own land, they would, together with an abundance of temporal blessings, again enjoy the blessedness of waiting upon God in the instituted ordinances of his worship. And, inasmuch as this would tend to the advancement of their souls in righteous- ness and true holiness, it might justify the language by which it was expressed. To the same effect the Prophet Ezekiel speaks : " I will make them, and the places round about my hill, a blessing : and I will cause the shower to come down in his season ; there shall be showers of blessing. And the tree of the field shall yield her fruit, and the earth shall yield her increase ; and they shall be safe in their land, and shall know that I am the Lord, when I have broken the bands of their yoke, and delivered them out of the hand of those that served themselves of themc."
But it is evident that the prophecy includes in it a more important event ; and that]
Its ulterior reference is to the establishment of the Messiah's kingdom —
[Under similar emblems is the Messiah's kingdom frequently described. It is chiefly characterized by the outpouring of the Spirit upon God's Church and people, and the consequent pro- duction of the fruits of righteousness among them in rich abundance. Remarkable is that declaration of the Prophet Joel : " It shall come to pass, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh ; and your sons and your daughters shall pro- phesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions; and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my Spirit d." Of the true mean- ing of those words we can have no doubt ; because they were cited by St. Peter on the day of Pentecost, as fulfilled, when he and the rest of the Apostles were enabled by the Spirit to address their audience in the different languages of all the nations to which they belonged e. With a sanctifying efficacy also was this effusion of the Spirit accompanied, as Isaiah also had foretold : for " when the Spirit was to be poured out from on high, then was the wilderness to become a fruitful field, and the fruitful field to be counted for a forest1." This, I say, was to characterize the Christian aera, as David also had foretold : " He shall come down like rain upon the grass, as showers that water the earth. In his days shall the righteous flourish ; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endurethg."]
But my more particular object in this discourse is, to point out, not merely the sense of the prophecy, but also,
c Ezek. xxxiv. 26, 27. d Joel. ii. 28, 29. e Acts ii. 16—18. f Isai. xxxii. 1">. e Ps. lxxii. 6, 7.