at Rome, they are considered the city and strong hold of devils. And since it is the great God who shall then fight against them, and overthrow their city by fire, after the manner of Sodom, it was proper for the prophet to say, those marshy places shall be given to salt, and I will add, the salt of fire, because it is God, and not man, who shall be their conqueror.

This sentiment is supported by our Lord. See Mark ix. 49.—"For every one shall be salted with fire." Upon these words, I have read the following comment:" Here may be seen the greatness, multiplicity, and eternity of the pains of the damned. They suffer without being able to die; they are burned without being consumed; they are sacrificed without being sanctified; are salted with the fire of hell as eternal victims of Divine Justice. We must of necessity be sacrificed to God, after one way or other, in eternity; and we have now the choice, either of the unquenchable fire of his justice, or of the everlasting flame of his love."-Clark, copied from Quensel.

This I believe a just interpretation of the miry and marshy places, which shall not be healed, but shall be destroyed before the Millennium commences; and can therefore be no objection to the universality of the waters of life, which the prophet saw flowing over the whole globe.

But I resume the subject of proof, that the ancient Jews expected the Millennium.

The following is an extract from the Rabbinical writings of the Jews, among which are found their

account of the prophecies of Eldad and Medad, two of the seventy elders, who prophesied in the camp of Israel, in the presence of Moses. But of those two it is said, that they continued to prophesy when the others had ceased, which occasioned one of the young men to run to Moses and complain of what he thought was indecorous; but was reproved by Moses, who said to the young man, "Enviest thou for my sake? Would God that all the Lord's people were prophets." Num. xi. 29.

The Jewish Rabbin who has noticed the prophecies of Eldad and Medad, is Jonathan Ben Uziel, whose account is found in an ancient Jewish book, called the Jerusalem Targum. I will give his account at fu!! length as follows:

"And there were two men left in the camp, the name of one was Eldad, the name of the other was Medad; on them the spirit of prophecy rested."

Eldad prophesied and said, “Behold Moses the prophet, the scribe of Israel, shall be taken from this world, and Joshua the son of Nun, captain of the host, shall succeed him."

Medad prophesied and said, " Behold quails shall arise out of the sea, and become a stumbling block to Israel."

Then they both prophesied together, and said, "In the very end of time, Gog and Magog, and their army shall come up against Jerusalem, and they shall fall by the hand of king Messiah. Behold a king shall come up from the land of Magog, in the last days, and shall gather the kings together, and leaders

clothed with armour, and all people shall obey them, and they shall wage war in the land of Israel against the children of the captivity; but the hour of lamentation has been long prepared for them, for they shall be slain by the flame of fire which proceedeth from under the throne of glory, and their dead carcasses shall fall on the mountains of the land of Israel, and all the wild beasts of the field, and the wild fowls of heaven, shall come and devour their carcasses; and afterwards, all the dead of Israel shall rise again to life, and shall enjoy the delights prepared for them from the beginning, and shall receive the reward of their works."

The conjoint prophecy of these two prophets, in reference to Gog and Magog, and their armies, who in the last days were to invade the country of Jerusalem, refers to the same thing with Ezekiel, though delivered many hundred years before his time. This invasion was by Antiochus, about three hundred years after Ezekiel had prophesied of him. This prophet, and the two others, Eldad and Medad, agree almost exactly about the manner of their destruction. The two conjoint prophets state, that they shall fall by the hand of king Messiah. This should be understood of Christ, who by St. Paul is said to follow the Jews, (Cor. x. 4.) and guided them, and breathed upon them the spirit of courage in battle, as in the case of Judas Macabeus, who terribly overthrew the armies of Antiochus; and hence, by the spirit of prophecy they said they shall fall by the hand of king Messiah. And further, they stated that they should be destroyed and

slam by a flame of fire, which should proceed from under the throne of glory. This was said in reference to the signal manner in which they were destroyed. See Ezekiel xxxviii. 22.-" And I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hail stones, fire and brimstone." Thunder with lightning, mingled with the rain and great hail, is meant, undoubtedly, such as fell upon the Egyptians in their plagues, which ran along on the ground. And their carcasses were to fall on the mountains of Israel, and all the wild fowls of heaven, with the wild beasts of the field, shall devour them. This was all literally fulfilled in the destruction of Antiochus, who attempted to destroy, root and branch, the Jews. He was called Gog, and his country Magog, and they fell on the mountains of Israel, by the hand of king Messiah, who employed Judas Macabeus as the terrible instrument of the ruin of Gog and Magog. [See 1st. Macc 1st. chap.]

But these prophets extended their views further than this event, even till the time when all the dead of Israel shall rise again to life. Although the Jews have, at several times in the process of ages, been recovered from a captive state, from among their enemies, yet they have never had a time of peace and prosperity, of sufficient universality and duration, to warrant so strong a figure as the resurrection from the dead of all Israel. This view, therefore, extends to the time of the first resurrection spoken of by St. Paul and by St. John. See 1 Cor. xv. 23; Thess. iv. 16; and Rev. xx. 5.

D*

This first resurrection I apprehend, as spoken of by those two prophets, and the thousand years of his (that is Christ's) subsequent reign on the earth, as spoken of by St. John, should be considered, in a more emphatic sense, to be the days of the Messiah, than any other time since his advent. Because then this government will be universal and particular, and without any opposition, for a thousand years. To this opinion, Rabbin Eliezer, one of the ancient Jewish doctors, agrees, by saying that in the house of Elias, the prophet, there was a tradition, that the righteous whom the holy blessed God should raise from the dead, should not return again unto the dust but for the space of a thousand years. And again, when the question was proposed among the Jewish Rabbins, how many the days of the Messiah should be, they answer, the days of the Messiah are a thousand years, and unquestionably refer to the same thousand years with St. John after the first resurrection, and agrees with the view of those two prophets.

As to the validity of those prophets, I think there can be no doubt; for the scriptures bear ample testimony to their veracity. We see that in the eleventh chapter of Numbers, their names are mentioned, and associated with the seventy elders who prophesied on that memorable occasion, and that the spirit of prophecy rested on those two in a remarkable manner, for they were more zealous than their fellows, and continued to speak when the others had ceased.

We see that Eldad's prophecy was fulfilled, which was, that Joshua should succeed Moses in the government of Israel.-Deut. xxxiv. 9.