greatness of thine arm shall be still as a stone." And God in due time fulfilled his threatenings upon them; their iniquities, it is said, being full. He made, as he has promised yet again to do―he made Israel his "battle-axe," and under the conduct of their appointed leader and general Joshua, he destroyed and brought into subjection the whole country of Canaan; thus fulfilling his promise to Abraham, in putting his seed in possession of this land, which, as it has been, yet again shall be, the glory of all lands. But it was not immediately after their deliverance from Egypt that this consummation was permitted to take place. The people were to be led forty years in the wilderness, "to humble them, to prove them, and to know what was in their hearts, whether they would keep his commandments or no." For it is. the usual way of God's providence, when he has any very great mercies to bestow, first to prepare his people for their reception, and then to make the bestowment. So it was most eminently in this case he found those who came up out of Egypt, rebellious and stiff-necked, prone to idolatry, and ever murmuring against Him and his servant Moses. With this generation, therefore, he was exceedingly angry, and 66 sware in his wrath that they should not see his rest." But upon the next generation-those who were under twenty years old when they left the land of bondage, and those who were subsequently born— those whom they impiously said should be a preyupon these there was a remarkable outpouring of the ་ Spirit, and to them was given possession of this promised rest. With them the covenant was renewed: and they feared the Lord all their days, and observed his statutes and laws. A similar line of proceeding will, it is probable, take place in the "latter day," when possession will be again given them of their country. A period of thirty years, and subsequently of forty-five years, is spoken of as intervening between the time of their restoration and the Millennium. During this time, no doubt, the Lord will again plead with them: the hardness of their hearts will be taken away they will look unto Him whom they pierced, and mourn; and with weeping and supplication will they acknowledge their own and their fathers' iniquity in rejecting Him, who was the great antitype of all their sacrifices, and whose first coming was in every respect conformable to what their prophets had foretold. In this controversy which God had with them for forty years in the wilderness, He established them as his visible church, while all the rest of the world was left in idolatry : He gave them the moral law; instituted the types and ceremonies of their worship; and regulated the polity by which they were to be judicially governed. It was at this time, also, He gave his first written word; made known in a most remarkable manner His GREAT NAME and His attributes; and gave clearer revelations of the Messiah than the world had before enjoyed. After these. things had been accomplished, and God had for so many years guided, clothed, and fed them in a mira culous manner;-after He had made himself known to them by many signs and wonders, on various interesting occasions;-at length their sacred banner waved over the stream of Jordan; the waters of which, like those of the Red Sea forty years previous, were dried up before them; and they entered the promised land! For how long a time they possessed it, the consideration of the next period will shew. CHAPTER II. THE CAPTIVITY OF THE TEN TRIBES, OR THE EXACT TIME ASCERTAINED OF THE RUIN OF THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL. FROM THE FIRST YEAR OF AHAZ, KING OF JUDAH, WHEN HE WAS THREATENED WITH DESTRUCTION BY THE CONFEDERATE KINGS OF SYRIA AND ISRAEL, B. C. 742, TO THE FINAL OVERTHROW OF THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL, B. C. 677; SIXTY-FIVE YEARS. "And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up toward Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail against it. And it was told the house of David, saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim: and his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind. Then said the Lord unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou and Shearjashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field; and say unto him, Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be fainthearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah. Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have taken evil counsel against thee, saying, Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal: thus saith the Lord GOD, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass. For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within THREE SCORE AND FIVE YEARS shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people. And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah's son."—ISAI. vii. 1–9. Or, as the last two verses are rendered by Dr. Jubb (see Lowth on Isaiah) "Though the head of Assyria be Damascus ; |