of the Lord, and have looked, though from afar 
off, on the judgments of God that have come upon the 
earth, lay not aside the thought of these things when 
you lay down this little book. Treat them not as if 
they were an idle tale, or as if you yourself were not 
to be a witness — and more than a witness — of a far 
greater judgment which shall be brought nigh unto 
you, and shall be your own. 

If, in traversing some of the plainest paths of the 
field of prophecy, you have been led by a way which 
you knew not of before, let that path lead you to the 



Chap. VIII.] THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. 13T 

well of living waters, which springeth up into everlast- 
ing life to every one that thirsts after it and drinks. 
Let the words of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ be 
to you this wellspring of the Christian life. Let the 
word of God enlighten your eyes, and it will also re- 
joice your heart. Search the Scriptures, in them there 
are no lying divinations ; they testify of Jesus, and in 
them you will find eternal life. Pray for the teaching 
and the aid of that Spirit by whose inspiration they 
were given. And above all Christian virtues, that may 
bear witness of your faith, put on charity, love to God 
and love to man, the warp and woof of the Christian's 
new vesture without a seam ; even that charity, or 
love, by which faith worketh ; which is the fruit of the 
Spirit, the end of the commandment, the fulfilling of 
the law, the bond of perfectness, and a better gift and 
a more excellent way than speaking with tongues, or 
interpreting, or prophesying ; and without which you 
would be as nothing, though you understood all mys- 
tery and all knowledge. From the want of this the 
earth has been covered with ruins. Let it be yours, 
and however poor may be your earthly portion, it will 
be infinitely more profitable to you than all the king- 
doms of the world, and all their glory. Prophecies 
shall fail; tongues shall cease; knowledge shall vanish 
away; the earth and the works that are therein shall 
be burne-d up ; but charity never faileth. 

If you have kept the word of the Lord, and have not 
denied his name, hold that fast which thou hast, that 
no man take thy crown. But if heretofore you have 
been lukewarm, and destitute of Christian faith, and 
zeal, and hope, and love, it would be vain to leave you 
with any mortal admonition; hear what the Spirit 
gaith, and harden not your heart against the heavenly 



138 PROPHECIES OF DANIEL. [Chap. IX. 

counsel, and the glorious encouragement given unto 
you by that Jesus of whom all the prophets bear wit- 
ness, and unto whom all things are now committed 
by the Father. " I counsel thee to buy of me gold 
tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich ; and white 
raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the 
shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint 
thine eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see. As 
many as I love, I rebuke and chasten ; be zealous, there- 
fore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock: 
if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will 
come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with 
me. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with 
me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set 
down with my Father in his throne. He that hath an 
ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto 
the churches." 



CHAPTER IX. 



DcmieVs Prophecy of the things noted in the Scripture 
of Truth. 

There is a connected series of predictions, emphati- 
cally denominated " the Things noted in the Scripture 
of Truth," which forms a commentary upon some of 
the more obscure prophecies — which gives a condens- 
ed but precise account of the history of many kings — 
which marks the propagation, the persecution, the es- 
tablishment, and the corruptions of Christianity — and 
which, while it commences with the reign of Cyrus, 
who delivered the Jews from their first captivity, de- 



Chap. IX.J MACEDONIAN EMPIRE. 139 

scribes, with the utmost precision, the rise, extent, and 
fall of that power which was to possess Judea in the 
latter times, previous to their final restoration. The 
prophecy is both local and chronological. It is descrip- 
tive of the government of the same identical region, 
and of the chief facts which relate to it, for many suc- 
cessive ages, and also of the spiritual tyranny which 
reigned for so long a period over Christendom. The 
events follow in succession, in the exact order of the 
prediction. They are not shadowed under types or 
figures, but foretold, in general, with the plainness of 
a narrative, and with the precision of facts. And Daniel 
relates them, not as delivered by him to others, but as 
declared, in a vision, to himself by an angel. 

