Lord shall be written upon the very bells of the horses1," that are used in agricultural pursuits ; and " all the kingdoms of the world shall become the kingdom of the Lord and his ChristV]
The appeal made to us respecting this blessed period leads me to shew,
II. The evidence we have of its near approach —
The prophet judged it near in his day —
[So certain and so clear were the views which the pro- phets had of the events which they were inspired to foretell, that they saw them already accomplished, as it were, before their eyes. " A thousand years were with them but as one day1." It is now two thousand six hundred years since these events were revealed to the prophet, and yet Jehovah spake of them as if they were already taking place : " Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold: all these gather themselves together, and come to thee. As I live, saith the Lord, thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all as with an ornament, and bind them on thee as a bride doth. Then shalt thou say in thine heart, Who hath begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive, and removing to and fro? And who hath brought up these? Behold, I was left alone: these, where had they been™?" So again; " Who are these, that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their win- dows" ? " Now then, if the prophet spoke of this period as so near in his day,]
Much more may we consider it as very near at this time —
[And indeed, besides the lapse of so many centuries, we have much additional evidence of its approach. The general scope of prophecy, so far as it designates the period of which our text speaks, points, if I may so say, to this very age in which we live. The one thousand two hundred and sixty years of Daniel are, beyond all doubt, near to their comple- tion : and consequently the reign of Christ on earth, as its universal Monarch, is near to its commencement.
Besides, amongst both Jews and Gentiles there is a general expectation that some great change is at hand, and that God will shortly interpose to bring all nations to such an unity in reli- gious faith and practice as has never yet been seen upon earth.
The efforts which are making throughout the whole Chris- tian world for the accomplishment of this object, by translating the Holy Scriptures into the different languages of the earth,
1 Zech. xiv. 20. k rcv. xi, i5> l 2 Pet. hi. 8.
111 Isai. xlix. 18, 21. " Isai. lx. 8.