Uzziah and Jotham: viz., Jonah, the son of Amittai, of Gath-hepher, a town in Galilee belonging to the tribe of Zebulon. We first meet with him on his foretelling the successes of Jeroboam the second, son of Joash, king of Israel. He was afterwards sent by God "to Nineveh, that great city"-the proud and mighty metropolis of the Assyrian empire, to "cry against it; for," said the Lord, "their wickedness is come up before me." Jonah was not obedient to the command of Jehovah, until the judgments of Omnipotence had awfully visited him. He then announced to the people of Nineveh the destruction that awaited them. The dreadful message was not rejected by "the men of Nineveh-for they repented at the preaching of Jonah." They all "believed God and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth :" and "God saw that they turned from their evil way:" and He had mercy upon them, and spared the city. Yet it was eventually overthrown and utterly destroyed. Its ruins buried in an undistinguishable mass, and covering a space exceeding sixty miles in circumference; until, within a very recent period, they have, after the lapse of more than two thousand five hundred years, been not only discovered, but many portions of them conveyed to this and other countries; establishing, with indubitable evidence, the truth and divine authority, both of the history and the prophecy contained in the sacred volume.

CHAP. LXVI.-On the death of Jotham, his son Ahaz reigned in Judah. He proved to be a most

wicked and abandoned monarch. He removed the sacred treasures from the temple, caused the holy fire to be extinguished, shut up the house of the Lord, and built altars to his false gods "in every corner of Jerusalem." In his idolatrous worship he "burnt his own children in the fire, after the abominations of the heathen whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel." Pekah, king of Israel, and Rezin, king of Syria, came against Ahaz, and caused great slaughter among his people, "because they had forsaken the Lord God of their fathers." Pekah took much spoil from Judah and carried it to Samaria. Ahaz, in his distress, sent abundance of treasure to Tiglath Pileser, king of Assyria, hiring his assistance against the invaders of Judah. The Assyrian received the wages, but, instead of helping Ahaz, he afflicted him and his people: and "the Lord brought Judah low, because of Ahaz-for he transgressed sore against the Lord." He was succeeded by his son Hezekiah, who "did right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that David his father had done." Shortly after his accession to the throne the sister kingdom of Israel was subverted, and the king, Hoshea, carried away captive with his people, by Shalmaneser, king of Assyria. This event was calculated to impress Hezekiah with increased earnestness of purpose to adhere faithfully to the service of Jehovah; and "he said, It is in mine heart to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel, that His fierce wrath may turn away from us." Fezekiah restored the worship of God, cleansed and sanctified the temple and the Levites, and gathered

together not only his own people of Judah, but many out of the scattered tribes of Israel, whom he entreated to turn unto the Lord God of their fathers: and there assembled at Jerusalem a multitude, who kept the feast of the passover, "and there was great joy in Jerusalem." Hezekiah "wrought that which was good and right, and truth before the Lord his God;" and the power of Jehovah was miraculously displayed on his behalf in the destruction of the king of Assyria and his army.

"Hezekiah had exceeding much riches and honour" -the Lord prospered him and his people "and guided them on every side." But when the period arrived that this excellent monarch "slept with his fathers;" his son Manasseh, who came to the throne, committed greater abominations in the sight of God than any who were before him. "He reared up altars for Baalim, and for all the host of heaven," not only throughout the land of Judah, but even in the house of the Lord; and "he filled Jerusalem, from one end to the other," with the "innocent blood" that he shed; moreover he caused his son to pass through the fire, and used enchantments and dealt with familiar spirits, and made his people "to err, and to do worse than the heathen:"-" wherefore the Lord brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh among the thorns and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon: and when he was in affliction he humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed unto him: and the Lord was entreated of him, and heard his supplication,

and brought him again to Jerusalem, into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord he was God." After a reign of fifty-five years he died, leaving his son, a wicked prince, to fill the throne; who, at the end of two years, was slain by his own servants. His subjects made Josiah, his son, a child of eight years old, king in his stead. This youthful monarch was eminently pious and devoted to the service of Jehovah: he destroyed all the idols throughout the land, and "brake down the altars of Baal," burning upon them the bones of those priests who had been the sacrificers to the false deities; fulfilling also that which had been. foretold by "the man of God" who cried against Jeroboam the son of Nebat; and Josiah brake down the altar at Bethel, and the high place that Jeroboam had made, and took men's bones out of "the sepulchres that were in the mount," and burned them upon the altar, according to the word of the Lord. In this reign lived the prophet Jeremiah, who began to declare the remarkable series of divine revelations which exactly foreshowed the calamities that were about to befall Judah and Jerusalem. As he beheld them in spiritual vision, he uttered, in varied and most pathetic strains, the deep anguish of his soul, exclaiming, "Oh, that mine head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!" Jeremiah continued to foretell, from time to time, the desolation and misery that awaited his country; but his warnings and his exhortations were unheeded, and he was grievously persecuted by the rulers of Judah, par

ticularly in the time of Zedekiah, the last king who reigned in Jerusalem previous to the subversion of the monarchy in Judah.

It is

The prophecies of Jeremiah and those of his cotemporary, Ezekiel, the priest, the son of Buzi, describe, in a wonderful detail of the circumstances which afterwards occurred, the destruction of many kingdoms with their principal cities. Of these we may notice Egypt and her place of palaces, Noph, or No, (called also Noammon;) Philistia, with the great maritime towns of Tyre and Sidon, whose merchants were princes and the rich men of the earth; Edom, or Idumea, and her cities of Bozrah and Teman; Moab and Ammon, with their towns of Dibon, Nebo, Rabbah, and Heshbon; Syria, also, and her metropolis Damascus. The prophet Ezekiel was taken captive to Babylon, whilst Jeremiah was left behind in Judah. remarkable that these great prophets do not speak of the overthrow of Assyria, or of the mighty capital of that empire; from which we may infer that the vision of Nahum, the seer of Elkosh, a town in Galilee, which, in sublime language, announced its impending ruin, had become accomplished, and that Nineveh was laid waste and her people slain; whilst the kingdom of Assyria was incorporated with that of Babylon or Chaldea: the metropolis of this vast kingdom-the mistress of all the then known and civilized world— was chiefly built and fortified by Nebuchadnezzar, who, in the plenitude of his power and pride, boasted of the might of his dominion, and the honour of his majesty, as displayed in his erecting the great city of