To enumerate all the particulars would be to' trans 
cribe all the words of the prophecy ; but they afford 
too conclusive an evidence to be passed over in silence. 
The observations of Sir Isaac Newton on this prophecy 
contain a circumstantial detail of the historical events / 
and of their application to the prediction. The pro- 
phecy includes the whole of the eleventh chapter of 
Daniel. A view of the first three verses only will here 
be given : 

" And now I will show thee the truth. Behold there 
shall stand up three kings in Persia (Cambyses, and 
Darius Hystaspes,) and the fourth (Xerxes) shall be far 
richer than they all ; and by his strength, through his 
riches, he shall stir up all against the realm of Grecia. 
And a mighty king (Alexander the Great) shall stand 
up, that shall rule with great dominion, and do accord- 
ing to his will. And when he shall stand up, his king- 
dom shall be broken, and shall be divided toward the 
tour winds of heaven : and not to his posterity, nor ac- 
cording to his dominion which he ruled : for his king- 



140 KINGS OF SYRIA AND EGYPT. [Chap. IX 

dom shall be plucked up, even for others beside those." 
Soon after the death of Alexander the Great, his 
kingdom was divided toward the four winds of heaven, 
but not to his posterity ; four of his captains, Ptolemy, 
Antigonus, Lysimachus, and Cassander, reigned over 
Egypt, Syria, Thrace, and Greece. The kingdoms oj 
Egypt and of Syria became afterward the most pow- 
erful : they subsisted as independent monarchies for a 
longer period than the other two ; and as they were 
more immediately connected with the land of Judea, 
which was often reduced to their dominion, they form 
the subject of the succeeding predictions. Bishop New- 
ton gives even a more copious illustration of the his- 
torical facts which verify the whole of this prophecy 
than that which had previously been given by his illus- 
trious predecessor of the same name, who has ren- 
dered that name immortal. He quotes or refers to au- 
thorities in every instance : and his dissertation on that 
part of the prophecy which relates to the kingdoms ol 
Syria and Egypt is wound up in these emphatic words : 
" It may be proper to stop here, and reflect a little how 
particular and circumstantial this prophecy is concern- 
ing the kingdoms of Egypt and Syria, from the death 
of Alexander to the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. 
There is not so complete and regular a series of their 
kings, there is not so concise and comprehensive an 
account of their affairs to be found in any author oJ 
these times. The prophecy is really more perfect than 
any history. No one historian has related so many 
circumstances, and in such exact order of time, as the 
prophet has foretold them ; so that it was necessary to 
have recourse to several authors, Greek and Roman, 
Jewish and Christian; and to collect here something 
rr om one, and there something from another, for bet 



CONCLUSION. 141 

ter explaining and illustrating the great variety of par- 
ticulars contained in this prophecy." So close is the 
coincidence between the prophetic and the real history 
of the kings of Egypt and of Syria, that Porphyry, one 
of the earliest opponents of Christianity, labored to 
prove its extreme accuracy, and alledged from thence 
that the events must have preceded the prediction, 
The same argument is equally necessary at the present 
hour to disprove the subsequent parts of the same pro- 
phecy — though none can urge it now. 

Every succeeding fact, from the time of Cyrus to the 
present age, gives as sure a confirmation as the voice 
3f an angel could have done, that the things noted in 
. his prophecy are those of the Scripture of truth. His- 
tory interprets every part of it. It brings a multiplicity 
of witnesses, if we will listen to their testimony, from 
a long succession of ages, each arising to testify to its 
truth. And although the names of the countries be not 
mentioned, and the prophecy has received a variety ol 
interpretations, yet we apprehend that it presents us, 
like every spot on earth which was the subject of scrip- 
tural prophecies, with ocular demonstration that there 
is a God who ruleth among the nations ; and that the 
Christian religion; the purest and the best on earth, 
has that God for its author. 



00X70111X81017. 



