suffer great persecution, not only from the Gentile but also from their own countrymen. "Hear oppressors, the word of the Lord, ye that tremble at His word; your brethren that hated you, that cast you out for my name's sake, said, Let the Lord be glorified; but He shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed." As is somewhere expressed in substance by another, the sufferings of these devoted servants of the Most High God are the subject of numerous predictions, and have often been foreshadowed in the history of the nation. Such foreshadowings we have in Joseph cast out by his brethren, and oppressed by Potiphar; Moses rejected by his brethren and forced to flee before the wrath of the King; David rejected by Saul who sought his life, and was aided in his murderous design by Doeg, the Edomite; and above all, our blessed Lord and His disciples, who were the Jewish remnant of their day, until the final rejection of the Gospel by their nation made way for the development of God's deeper purpose in the present calling of the church to a higher glory than any that is Jewish and earthly. But just as the Jewish remnant before Pentecost became then the beginning of God's building-the Church, so, I doubt not, the Jewish saints converted and martyred after the taking away of the church, will yet be incorporated with it in its governmental glory as reigning with Christ over the millennial earth.* Rev. xx., shows most clearly that they who are beheaded for the word of God, and the testimony of Jesus, and they who had not worshipped the beast, live and reign with Christ through the thousand years. And if the difficulty should occur that in this view there be more than one catching away of the saints, Rev. xi. 12 would quite prepare one for that. It would appear that besides the taking up of the church, which will be, I believe, before any of those dealings of God with the Jews, and which will moreover, I believe, be a secret thing, there will be a going up of individual faithful sufferers to * It is not meant by this that they will share in all the blessedness of the Church. To be members of Christ's body, of His flesh and of His bones; to have fellowship with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ, by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us, is a deeper and more wondrous blessing than any governmental glory. heaven in a cloud in the sight of their enemies. I say not that the Two Witnessess are the martyrs of the remnant; I can quite allow that Rev. xi. is occupied primarily with the ministry of two individuals, men of whom God speaks as His two witnessess; but one could hardly confine the statements of that chapter to them. It seems to me that the fruits of their testimony are included with them. And I think that while Rev. xiv. 6-7, describes an extraordinary testimony to all nations after the taking away of the church, so the Two Witnesses are a new and extraordinary testimony among the Jews during the earlier part of the same period. But these are subjects on which one needs (while expressing in the confidence of brotherly love what commends itself to one's own soul as true) to hold oneself very open to further light from any quarter in which God may please to send it. * Among others, Psalm lxxiv. and lxxix. are very full of instruction as to the Jewish remnant; and so are four chapters in Isaiah, viz., xxiv. xxv. xxvi. and xxvii. But before noticing them I would first remark, that while some of those forming that remnant are martyred for their faithful adherence to the name and worship of God, and the coming of the once rejected Jesus as the hope of their nation, others will be miraculously preserved through the whole period, which is thus spoken of (Jer. xxx. 7.) "Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it." The entire remnant are preserved from the judgments which come upon the enemies. Some of them are slain indeed by the sword of persecution, while others escape that sword, and are preserved by the power of God throughout the fires of that great and terrible day of the Lord, when the sun shall be darkened, and the moon withhold her shining, to enjoy the fulness of earthly blessing in the millennial kingdom. Isaiah xxiv. is one of the most solemn descriptions we have of that great and terrible day. In the midst of it (ver. 13-15) we have a delightful view of the security and *As to these and other Psalms, see" Short Meditations on the Psalms, chiefly in their prophetic character." Nisbet and Co., London. solemn joy of the preserved remnant. The next chapter gives us a sweet prospect of the glorious period which succeeds; when," the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously." Verse 9 shows us what had been the sustaining hope of the remnant throughout the period of their sorrows; and the triumphant song of chapter xxvi, still further unfolds this. Verse 3 and 4 are very precious. They seem like a voice to us from the future, laden with the precious fruits of the experience of those who have found God a sufficient stay and refuge amid scenes of horror and desolation, such as earth has never witnessed yet. "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee. Trust ye in the Lord for ever: for in the Lord JEHOVAH is everlasting strength." The song finished, in verses 20 and 21, God Himself speaks in anticipation of all this, inviting His favoured remnant to the place of safety while the storm of judgment passes over. "Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. For, behold, the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain." Then chapter xxvii. is like a summing up of the whole. Carefully compared with Deut. xxxii., it shows the end which God has in view in all these dealings of His, both in judgment and in grace. The whole of the two chapters will amply repay the labour of diligently perusing and collating them. Some verses may be particularly noticed; as Deut. xxxii. 