The “Advertisement” to Extracts from a work on the Prophecies, by Mr. Joseph Eyre, informs us that “The design in re-publishing them is to call the attention of Christians to those Prophecies of the Scriptures, which have a primary reference to the Jewish people, and which predict events concerning them that have not yet been fulfilled, and promise blessings to them of which they have not yet been partakers.”[¹]
[¹] Extracts from a work, entitled Observations upon the Prophecies, relating to the Restoration of the Jews. By Joseph Eyre, Esq. Originally published in the year 1771.... London:... 1823.
“Civis” writes: “With respect to the restoration ... permit me to refer your readers to Mr. (George Stanley) Faber’s (B.D.) (1773–1854) work on that subject, and also to The Sacred Calendar of Prophecy, 1828. The reasons ... are ... satisfactory and convincing. Even if there were no other passage to prove it, the one where God declares that it shall in future times be said ‘The Lord liveth, who brought up and who led the children of Israel out of the north country, and from all the countries whither I had driven them, and they shall dwell in their own land,’ would, I think, be sufficient to prove it; because it seems too minute and circumstantial to admit of a merely figurative interpretation; and, indeed, what can it be a figure of? What is the reality which the figure is supposed to represent? I would ask, if a prophecy were intended to declare a literal restoration, what more plain and forcible terms could have been made use of? We should never resort to figures except where the nature of the subject, or common sense, imperatively requires it.”[¹]
[¹] Christian Observer, 1838, p. 443.
To this period belong the following articles on the Restoration of the Jews in The Christian Observer (Church of England):
1838 May, pp. 286–7
1838 July, p. 443
1838 August, pp. 518–520
1838 September, pp. 554–556
1838 November, pp. 665–670