and in fine, by making them Christians, will receive them anew into his favour. This doctrine we learn from St. Paul: hath God cast away his people, the Jews? says he; God forbid.For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own conceits, that blindness in part hath happened in Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles should come in; and so all Israel shall be saved, as it is written: there shall come out of Sion, he that shall deliver, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: and this is to them my covenant: when I shall take away their sins, Rom. xi. 25, 26, 27. This passage of St. Paul expresses so fully the future conversion of the Jews to Christianity, that on it, as chief basis, is built the sentiment of the fathers of the Church, who are so unanimous on that head, that it is needless to quote any of them.

The dispersion therefore of the Jews, and their long captivity, are to have a period, but a period determined by that event, the vocation of the Gentiles to the faith which, when fulfilled, the Jews are to be re-assembled from all the corners of the earth, will be converted to Christianity, and re-established in that same land they formerly inhabited, and which was given by the Almighty himself to their ancestors. This singular œconomy of God towards that people is also in part made known to us by our Saviour in those his words: They, the Jews, shall be led away captives into all nations ; and Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles, till the times of the nations be fulfilled, Luke, xxi. 24. But the whole is beautifully described by many of the ancient prophets. A few of those instances shall here be put down. Thus prophesied Azarias, in the reign of Asa, king of Juda: Many days shall pass in Israel with out the true God, and without a priest or teacher, and without the law. And when in their distress, they shall return to the Lord the God of Israel, and shall seek him, they shali find him, 2. Paralip. xv. 3, 4. Thus spoke the prophet Osee, about 800 years before Christ: The children of Israel shall sit many days without king, and without prince, and without sacrifice, without altar, and without Ephod, and without theraphim: and after this the children

of Israel shall return, and shall seek the Lord their God, and David their king; and they shall fear the Lord and his goodness, in the last days, c. 3. v. 4, 5. Here the prophet first describes the present forlorn state of the Jews, without either fixed settlement or government, temple or sacrifice: then he informs us, that in the last days, they will return to God and seek David their king, that is, the true Messiah, Jesus Christ, who is of the race of David and his successor in the kingdom of Juda. And it shall come to pass in that day, says the prophet Isaiah, that the Lord shall set his hand the second time to possess the remnant of his people, which shall be left from the Assyrians, and from Egypt, and from Phetros, and from Ethiopia, and from Elam, and from Senaar, and from Emath, and from the islands of the sea; and he shall set up a standard unto the nations, and shall assemble the fu-" gitives of Israel, and shall gather together the dispersed of Juda from the four quarters of the earth, xi. 11. The prophet Jeremiah prophecies on the same subject in the following strain: Behold the whirlwind of the Lord, his fury going forth, a violent storm, it shall rest upon the head of the wicked. The Lord will not turn away the wrath of his indignation, till he have executed and performed the thought of his heart. In the last days you shall understand these things. At that time, says the Lord, I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people, xxx. 23, 24. and xxxi. 1. Here the anger of God is announced to fall upon the head of the wicked, that is, upon Antichrist and his society; which the Jews will understand, or see executed in the last days. About that time, the Lord will become the God of all the families or tribes of Israel, and they will become his people. In like manner by the mouth of the prophet Ezekiel, we hear the Almighty speaking thus to the Jews: I will take you from among the Gentiles, and will gather you together out of all the countries, and will bring you into your own land. And I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh. And you shall dwell in the land which I gave to your faund you shall be my people, and I will be your God,

thers;

xxxvi. 24, &c. We shall close these prophecies with a passage from Micheas: It shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared in he top of mountains, and high above the hills, and people shail flow to it.—In that day, saith the Lord, I will gather up her that halteth; and her that I had cast out I wil gather up, and her whom I had afflicted. And I will make her that halted, a remnant; and her that had been afflicted, a mighty nation: and the Lord will reign over them in mount Sion, from this time now and for ever, iv. 1. 6, 7.

