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ancient worthies looked for, and took joyfully the spoiling" of their "goods, knowing" that they had in heaven a better and an enduring SUB

STANCE."

Harmony of Zechariah XIV.

by geo. storrs.

We will now attempt a harmony of Zechariah xivth. Let us remember that the prophets see different events at the same glance, in the prophetic glass, and often record the events without noting the chronological order. Apply this idea to the chapter under consideration, and read it as follows:

Verses 1—2: "Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, 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 the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city."

Verses 12—15: "And this shall be the plague wherewith the Lord will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth. And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the Lord shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbor, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbor. And Judah also shall fight at Jerusalem, and the wealth of all the heathen round about shall be gathered together, gold, and silver, and apparel in great abundance. And so shall be the plague of the horse, of the mule, of the camel, and of the ass, and of all the beasts that shall be in these tents, as this plague."

Verses 17—19: "And it shall be, that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem, to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain. And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come not, that have no rain; there shall be the plague, wherewith the Lord will smite the heathen that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles. This shall be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all nations that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles."

Verses 3—11: "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 upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south. And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah: and the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with thee. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear nor dark but it shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord, not day, nor night; but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light. And it shall be in that day that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem : half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be. And the Lord shall be King over all the earth; in that day shall there be one Lord, and his name one. All the land shall be turned as a plain from Geba to Rimmon, south of Jerusalem: and it shall be lifted up, and inhabited in her place, from Benjamin's gate unto the place of the first gate, unto the corner gate, and from the tower of Hananeel unto the king's winepresses. And men shall dwell in it, and there shall

be no more utter destruction; but Jerusalem shall be safely inhabited."

Verse 16: "And it shall come to pass that EVERY ONE that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem, shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles."

Verses 20—21: "In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses. HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD; and the pots in the Lord's house shall be like the bowls before the altar. Yea, every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be holiness unto the Lord of hosts; and all they that sacrifice shall come, and take of them, and seethe therein; and in that day there shall be no more the Canaanite in the house of the Lord of hosts."

Harmony of Revelation 19th, 20th, 21st.

by geo. storrs.

There are many who suppose it is impossible to understand the Book of Revelation. The reason of this mainly is, I apprehend, because they suppose that it must be interpreted in such a manner as to make the events transpire in the same order, or succession, as they find them written. In this way it is utterly impossible to give that book an interpretation. To understand the words of the prophets, we must, in our imagination, carry our minds back to the time when they lived. They look down through the prophetic glass and see future events passing before their eyes often without regard to the precise period or order in which they are to take place; and when they have seen these events they frequently record each topic, or subject of discourse, to its termination, before they take up another which transpired in the same period, or during some part of the same period, and was a

parallel event, though, in the record made of it, it follows after. By not observing this fact, we are constantly getting into confusion, in our attempts to explain the prophecies; and becoming bewildered, we give up in despair, and conclude none can understand them. The principle to which I have called attention, is overlooked, though it is a principle which we find acted upon by historians. For example, see Mosheim's Church History. He first divides the history into periods of a hundred years each. Then he takes up a topic—perhaps "The prosperous events of a Church" -he traces that topic to the close of that century; then in the following chapter he takes up another topic -perhaps "The doctrine of the Church," which he traces to the termination of the same period: thus each succeeding chapter takes up a new topic, and yet travels on through the same century. Now, if, in reading Mosheim, you were to suppose, when you came to the end of the first chapter, that the following one must begin a new century, or period, because it follows the first, which closed at the end of the period it treated of, you would commit just such an error as is committed in the usual attempts at explaining the prophecies, especially the book of Revelation. The fact is, in that book we are carried down to the end seven or eight times at least: and in the 20th, 21st, and 22d chapters several topics are introduced, viz., the resurrection—the judgment—the new earth—the new Jerusalem, &c.; and yet all these topics belong to the same period, or thousand years, and are events presented to John's mind at one and the same time, though recorded as if they followed each other in succession. That the "beloved city was on earth when Satan was loosed out of his prison, is clear from the 9th verse of the 20th chapter; and yet the descent of that city upon the earth is not recorded till the commencement of the following chapter.

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I will now try to give what I conceive to be a harmony of the last part of the 19th chapter, with the 20th and the first part of the 21st. That the reader may

see the beauty and force of this part of the word of the Lord, I shall put down every word from the 11th verse of the 19th chapter to the eighth verse of the 21st chapter; paying no attention to the present division into chapters and verses, giving you the whole in paragraphs.

"And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns: and he had a name written, that no man knew but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron and he treadeth the wine-press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. And I saw an angel standing in the sun: and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come, and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God: that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great. And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army. And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth : and all the fowls were filled with their flesh.

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