"princes throughout all the earth," and nations are to be regulated by them, it is needful that they who are to be entrusted with such power should themselves first be well broken in spirit; for what more terrible than power wielded by the proud, unbroken spirit of

man.

Their day of conquest, therefore, ends in mourning. But grace will accomplish its work. Their subdued souls shall be brought into a full acquaintance with the Fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness. In that day there shall be a Fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness. They will not only be sprinkled and forgiven through the blood of the Lamb, but they will understand also the reason and ground of their forgiveness, and like ourselves (who in this forestal their blessings) will be able to say that their garments are washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb. Although regenerate, their flesh will yet remain, and in the flesh "good doth not dwell." They will need, therefore, from day to day, refreshment and consolation in the remembrance of that blood once offered, which cleanseth from all sin. The Holy Spirit will abundantly be poured upon them, both that they might know the things that have been freely given to them of God, and also that they might be heralds of his salvation to the dark heathen world. They will be sent to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, that draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to the isles afar off which have not heard his fame, nor seen his glory, and they shall declare his glory among the Gentiles." (Isaiah lxvi. 19.)

Their own land also will need cleansing, and it will gradually be cleansed. Many an unclean spirit will have been acting there; many a lying prophet will have prophesied; but then the hand of the Lord will be turned upon them in grace, to purge away the evil. And if any should venture yet to prophecy in the name of the Lord falsely, even his own parents who begat

him, will be willing, rather than the Lord should be dishonoured, to resign their son to punishment, or even to death. "His father and his mother that begat him shall say unto him, Thou shalt not live; for thou speakest lies in the name of the Lord, and his father and mother shall thrust him through when he prophesieth." The claims of nature and of natural love were once dominant in Israel. But they will cease to be so; then grace will have turned the course of the heart's deepest feelings, and they will refuse to flow, save only for God. And the prophets themselves, even they who have worn a rough garment to deceive-they who have purchased influence by self-imposed austerities-they too shall be reached, for grace is able to save, even to the uttermost; they shall be reached and changed, and the desire even of distinction shall cease to sway their spirits. The dignity of office will be surrendered by their repentant hearts; each will say, "I am no prophet, but only a husbandman-one who was taught to keep cattle from my youth :" and he will willingly fall back into the sphere from which Satan, and not God, had raised him. He will bear also and be willing to acknowledge the tokens of his former shame, and confess to the wounds which his deception had earned, even from the hands of his friends. Here, indeed, is an instance of the subduing, sanctifying power of grace. It is hard to resign what we have prized, but harder still, after the resignation, meekly to bear the tokens of the shame. But there will be power of grace in Israel then, and it seems to be the object of this passage to record the completeness of its triumph over the hearts and ways of God's recovered people.

And if it be asked how such grace could be shown to such a people-how those so distant in evil should suddenly receive such deliverance, and not deliverance merely, but strength; and how, after being so strengthened, they should be endowed with such riches of in

ward grace, the answer is this-that long before, there had been One of whom Jehovah had said, "Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts." That sword has awaked-the Shepherd has been smitten, and therefore this power of grace can be extended even towards that people who had rejoiced to see the sword do its work of destruction, and rejoiced at beholding the scattering of the flock. It is on the atonement once made, that these marvellous actings of grace towards Israel are grounded; and hence this reference to the smiting of the Shepherd, after the detail of the blessings that have flowed from his sacrifice.

When the sword awoke against the Shepherd, the sheep were indeed scattered. All the disciples were terrified, forsook him, and fled. Yet the Lord remembered them in grace and turned his gentle hand upon the little ones. Here is our present blessingthe blessing of the feeblest who believe. In the land of Israel, there is desolation, and a still severer doom stands yet pronounced against it. "It shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the Lord, two parts therein shall be cut off and die." But whilst the action of destructive judgment is thus towards Israel, there are some from among the Gentiles, and a few from among Israel, who believe on his name, and on them his hand is turned to guide, to strengthen, and to feed. And so it will be till the last of these sheep shall have been gathered in, and then He will remember Israel again, and though he will bring fires upon them, even fires that shall burn unto destruction against all but a remnant; yet that remnant, though it be but a third, shall be spared and blessed "I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried; they shall call upon my name, and I will hear them; I will say it is my people, and they shall say, The Lord is my God."

ON ZECHARIAH XIV.

I MAY now safely appeal to any who have seriously weighed the evidence of the preceding chapters, and ask them to say whether certain great substantive facts touching the future are not conclusively proved by them? It is proved that vast Gentile nations will again be gathered in siege against Jerusalem; that these hosts are in the land of Israel destroyed; that the Heads of Israel in Jerusalem are delivered and also converted; that consequently they must have returned to their land and city unconverted; and that they are delivered and converted by the personal manifestation of the Lord. These and other such events are ever recorded as the great characteristic features of that period which is termed in Scripture "the end of this age."

There is only one of these facts that I can suppose as at all likely to be questioned, and that is the personal manifestation of the Lord. If the words, "they shall look upon me whom they pierced," and again, “in that day the house of David shall be as God," are not considered conclusive, yet surely the fourteenth chapter, which we are now about to consider, must remove all ambiguity." Then shall the Lord go forth and fight against those nations as when He fought in the day of battle, and his feet shall stand in that day on the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east...... the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with thee."

It is thus that one part of Scripture confirms and renders more definite the testimony of another. But the fourteenth of Zechariah is not merely confirmatory. It repeats, indeed, many of the statements that former chapters had made, but it enlarges also, and adds new features.

In the twelfth chapter our minds have been exclusively directed to the interference of the Lord on behalf of Jerusalem. In that chapter destruction is spoken of as being not against her, but against her enemies; and if it were not for the concluding words of the thirteenth, we might have almost supposed that no outpouring of judgment on Jerusalem, either immediately preceded or accompanied the day of her final visitation. But the fourteenth chapter supplies this deficiency. It leads us back to a period immediately preceding that with which the twelfth chapter opens, and speaks of a blow that had just been allowed to fall on Jerusalem by means of these very nations whose destruction the self-same chapter records. It is with this that the fourteenth chapter commences: "Behold a day cometh for Jehovah,* and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee, for I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and th residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city."

Such will be in part the instrumentality by which the Lord, even up to the very end, continues to punish that city: "Thee only have I known of all the inhabitants of the earth, therefore will I punish you for your iniquities." The Scriptures again and again speak of the wasting destruction that shall fall upon Israel until only a "remnant" of them shall be left. "Though

*It is not the same expression as "the day of the Lord." When the latter expression is used, it always, I believe, denotes THE day in which Jehovah personally interferes, and does not include a prolonged period preceding.