and I will make the cities of Judah desolate without an inhabitant.' This was fulfilled when the dragon was slain and the sea became as the blood of a dead man, as John said. Micah, speaking of the wrath of the Lord against Jerusalem which was the abode of dragons, Therefore I will wail and howl; I will go stripped and naked: I will make a wailing like the dragons, and mourning as the owls. This the dragons experienced in the day of their judgment. Then fallen Israel was judged out of the law and the prophets; and by their breaking the Mount Sinai law, and breaking the covenant that God gave them to walk by, and turning to the worship of Idols, and forsook the God who was Israel's habitation; and so became backslidden, and received the mark of the beast; and so fell under the damnation of the Sinai law, and were condemned with death and hell, and so received the same damnation. ( Christ speaking to these same people, says, Matt. xxiii: 33. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes ; and some of them ye shall kill, and crucify, and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues and persecute them from city to city. These whom Christ was addressing were the dragon part of Israel, that was in the sea; but the elect part of Israel stood on a sea of glass. John says, And I saw a sea of glass mingled with fire.' This was the refiner's fire, where they could behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ; and so became changed into the same image. from glory to glory, as by the spirit of God; and so had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name; standing on the sea of glass, having the harps of God. Take a view of the number of the name of the beast, which the elect part of Israel had gotten the victory over, this beast or dragon was fallen. Israel. Peter calls them 'trees whose fruits wither, twice dead, plucked up by the roots.' This was the case with fallen Israel, which in Scripture is called the beast; this name the elect had gotten the victory over, by believing Moses and the prophets; they are called the dragon, which they got the victory over; they are called the devil, which the elect had gotten the victory over; fallen Israel is called in Scripture Satan, this name they got the victory over. Paul speaking to the Romans concerning Israel, his brethren as to the flesh, says, Romans xvi: 20, The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly' this Satan was fallen Israel, whom Christ the Lord was revealed from heaven to destroy, with his 6 ، holy angels, which were the Roman legions. O, then was Jerusalem trodden down by the Gentiles, which were the Romans, as Paul informed them a few years before the day of judgment; and Satan is also called the devil, and Paul said, Heb. ii: 14, For as much as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might des-/ troy him that had the power of death, that is the devil-as much as to say that was fallen Israel; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their life-time subject to bondage.' Fallen Israel had this power to slay all the prophets and all the righteous from Abel to Zachariah; and persecuted all the saints, threatened them with death, which kept those, whom they did not kill, in bondage all their life-time, till Christ destroyed fallen Israel, which was the devil. Then those persecuted saints were relieved from their bondage; this was your adversary,' the devil, whom Paul informed his friends of, who went about as a roaring lion seeking whom he might devour; this was persesecuting Israel ;-these were the angels that kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, who was the God of Israel. This was the cause of the saints being in bondage all their lifetime, till the devil was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet were; then he destroyed the devil and all his works, and made an end of transgression, and brought in everlasting righteousness, and sealed up the vision unto the end; for then he made an end of the law of commandments; and that was fulfilled on fallen Israel, who was called the devil, and Satan; so that law being done away, there is no transgression; for the apostle declares, that where |