The whole of the preceding brief and imperfect 
sketch forms little else than an enumeration of some 
of the more striking prophecies, and of facts which de- 
monstrate their fulfillment* and a recapitulation of alJ 



142 CONCLUSION. 

the particulars would be an unnecessary repetition. 
The numerous obscure prophecies which contain 
much and striking evidence have been omitted, that 
the charge of ambiguity, too generally and indiscrimi- 
nately attached to them all, might be proved to be un- 
founded. But having seen, in hundreds of instances, 
that prophecies which were plainly delivered have 
been as clearly fulfilled, comprehending them all in a 
single argument, and leaving the decision to the ene- 
mies of Christianity, or to those who are weak in the 
faith, and appealing to their reason without bespeaking 
their favor, may it not, in the first instance, be asked 
if it be an easy task which is assigned them, to dis- 
prove even this part of the positive evidence to the 
truth of the religion of Jesus ? If they have ever stag- 
gered at the promises or threatenings of the Scriptures 
because of unbelief — discrediting all revelation from on 
high — can they not here discern supernatural evidence 
in confirmation of supernatural truths? May not sight 
lead them to faith? Must they not concede that the 
Christian has some reason for the hope that is in him 7 
And may they not, at the very least, be led from thence 
to the calm and unprejudiced investigation, not only 
of the other prophecies, but of all the evidence which 
Christianity presents ? 

It may in reason be asked, if there be not something 
repugnant to the principles of Christianity in the mind 
of that man who will not hear Moses and the prophets 
. and who is slow of heart to believe all tflfct they have 
spoken, though they afforded the means of detection 
in every prediction which they uttered, if their pro- 
phecies had been false — though they appealed to a vast 
variety of events which distant ages would bring into 
existence — though history has answered, and ocular 



CONCLUSION. 143 

demonstration has confirmed this appeal, our enemies 
themselves being witnesses — and although there never 
was any other truth that could be tried by such a test ? 
Might he not be convinced of a doctrine less moral, or 
not quite according to godliness, by evidence less mira- 
culous? Is there no reason to fear that the light of 
evidence, though sufficient to dispel the cloud -upon 
the understanding, is yet unable to penetrate " the veil 
upon the heart?" Scepticism, at best, is not a subject 
for boasting. It is easy to exclude the noontide light 
by closing the eyes ; and it is easy to resist the clearest 
truth by hardening the heart against it. And while, 
on the other hand, there are minds (and Newton's was 
among the number) which are differently affected by 
the evidence of prophecy, and which cannot be callous 
when touched by the concentrated rays of such light 
from heaven, whence can this great dissimilarity of 
sentiment arise from the same identical and abundant 
proof? And* into what else can the want of conviction 
be resolved than into the scriptural solution of the dif 
ficulty — an evil heart of unbelief? " They will not 
come unto the light, because the light would make 
them free." 

But while the unbeliever rejects the means of con- 
viction, and rests his hope on the assumed possibility 
that his tenets may be true — the positive evidence of 
Christianity convinces the unprejudiced inquirer, or 
rational and sincere believer, that it is impossible that 
his faith can be false. And when he searches out oi 
the book of the Lord, and finds that none of them do 
fail, he looks on every accomplished prediction, even 
though it be the effect of the wrath of man, as a wit- 
ness of God — he knows in whom he believes — he sees 
the rise and fall of earthly potentates and the conviiL 



144 CONCLUSION. 

sions of kingdoms, testifying of Him who ruleth among 
the nations, and accrediting his word — he experiences 
the conviction that the most delightful of all truth, the 
hope which perisheth not, is confirmed by the strongest 
of all testimony, that heaven itself hath ratified the 
peace which it hath proclaimed — he rests assured that 
prophecy came not of old time by the will of man, but 
that holy men of old spake as they were moved by the 
Holy Ghost — and although he knows not the mode oi 
the operations of the Spirit, he sees the demonstration 
of his power. And " taking heed thus unto the sure 
word of prophecy, until the day dawn and the day-star 
arise in his heart," the true believer learns, from the 
things that are past, the certainty of the things that 
are to come hereafter — he rests not satisfied with a 
mere name that he liveth, while yet he might be dead, 
but having obtained that " precious faith," the germ 
of immortality, which springeth up into eternal life, he 
experiences the power of the world to come, and unites 
the practice with the profession of religion— he copies 
the zeal of those who spend their strength for that 
which is in vain, and their labor for that which pro- 
fiteth not, but he directs it to the attainment of an in- 
corruptible inheritance — for he knows that his labor 
shall not be in vain while he yields obedience to that 
Word which is the charter of his salvation, and which 
so unequivocally bears the seal and superscription oi 
the King of kings. 



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