• sandth year, all wickedness should be abo

• lished out of the earth, and justice should

،

reign for a thousand years.

When the

• Son of God shall have destroyed injustice,

⚫ and shall have restored the just to life, he • shall be conversant among men a thousand

6

years, and shall rule them with most just government. At the same time the prince

' of devils shall be bound with chains, and • shall be in custody the thousand years of the

heavenly kingdom, while justice shall reign

in the world, lest he should attempt any evil

against the people of God. When the ' thousand years of the kingdom, that is, fe

ven thousand years, shall draw toward a • conclusion, Satan shall be loofed again; and • when the thousand years shall be compleat' ed, then shall be that second and public re• surrection of ALL, wherein the unjust shall ' be raised to everlasting torment.' And having enlarged upon these topics he concludes: • This is the doctrine of the holy Prophets ' which we Christians follow; this is our < wisdom.'

:

t

How this primitive and scriptural doctrine came to be so universally rejected in the later and more corrupt times, might be a subject well worth our enquiry; but as this would be too long a digreffion, I shall only observe

here, here, that as such a state of righteousness and purity as the millennium is described to introduce, did imply such a previous corrupt state of the church, as it would require a divine interposition to reform, it is no wonder that a church, which could fee no neceffity for any reformation at all, should reject it as useless and unnecessary; not to mention that the circumstance of the martyrs reigning upon earth, must seem a very great degradation of these saints, to those who had already put them into poffeffion of fupreme felicity in heaven itself, and confidered them as mediators, and as prefiding over human affairs. But why they of the Reformation, who admit the almost universal corruption of the church for so many centuries, should be opposers of this doctrine, is not so easily to be accounted for. For my part, I much fear that their opposition proceeds from the same principle with that of the church they have reformed from; namely, that they look upon their own particular sects and opinions, as too pure and free from error, to need any farther reformation. Let me add also, that the ridiculous opinions which some who believed this millennium, both in ancient and modern times, have fuperadded to it, without any foundation for them in fcripture, have likewise greatly tended to difcredit it. But what the true notion of it is, will beft appear from the scripture account of it in the New Testament, carefully compared with the Prophecies relating to it in the Old. The confideration of these Prophecies, with regard to this momentous point, and that of the restoration of the Jews and ten tribes, which are represented in scripture as cotemporary events, is the subject of the following sheets, in which I have collected most of the fcriptural evidence to prove a literal restoration of the Jews; subjoining by the way fuch observations, as tend either to the explanation of the texts, or to the answering such objections as have been, or may be raised from them.

ERRATA.

Page 44. 1. 3. dele the-P. 49. 1. 15. dele three commas (,,,) -P. 68. 1. 19. for I fet, read I will fet - P. 86. 1. 20. for Messengers read Messenger - P. 92. 1. 1. in the Note, for xliii. read xlviii. - P. 109. 1. 15. for for read in - P. 153. 1. 9. for dedicated read Dedication.

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OBSERVATIONS

ON THE

PROPHECIES

RELATING TO THE

RESTORATION

T

ATION OF THЕ

CHAT a great part of the Prophecies in the Old Testament have a particular relation to the Jewish nation, is generally allowed by all who have confidered them with any degree of attention. They, therefore, who are against a future return of the Jews, have endeavored to apply all the predictions relating to such return, to their former return from the Babylonish captivity; or else, where this could not be admitted, upon account of some circumstances in the prophecy in no respect favorable to fuch an exposition, have applied them, in an allegorical sense, to the state of the Christian church.

All objections that have been made to the future restoration of the Jews, have been supported either

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either by one or other of these methods of interpretation. It is my design, therefore, to shew, that neither of these ways of interpretation can be admitted in the numerous texts which I shall here produce, in favor of fuch future and literal restoration; and confequently that such restoration is the true and genuine meaning of the Prophecies produced.

The method I propose to pursue shall be thisTo produce, in chronological order, all the most remarkable Prophecies relating to the Restoration of the Jews, and the ten Tribes; adding to each Prophecy, fuch observations as may ferve either to clear up the meaning of the text, or to answer such objections as may be made against the literal application of it to the future Restoration of the Jewish nation.

THE first Prophet who has left us any express Prophecy concerning the dispersion of the Ifraelites, and their final Restoration, is MOSES.

I.

LEVIT. xxvi. 32. And I will bring the land into desolation; and your enemies that dwell therein 33 shall be astonished at it. And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you, and your land shall be desolate, and your 34 cities waste. And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them; for I am JEHO