86 The Restoration of the Heathen. CHAP. 



is addressed to Jerusalem, and the greater part of 

 it is filled with denunciations of her unfaithfulness, 

 ingratitude, and sin ; she is declared to be more 

 hateful than the heathen Sodom or the apostate 

 Samaria. But at the end the Spirit of Prophecy 

 relents, and the Prophet writes : 



" I will turn again their captivity, the captivity of 

 Sodom and her daughters, and the captivity of 

 Samaria and her daughters, and the captivity of thy 

 captives in the midst of them. . . . And thy sisters, 

 Sodom and her daughters, shall return to their former 

 estate, and Samaria and her daughters shall return 

 to their former estate, and thou and thy daughters 

 shall return to your former estate." l 



It is evident that in the case of Sodom, at least, 

 the restoration cannot be national, because Sodom 

 and its people had ceased to exist more than a thou- 

 sand years before Ezekiel wrote. The promised 

 restoration can only be spiritual, and in the eternal 

 world. I do not say that so far-reaching a doctrine 

 as that of final restoration could be safely rested on 

 a single passage like this, which is no doubt in some 

 degree symbolical; but it is very important as a 

 parallel, from the Old Testament, to Saint Paul's pro- 

 phecy of the ultimate salvation of the Gentiles, 2 

 whereof we shall speak farther on. It is also to be 

 observed that the Apostle Jude mentions the case of 

 Sodom as typical : " Even as Sodom and Gomorrah 

 and the cities about them . . . are set forth for an 

 1 Ezek. xvi. 53, 55. 2 Rom. xi. 25 et seq. 



