kings and queens then, as at this time, as these prophecies show, it will not be until the personal reign of Christ takes place, that all rule, authority and power, will be put down: civil magistracy in the spiritual reign will continue as it is; only it will change hands, it will be entirely in the hands of christian kings and princes all the world over; and no doubt but it will be better exercised, be more orderly and regular; and that truth and righteousness will prevail every where. But I must not forget the conversion of that considerable body of people the Jews, who have been preserved a distinct people for several hundreds of years for this purpose; the conversion of these people will be sudden and of them altogether a nation shall be born at once. It looks as if their conversion would be like that of the apostle Paul, and he seems to hint that it will, when he says, that he, in obtaining mercy, was a pattern to them which should hereafter believe; meaning, perhaps, his own countrymen that should believe in Christ in the latter day, whose conversion would be similar to his; that as his conversion was sudden, in the midst of all his ignorance, unbelief, and rebellion, and without the word, by the immediate power and grace of God, so will theirs be in like manner: nor is it likely that their conversion should be by means of the word, since there is such an aversion in that people to the hearing of it; and a rare thing it is to see a Jew in a Christian assembly. But, however, all Israel shall be called, converted, and saved; there is a famous prophecy of this in Hos. iii. 4, 5., in the first of these verses it is said, the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king and without a prince; without any civil government of their own, the sceptre having departed from them many hundred years ago; and without sacrifice; daily or yearly, or on any occasion: they believing it to be unlawful to sacrifice any where but in their own land, and at Jerusalem, and on the altar of God there; and without an image, and without an ephod, and without seraphim; without any manner of idols, or idol-worship; they being not addicted to idolatry, since their return from the Babylonish captivity: and now as all these things are exactly fulfilled in them, so will in like manner that which follows: afterwards shall the children of Israel return: by faith and repentance, from their evil way, from their impenitence and unbelief, and rejection of the Messiah, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king; the Messiah, the son of David, their king, as their own _Targum_ paraphrases it; and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days; in the spiritual reign of Christ; and it is hinted as in the Philadelphian state, Rev. iii. 9, then will the children of Israel appoint themselves one head, which is Christ, whom they will own and acknowledge to be their head, lord, and king; and they