Jew, and never will; every promise must come through him first; to him they belong, "for in thee shall be a blessing;" "and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him." (Gen. xviii. 18). The promises, then, of the coming glory, and the coming of the Son of man, must come through and by them. The conversion of St. Paul is a proof of this; for as Paul heard the voice and saw the appearance of our Lord, whilst none of the bystanders did; so the Jews will see the Shechinah Glory, and appearance of our Lord for their conversion, which no other people will see at first. This was fully and exactly the case on their coming out of Egypt; as it is said, "And it was a cloud and darkness to them, (i. e. to the Egyptians,) but it gave light by night to these, (i. e. the Israelites,) so that the one came not near the other all the night." (Exod. xiv. 19.) And the Lord has declared, at the time when he shall gather them out from all nations, and bring them back to their own land, that "according to the days of thy coming out of the land of Egypt will I show unto him marvellous things." (Micah vii. 15.) So that we have every reason to regard the Jew, and now to get under their shadow at the winding up of this dispensation; for, as Hosea says, "They that dwell under his shadow (Israel) shall return; they shall revive as the corn, and grow (or blossom) as the vine: the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon. Who is wise, and he shall understand these things? prudent, and he shall know them? for the ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them: but the transgressors shall fall therein." (Hosea xiv. 7, 9.) And this is to be at a time, as is declared in the 5th and 6th verses of the same chapter, when "I (the Lord) will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive tree, and his smell as Lebanon." 3rdly. The third important reason is, that the Shechinah Glory will be a refuge, an “hiding place from the wind, and covert from the tempest" and storm, during "1260 days," or "three and a half years," or "forty and two months" of the terrible reign of the beast, or man of sin, which will constitute the most awful tribulation, even the "time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation." (Dan. xi. 1, and Matt. xxi. 21.) In proof of this, in Psalm xlviii. 3, it is declared, “God is known in her (Mount Zion's) palaces for a refuge." But how? If we turn to the testimony of the prophet Isaiah, xxx. 27—30, we read thus: "Behold, the name of the Lord (the Shechinah) cometh from far, burning with his anger, and the burden thereof is heavy: his lips are full of indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire and his breath, as an overflowing stream, shall reach to the midst of the neck, to sift the nations with the sieve of vanity: and there shall be a bridle in the jaws of the people, causing them to err. Ye shall have a song, as in the night when a holy solemnity is kept; and gladness of heart, as when one goeth with a pipe into the mountain of the Lord, to the mighty One of Israel. And the Lord shall cause his glorious voice to be heard, (the margin reads, 'the glory of his voice'; that is, the Shechinah, as we may perceive from what follows:) and shall shew the lightning down of his arm, (or power,) with the indignation of his anger, and with the flame of a devouring fire, with scattering, and tempest, and hailstones." How perfectly this agrees with Exodus xxiv. 17, "And the sight of the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the sight of the children of Israel." We may now rest well satisfied that this is the Shechinah Glory described in the ninth verse of the thirty-first chapter, where we shall see that this glory is for a refuge, a covert from the storm of the terrible one, and a hiding place. "And he shall pass over to his stronghold for fear (alluding to the Assyrian,' or Man of Sin,) and his princes shall be afraid of the Ensign, saith the Lord, whose fire is in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem. Behold a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. And a man (Jesus Christ, the Angel of God's presence, dwelling in the Shechinah, between the Cherubims,) shall be as a hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." (Isa. xxxi. 9; xxxii. 1, 2.) We will now turn back to the fourth chapter, 4th, 5th, and 6th verses, of the same prophet, where we read: "When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment, and the spirit of burning. And the Lord will create upon every dwelling-place of mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night: for upon all the Glory shall be a defence. And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the day-time from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain." Ah me! how plain is it that this Shechinah Glory is the flaming fire mentioned by Paul in the first chapter of his 2nd Epistle to the Thessalonians, 7th and 8th verses, "And you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the Glory (Shechinah) of his power." "But unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth? seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest my words behind thee." Psalms 1. 16, 17.) Alas! alas! to the wicked who desire the day of the Lord, for unto them it is said, (Amos v. 18— 20,) "Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! to what end is it for you? the day of the Lord is darkness, and not light. As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand upon the wall, and a serpent bit him. Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?" (Matt. iii. 1.) But who shall stand when he appeareth? "His eyes are as a flame of fire; and his feet like fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters." (Rev. i. 14, 15.) Mal. iii. 2, again asks: "But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap." Isaiah says, xxxiii. 14-18, 20: "The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the |