ness: men who esteem themselves perfect are apt to make themselves, their own subjective exercises, experiences, judgments, desires, and appetites, the measure and standard of perfection; to make these the rule and measure of rectitude, rather than God's word; or rather to construe them as God's voice and word, speaking in and through them. They have often maintained that as Christ was living within them, their desires, and words and deeds were Christ's. This, of course, is the extreme of fanatical and blasphemous Antinomian pride and licentiousness. It goes to seed in Onedia communities. Mr. Finney says (Autobiography, p. 341) that about the time he commenced preaching on perfection, it came to be agitated, in the Antinomian sense of the term, a good deal at New Haven, at Albany, and somewhat in New York City, and that he could not accept these views. History shows their melancholy course and results. But there are other and higher forms of making our subjective feeling the standard of truth and holiness besides the gross and low form above noted. It often develops in simple mysticism, in which the feeling of the subject, devout and elevated though it be, still becomes a law unto itself, and sets its own impulses and bewilderments above the law and the testimony. Against all this we cannot too sedulously guard. Nor do we think it wrong or uncharitable in this connection to refer to the career of Mr. Pearsall Smith, who has been so conspicuous in Higher Life leadership.

Art. II. THE GREAT MESSIANIC PROPHECY.

By WOLCOTT CALKINS, D. D., Buffalo, N. Y.

"OF whom speaketh the prophet?" was the pertinent question of the Ethiopian Treasurer concerning the most remarkable prediction ever recorded. Never was the question more urgent than now. We get disquieted by doubts about the ' Bible and the certainty of our Christian hopes, because we permit ourselves to be diverted by trivial and irrelevant objections from resolute investigation of truths which are decisive. Such a truth is before us, and it demands thorough and dispassionate research.

In the sublime description of the sufferings and triumphs of Jehovah's Servant, which the Ethiopian was reading, three portions are distinguished by the form of the address. In the first, the speaker is Jehovah himself, who discloses in outline. the exaltation of his servant, after unexampled humiliation. In the second, the prophet enumerates these sufferings in detail, and closes with assurances of his final triumph. In the third, Jehovah confirms these assurances and closes the prediction as it began, with the sure word of God, that through sorrow and death his Servant shall prosper, and be exalted above all majesty and power.

I. Behold, my Servant shall prosper,

He shall rise up, and be extolled, and stand triumphantly exalted.
Even as many were shocked at him

(His countenance was so marred as to be no more that of a man,

His form no more that of sons of men !)

So also shall he sprinkle many nations.

The kings shall shut their mouths before him;

For what had not been told them they shall see,

And what they had never heard they shall consider.

II. Who hath believed our report ?

And to whom is Jehovah's arm revealed?

For he shall grow up before Him as a tender plant,

And as a sprout out of dry ground.

He hath no form nor comeliness that we should look up to him,

No beauty that we should take pleasure in him.

He is despised and rejected of men,

A man of sorrows, well acquainted with sickness;

*Isa. lii :13-15.

And like one hiding his face before us,
He was despised and we esteemed him not.
And yet it was our own sickness that he bore,
And our sorrows that he loaded upon himself.
But we supposed he was punished,

Smitten of God, and tormented !

O, no! He was wounded for our transgressions,

Bruised for our iniquities.

Chastisement for our peace was upon him,

And with his stripes we are made whole.

All we like sheep have gone astray,

We have turned every one to his own way,

And Jehovah made the guilt of us all to meet upon him.

He was oppressed, and yet he humbled himself;

And he opened not his mouth like a lamb that is brought to the slaughter, And as a sheep is dumb before her shearers,

So he opened not his mouth.

He was dragged to punishment by violence, and yet by process of law;

And who of the men of his generation took it to heart

That he was cut off from the land of the living,

That the stroke for my people's transgressions fell upon him!

They appointed him his grave with criminals

(Still he was with a rich man in his death!)

Although he had done no wrong,

Neither was any deceit in his mouth.

And yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise him.

He laid sickness upon him.

But when he has made over his soul as a sin-offering,

He shall see offspring; he shall prolong his days,

And the pleasure of Jehovah shall prosper in his hands !*

III.-Free from the travail of his soul,

He shall see and be satisfied.

