CHAPTER IV.

AN ADDRESS

OF THE

PROPHET ISAIAH,

RELATIVE TO THE RESTORATION OF HIS

PEOPLE.

AN interesting address is found in the 18th chapter of Isaiah to some people of the last days; calling them to have a special agency in the recovery and restoration of the ancient people of God, Many years ago, while writing my Dissertation on the Prophecies, I became much interested in this address of Isaiah; and in that dissertation, gave a paraphrase of it; conceiving then it was an address to the people of God in Great Britain. I have since become of a different opinion; and now apprchend it to be an address to the Christian people of the United States of America.

To prepare the way for the contemplation of this address, let several things be considered :

1. In the prophetic writings, many addresses are made to nations, or concerning then. Would it not be strange, if no mention were found in the prophecies of this new westera world; which was destined by propitious Heaven to make so distinguishing a figure both in the political and religious world, in the last days? It certainly

would seem unaccountable, and the thought can hardly be admitted.

2. The address in the eighteenth of Isaiah, to be contemplated, is clearly an address to some people concerning events to transpire in the last days; and which are intimately connected with the "battle of that great day of God Almighty, which is still future; and which is to introduce the Millennium. This appears in verses 5, 6, 7, of the chapter, which will by and by be noted. Hence,

3. The address cannot have been to any ancient nation or people; as some expositors have inconsiderately supposed. But it must be to a nation of the last days; a nation now on earth; a nation to be peculiarly instrumental in the restoration of the Hebrews in the last days. For this is the very object of the address, as will appear. The demand in the address is, to go and restore that ancient people of God in the last days; or at a time intimately connected with the tremendous scenes on antichristian Europe, and on the hostile wicked world, which shall sweep antichristian nations from the earth, and prepare the way for the millennial kingdom of Jesus Christ. This will clearly appear.

4. The address then, is to a nation, that may seem to have leisure for the important business assigned, when the old and eastern parts of the world are in the effervescence of revolution, and' in those struggles which precede dissolution.This consideration fixes the address to a people distinct and distant from those old lands; and hence probably to our new world.

5. If it be a fact, as is apprehended, that the aborigines of our continent are indeed descended from the ten tribes of Israel; our na

tion, no doubt, must be the people addressed te restore them; to bring them to the knowledge of the gospel, and to do with them whatever the God of Abraham designs shall be done. The great and generous Christian people, who occupy much of the land of those natives, and who are on the ground of their continent, and hence are the best prepared to meliorate their condition, and bring them to the knowledge and order of the God of Israel, must of course be the people to whom this work is assigned. This one consideration would do much toward the decision of our question, Who is the nation addressed?

6. Various things are found in the predictions of the restoration of God's ancient people, which strikingly accord with the idea of a great branch of them being recovered from this land, and by the agency of the people of our States.

of these shall be noted.

A few

In the thirtieth and thirty-first chapters of Jeremiah, the prophet treats of the united restoration of Judah and Israel. These chapters were written about one hundred and twenty years after the expulsion of the ten tribes. And in relation to the ten tribes, they have never yet had even a primary accomplishment, or any degree of fulfilment. The restoration there predicted is to be in "the latter days;" chap. xxx. 24: and at the time near the battle of the great day; see verse 6-8, 23, 24. Much of the substance of these chapters is appropriated to the ten tribes of Israel; though Judah is expressly to be restored with them. Of the former, (having then been outcast for an hundred and twenty years,) God says; chap. xxxi. 20; "Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a pleasant child? For since I

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spake against him, (or expelled him from Canaan,) I do earnestly remember him still; therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord." The next verse invites and predicts his final restoration. These yearnings of the divine compassion for Ephraim (one noted name of the ten tribes) are the immediate precursor of his restoration. "I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord. Set thee up way-marks, make thee high heaps, set thine heart toward the high way-turn again, O virgin of Israel; turn again to these thy cities." "I will again be the God of all the families of Israel; and they shall be my people." "For lo, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah; and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it." "Fear thou not, O my servant Jacob, saith the Lord; neither be dismayed, O Israel; for lo, I will save thee from afar." "Behold I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth." In this country "afar" off, these "coasts of the earth," they had been in an outcast state. "Because they called thee an outcast, saying; "This is Zion, whom no man seeketh after." (For more than 2000 years none sought after the ten tribes.) These ideas strikingly accord with their having been outcasts from the known world, in America. This might with singular propriety be called the land afar off, and the coasts of the earth.

In the same connexion, when God promises to gather them "from the coasts of the earth," and says, "they shall come with weeping and with supplication; for I am a father to Israel, and

Ephraim is my first born;" he adds; "Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him as the shepherd doth his flock." "Isles afar off!" Isles in the Hebrew language, signify any lands, ever so extensive, away over great waters. Where can

these "isles afar off," (these "coasts of the earth," here addressed by God in relation to the restoration of his outcast yet beloved Ephraim,) where can they be so naturally found as in America?

In other prophets the same things are found. In Isai. xliii. God promises this same restoration of Israel. "But now, thus saith the Lord, that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel; Fear not, for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee. I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore will I give men for thee, and people for thy life. Fear not, for I am with thee. I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west: I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth." "Thus saith the Lord, who maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters; Behold I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert." În Isai. xi. is this wonderful restoration. Ephraim and Judah are both restored; the one from his "dispersed," the other from his "outcast" state; and their mutual envies are forever healed. And the places from which they are recovered are noted; among which are "the isles of the sea;" or lands away over the sea,