plish their end, that of proving a direct divine interposition. Not so the word of prophecy. The argument here arises, as we have already intimated, from a patient comparison of the prediction with the fulfilment, from a consideration of a variety of small and apparently trifling coincidences, from a careful examination of all the records of history, and from a study of the entire scheme by an analysis of its parts. The more therefore of wisdom there is developed in this scheme, the higher the proof of divine interference.

And what language can describe the infinite contrivance of the prophetical word? The difficulties to be overcome were many and insuperable, except to the divine mind. A direct and unveiled discovery of futurity would not have been prophecy, but the disclosure of the secret things which belong unto the Lord our God. Such a discovery might have excited a perilous curiosity, might have opened a door to the charge of collusion on the part of some of those who now unconsciously have fulfilled the divine declarations, and would have been altogether inconsistent with the uniform order of God's moral government of his rational and accountable creatures. Man could not have comprehended the mighty plan, and much less have fitly executed it.

On the other hand, if too dark a gloom had shrouded the divine predictions; if the time and persons and age and place on which the fulfilments were to fall, had not been marked, and marked definitely and clearly, the whole argument would have lost its force.

Further, it pleased God to appoint that four thousand years should elapse between the fall of man, and the advent of the Messiah; that the advance of light and grace from the first dawn to the meridian day should be gradual, through successive measures of communication under different dispensations; that the temporal condition of the ancient church should be exposed to enemies and dangers, and more than once brought to apparent destruction by oppression and captivity.

Now to meet all these various exigencies, was a task which only God himself could accomplish in a prophetical revelation. And it is accomplished in a manner which it is impossible for the human mind sufficiently to admire. There is an intermixture of clear and obscure predictions; there are topics of consolation plentifully scattered throughout the prophetic revelations; there is a gradual development of the person and kingdom of the future Messiah; there is an adaptation of the different sets of prophecies to the several

dispensations of God's will; and there are intermediate and partial accomplishments of them in temporal and civil deliverances granted to the Jewish people, which attested the truth of their prophecies to successive ages.

All this bears the very image and impress of a heavenly wisdom. The prophecy came not of old time by the will of man; nor does it admit of any private interpretation-from the fancy of an individual, or the opinions of the prophet himself, or the mere letter of the prediction apart from the system to which it belongs. Every prophecy has its own precise and determinate meaning, fixed by the wisdom of that presiding Spirit by whom it was dictated, and to be gathered from a comparison of all the parts of the great scheme with each other, and with the corresponding events of Providence. A few prophecies indeed are unveiled minutely, and at once direct us to the precise occurrences or persons in which they are accomplished. The duration of the captivity in Babylon, the name of the deliverer, the precise time of the advent of Messiah, and many particulars as to his birth and sufferings, are described with the minuteness of historical narrative. But the prophecies generally were duly tempered with less clear predictions; were composed partly of temporal and partly of spiritual blessings;

looked forward, through intermediate accomplishments, to their ultimate and most complete design; stopped sometimes on their march to console the church with instant assurances, and then directed their course onward to distant and more spiritual blessings; communicated, in a word, near and urgent benefits as pledges of remote and eternal

ones.

Thus the promise of Canaan made to Abraham, was a pledge of the prophetic seed in whom all nations were to be blessed; and when accomplished, lighted up the hopes of the faithful in expecting that seed. Thus Moses was a figure of that greater prophet, whose grace was to supersede his economy. The kingdom of David was thus a figure of the dominion of the eternal Son of David. The deliverances from Egypt and Babylon were types of spiritual redemption and the judicial destruction of Jerusalem and of the Jewish polity, a symbol of the final judgment.9

In this way the prophetic scheme, in its progress, illustrates itself, and its parts prepare for and sustain each other. The fulfilment of the civil and temporal predictions, were the pledges and credentials of the accomplishment

9 Vetus Testamentum recté sentientibus, prophetia est Novi Testamenti. Austin, contr. Faust I. xv. in Hurd.

of the spiritual, in the first coming of the Messiah; whilst, again, these last support the credit of those which relate to his second advent. In this manner the prophecies were so far veiled, as to disappoint a vain curiosity before their accomplishment; and so far clear as to be perfectly unambiguous afterwards; whilst the several particulars are so scattered over the sacred canon, as to reward the humble and diligent student, and him only, with the most satisfactory conviction of the divine intention pervading the whole.

And this is the explanation of what has been very properly termed the double sense of prophecy, that is, of predictions bearing a temporary and near, as well as a spiritual and remote, import and accomplishment. This two-fold application marks a divine contrivance. They are not ambiguous or fanciful meanings, the private interpretations of men; but both descriptions of blessings were in the design of the Almighty, and the one was intended as the type and vehicle of the other. These are "the springing and germinant accomplishments," as Lord Bacon finely speaks, "throughout many ages; though the light and fulness of them refer to some one age."

"For these ends the use of symbolical language (the ordinary poetical style of the eastern