the dwelling-place of the Holy One, until all its dross shall have been consumed; but it cannot be destroyed.
When God first made His covenant with Abraham, the symbols of His presence, which were meant to foreshadow His whole future dealings with them, were " a smoking furnace and burning lamp," or " flaming torch " (Gen. xv. 17). Already in Egypt they found themselves in an " iron furnace " (Deut. iv. 20), and from the human point of view there was every reason to believe that they would be wholly consumed; but along with and in the midst of the furnace of the four hundred years " affliction," there was suspended the flaming torch of promise that God would ultimately interpose on their behalf, and judge the nation who was oppressing them, and bring them out " with great substance" (Gen. xv. 13, 14).
Babylon was another such furnace, and though a remnant had, according to God's promise, after the seventy years, been plucked out " as a brand from the fire," we have to remember that the Babylonian Captivity, in a very important sense, still lasts, for it inaugurated the prophetic period called " the times of the Gentiles" which will only be brought to a close when the kingdom is restored, and governmental power over the earth is centred in Mount Zion. But in this longer captivity also, in this more fiery " furnace of affliction " (Isa. xlviii. i o), God has not left His people without the burning lamp of promise that they shall never be wholly consumed; that He will never forget the Covenant which He made with their fathers; but that He would be with them even when they walk through the fires (Isa. xliii. 2); and in the end, when their sufferings reach their climax in the great tribulation, when the filth of the daughter of Zion shall finally have been purged away " by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning," He would save them as " a brand from the fire," and cause them to multiply and to be a blessing to all the world.
If we may digress for a moment from the interpretation of this familiar figure, and its primary significance in relation to Israel, and make an application of it to the