It being then the gracious design of the Almighty to receive again the Jews into his favour, by their conversion to Christianity, at the period we are speaking of when they are gathering together at Jerusalem; it is now to be examined by what means that great work is to be effected, and who is to be the happy instrument of it. All antiquity and tradition tell us, that Elias is the person. And these vouchers are grounded on the express word of Scripture. Thus spoke God to the Jews by the mouth of his prophet Malachy: Behold, I will send you Elias the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers: lest I come and strike the earth with anathema, iv. 5, 6. Here the Almighty promises that, before the great and dreadful day of judgment, he will send the prophet Elias, who shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to the fathers, that is, he will convert the Jews by convincing them that their Messiah is that very Jesus whom they have rejected, and by such conviction he will reconcile them to their fathers, the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; who believed in Christ to come, expected him, and desired to see his day, (John viii. 56,) while the Jews by the preaching of Elias will believe in him already come and thus will ensue a mutual reconciliation; the fathers and the children, who had been divided from the time of Christ's coming, will be re-united in the same faith and obedience to God. This work will be done, lest I come, says the Lord, and strike the earth with

:

anathema, or, with utter destruction; that is, lest the whole body of the Jewish people perish at the last day for want of faith in their Saviour; and also lest there should be found at that time so few among men deserving mercy, on account of their infidelity and irreligion, as to oblige the Almighty to strike the earth with utter destruction, or in other words, to condemn almost the whole bulk of mankind.

The conversion therefore of the Jews to Christianity is to be the principal function of Elias. For this design, he has been reserved by the wisdom and bounty of God, and not been suffered to die. While Eliseus was walking with him, he was taken away by the divine hand from the earth, and conveyed to some place unknown to mankind. As they, Elias and Eliseus, went on, walking and talking together, behold, a fiery chariot and fiery horses parted them both asunder: and Elias went up by a whirlwind into heaven, 4 Kings, ii. 11. Elias thereore still exists in life, and will remain so, till he returns again upon earth, in full vigour, vested with that extraordinary commission from the most high, to remove the veil of darkness that hangs before the eyes of the Jews, to show them their past error, and introduce them into the fold of Christ, their God and Redeemer.

That such will be the office committed to Elias, we also learn very clearly from the book of Ecclesiasticus, chap. 48. v. 4, 9, 10. where it is said: Who can glory like to thee, Elias ?— Who wast taken up in a wrirlwind of fire, in a chariot of fiery horses. Who art registered in the judgments of times, to appease the wrath of the Lord, to reconcile the heart of the father to the son, and to restore the tribes of Jacob. Elias is here said by the inspired writer, to be registered in the judgments of times, that is, destined to be, at an appointed time, a kind of mediator, to appease the wrath of the Lord, irritated against the Jews for their infidelity; to reconcile the heart of the father to the son, by bringing them to the faith and holy sentiments of the patriarchs their ancestors, as we said above; and in fine, he is destined to restore the tribes of Jacob to the favour of God, by teaching them to acknowledge his divine son Jesus for their Messiah. He will

Y

restore the tribes of Jacob, by re-ingrafting them on the true olive tree, from whence, according to the apostle, they had been cut off for their infidelity Because of unbelief, says St. Paul, they were broken off.—And if they abide not in unbelief, they shall be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in again. For if thou, Gentile, wert cut off the wild olive tree, which is natural to thee; and, contrary to nature, wert grafted into the good olive tree; how much shall they, the Jews, that are the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree? For, blindness in part has happened in Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles should come in; and so all Israel should be saved. Rom. xi. 20, 23, &c. The same account of Elias is confirmed by our Saviour, who told his disciples: Elias indeed shall come, and shall restore all things, Matth. xvii. 11. But let us here observe, that the expression of the book of Ecclesiasticus, Elias will restore the tribes of Jacob, and that of our Saviour, Elias will restore all things, seem to indicate more than the conversion of the Jewish nation to the faith, as this conversion is sufficiently insinuated in the expression of Elias appeasing the wrath of God and reconciling the heart of the father to the son. It appears therefore probable, that Elias will, by divine instruction, discover to the Jews the original distinction of their tribes, which they seem to have confounded and lost then that he will restore the tribes to their primitive possessions, by re-establishing them in their ancient land of Judæa, each tribe in his new respective partition, as marked out by Ezekiel, ch. 48. The execution of this work will not at all be impossible to the prophet, as he will be endued with so ample a degree of authority from God, and so extraordinary a power of working miracles. This observation will be confirmed in the sequel from the ancient prophets, who represent the Jews in full possession of the holy land after the time of Antichrist.

But if the Almighty, through his special mercy to the Jews, appoints them a teacher in Elias, to bring them back into the true path, from which they have so long strayed, it is not to be imagined he leaves the rest of the world without the same kind of assistance. A teacher