By his knowledge shall my righteous servant make many righteous,
Because he shall bear their iniquities.

Therefore will I give him the great as a portion,

And he shall distribute the strong as spoil.

For he hath poured out his soul unto death,
And he was numbered with transgressors,
While he was bearing the sin of many

And was making intercession for the transgressors !†

Of whom speaketh the Prophet thus? Only one answer has ever been derived from the simple reading of the words, without a previous theory. Jewish writers were almost unanimous that this was a Messianic prophecy until the Christian apolo

gists made the admission fatal to them. And modern rationalism did not discover, until late in the last century, that if this prediction refers to a person who appeared in history hundreds of years after it was made, it is a miracle which makes all the miracles of the New Testament credible. What answer, then, have Jews and rationalists made to this question which they cannot evade Of whom speaketh the prophet?

"Of the whole Jewish people. In the first part Jehovah applies to his chosen people the well-known name—my servant, and contrasts their present misery with their future glory. In the second part the heathen confess their sins, and look to Israel as their Saviour. In the third part the Lord assures them that their sins have been pardoned through the intercessions of his anointed people."

This was the first attempt of Jewish writers to escape the Messianic interpretation.* The theory has been embraced by many of the ablest modern rationalists,t some of whom seek to evade its gravest difficulties by applying the description to the ideal Israel whom God called out of Egypt and purposed to establish in the Holy Land, not to the actual Israel of the exile. The latter hypothesis encounters more embarrassment than it escapes, for it leaves no place for the sufferings of the exile, which are said to inspire the whole description.

It is unnecessary to dwell upon the contradictions involved in this conjecture. Our prophet carefully distinguishes the people from the servant of the Lord: "Ye are my witnesses, and my servant whom I have chosen." The two are wholly different in character. Israel is blind, deaf, stiff-necked, treacherous; the servant innocent and guileless.¶ Israel is never described as the redeemer of the heathen. On the contrary, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Seba are given for a ransom of Israel.** The servant of the Lord is afflicted, not for his own sins, but for transgressors. But who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers? The Lord, for they would not walk in his ways, neither were they obedient to His law.++ Of this rebellious people it could never have been said

* Abenezra, Kimchi, Abarbanel.

† Rosenmüller, Hitzig, Köster.
Ewald, Beck.

Is. xliii: 10.

xliii: 8; xlviii: 4-8. ¶liii: 11.

xliii: 3.

tt xlii: 24; lxiii: 10.

"It pleased the Lord to bruise him,
Although he had done no wrong,

Neither was guile found in his mouth."

Of whom speaketh the prophet? "Of the obedient portion of the people in contrast with the idolatrous; the collective body of the prophets;* the faithful exiles; those only of the faithful whose true piety made them zealous to return to their homes, especially patriotic elders, priests, Levites and prophsets.t ets. Some class of the Jewish people, more or less extended, is described as suffering oppression, and often martyrdom itself; the disobedient at length confess that their own sins have involved their innocent brethren in calamity; and restored to repentance and fidelity by this means, they are pardoned by their God for the sake of His servant."

In some form this is the theory of the ablest scholars who now reject the Messianic interpretation. But they all fail to find a class of men who bear any resemblance to the description. There is no such exceptional class among the people. "We are all as an unclean thing; all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; there is none that calleth upon thy name." The grammatical construction forces these writers themselves to make the prophet the speaker in the second part. He confesses his own sins, and at the same time belongs to the class who are suffering innocently for the sins of others!

These sufferings are also wholly voluntary. "He bore our sickness; he loaded our sorrows upon himself." "He made over his own soul as a sin-offering." But the faithful exiles endured only what they could not escape. He was patient. "He opened not his mouth." The mouths of the exiles were always open-" By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down; yea, we wept when we remembered Zion."** The sweetest lyrics of the most poetic nation in history are elegies of sorrow, and dirges of bereavement. And why does this immortal song of the exiles glide so naturally into bloodthirsty cursings of enemies?

"O daughter of Babylon!

Blessed shall be he that taketh and dasheth

Thy little ones against the stones!"

* De Wette, Gesenius, Winer.

Thenius, Paulus, Maurer.

+ Knobel.

Isa Ixiv: 6.

liii: 4.

liii: 10. Both lost in the authorized version. ** Ps. 137: I.