36, compared with Isaiah xxvii. 7, 8, 9. Deut. xxxii. 27, 28, compared with Isaiah xxvii. 11. Yes, Israel, that people wonderful from the beginning hitherto, who have been at school all these thousands of years, to learn the lesson they never have learned yet, to cease from themselves and from man and stay only upon God, will learn it effectually amid the scenes we have glanced at. And when this lesson is once really learnt, when the Lord sees that their power is gone, and there is none shut up or left, then will he take the cup of trembling out of their hands, and put it into the hands of those strange nations which have been His rod for the chastening of His own beloved people; and after that there is nothing but healing and victory and peace and prosperity for Israel. It may lead me rather beyond the precise subject of this paper; and yet it is so intimately connected with it, that I will not withhold one more remark. There will doubtless be many, many Israelites scattered among the nations during the period in which all these events are transpiring in the Holy Land. Isa. lxvi. and Ezek. xx. both describe a bringing again of the children of Israel, distinct from that return of the Jews which precedes the coming of the Lord. Ezek. xx., I believe, refers to the restoration of the Ten Tribes and in their case the rebels are purged out from among them before they enter the land, not in it. Isa. lxvi. may include the Ten Tribes, but also, I believe (and whether it does include the Ten Tribes or not) refers to the gathering, after the Lord's coming, of those Jews who had not returned to the land previously. Isa. xlix. 21 shews the surprise of those already in the land, when they see the multitudes of their brethren thus brought back, laden, as we may see in Isa. lx., with wealth and treasure, and brought as a clean offering to the Lord. Most of the passages which speak of the Lord restoring his people to their own land refer, I pose, to these peaceful, triumphant restorations of them after the coming of the Lord; not to the return of those who pass through the ordeal of all the troubles in the land which precede the Lord's coming. By this last phrase in such a connection is meant the coming of the Lord with all his saints, not that previous stage in his return in which he takes up his saints to meet him in the air to be for ever with Him where He is. sup T. HEBREW PROPER NAMES.-" Pharaoh" means Prince or Leader y from which it is derived, is to be or make free. Note, here, two things: First, The play on the word in Ex. v. 4, Pharaoh says, "Why do ye, Moses and Aaron, let [Pharaoh it over] the people"; Secondly,―The name, in the bad sense of free, lawless, or self-willed, as was Pharaoh in the history of the Exodus, strongly points, as that whole history does, to the coming Apostate Infidel King. G. No. XX. ZIKLA G. And 1st SAMUEL, chap. xxvii. verse 1, "And David said in his heart, I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul"; and this after the marvellous escapes narrated in the 22nd, 23rd and 24th chapters. So is it oftentimes with us. Circumstances occupy us instead of God, who delivered us heretofore:-" Thou hast been my help, leave me not, neither forsake me" (Ps. xxvii. verse 9), is used as a plea for continued favour. Again, in Ps. lxiii. verse 7, "Because Thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of Thy wings I will rejoice." None had more experience of delivering grace than David; nevertheless all is forgotten now: "I shall perish one day," takes the place of God's promise (1 Sam. xvi. 12), "Arise, anoint Him, for this is He." Present dangers obliterate the remembrance of past escapes. He sees only the hand against him and not the hand for him. His eye is averted from God, unbelief deprives him of communion, and forgetful of divine strength, he puts forth his own. what a scene is now before us! He who was an example for us becomes a warning. He who, in former difficulties cried unto God most High, now turns for help to the Philistines. "He arose and he passed over with the six hundred men that were with him unto Achish the Son of Maoch, king of Gath. And David dwelt with Achish at Gath, he and his men," etc. How are the mighty fallen! How marked the departure from the steps of Abraham, in Genesis xiv. 22, 23. But so it is ever. Unbelief plunges us into sin,-is that sin which in itself includes all others. His back is turned upon God as was the prodigal's upon his father's house; and the journey into the far country, the riotous living, and the unhallowed associations, were but the consequences of the first false step. David in communion would have scorned a refuge in Gath, or shelter from a Philistine. Now he stoops still lower: in verse 5, David said unto Achish, "If now |