when the seventy weeks were passed, the wrath of God came upon her to the uttermost.

Now pause, my brethren, and reflect.---There may be, there are points of enquiry respecting this instructive passage of Scripture which I have not touched upon, the brief limits of one discourse will not allow me to say all that I feel to be needful. But the one point, which, of all the rest, is most prominent and important, I have endeavoured to set before you. It is the Sacrifice of Christ, by which all those ends of pardon, and atonement, and righteousness, are secured and accomplished, which else miserable man might have searched for ever in vain. And so far as this has been set before you, I can leave the subject with peace and satisfaction---1 could be content to feel that some portion of it has escaped unexplained---I will bear your reproaches for having disappointed the expectations of an inquisitive mind---if I could hope that the One Great theme of this, and every other Hebrew Prophecy, has not been slighted and negligently exhibited. Content to know among you nothing else, if I may but teach you Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

Look at Jerusalem now sitting in the dust. See how the Saracen holds her captive in the city of her fathers. And remember what she has done---she crucified and rejected the Messiah.

" The last of nations now, though once the first.'

Then hear that question of Holy Writ. How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? And if you would be partaker in her plagues, and would taste the cup of the wrath of heaven, and would look upon the darkness which is for ever---then go, and do thou likewise---neglect the salvation-refuse the Messiah-crucify afresh the Son of God-and before seventy weeks have passed by, in a term more brief than that which was determined for Jerusalem, when men shall pass by your place you shall not be seen, and when your spirit is enquired for, it shall be found

viii.]

RECORDED BY DANIEL.

among the sons of the evil one, with the men who crucified the Messiah.

But if any man will be saved, if any of you will be saved, let him come to the Saviour, not drawing nigh to thrust a spear into his side, but to take that atoning blood which was shed for sin and to sprinkle it upon the conscience. If any of you will be saved, take your stand by the Redeemer's Cross, and there meet the terrors of death and of judgment. And while every island and mountain shall flee away before the face of the coming Judge, and there shall be found no standing, no refuge, for the enemies of God and Christ ;--that hill of Calvary on which you stand shall bear you up---from that eternal rock you may gaze upon the melting universe, and when the eye of God shall meet your eager looks you shall cry out, in unutterable joy,

'I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord.'

THE GRADUAL UNFOLDING

LECTURE IX.

[Lect.

THE GRADUAL UNFOLDING OF PROPHECY.

1 Peter i. 10-12.

In these verses we have the singular and interesting spectacle, of the ancient Prophets studying their own predictions, and searching after the import of their own prophetic spirit, coming to this conclusion in the end, that not unto themselves but unto succeeding generations they were ministering, and bearing a lamp which, while it shone very brightly upon others, cast its own dim shadow upon the person who bore it.

Upon this representation given by the Apostle Peter, we shall make a succession of remarks, which will conduct us to such concluding reflexions as may profitably sum up our discourse of Hebrew Prophecy.

In the first place, then, we observe that the obscurity of the prophecies was intentional-it did not result from the necessary nature of prediction---it was not the effect of the futurity of its subject-it was an effect designed by the wisdom of God.

It would have been as easy to reveal the whole at once, as to bring it out by detached and successive portions. If it had suited the wise purpose of heaven, the primary promise of the Messiah might have contained in it all the detail of particulars-the figurative terms might have been superseded or explained by literal announcement—uncer

tain and vague expectation might have given place to a definite and precise knowledge of the thing intended—and the first parents of mankind might have been at once informed of all those events, which the slow lapse of many ages was required to bring out to human observation. They might in one word have been informed that Jesus Christ, of the seed of the woman, at the distance of so many centuries, should appear as the Saviour of men, to redeem them from death and curse by the sacrifice of himself. But this precipitate discovery of his good purpose did not suit with the intermediate intentions of the Father of lights -many good ends were to be answered by a more gradual revelation and therefore the first promise of the Messiah, was couched in language of figure, and clothed in a veil of some mystery and obscureness. In the second Lecture we endeavoured to illustrate the understanding which our first parents had of this promise; and that same slow process, by which they would arrive at some undefined and distant apprehension of the Truth, would be repeated according to the subject, in the case of each succeeding revelation-mankind would need to enquire and search diligently, what time or what thing it was which the Spirit of Messiah signified when it gave its predictive testimony.'Secondly, The method, which the prophetic spirit adopted, to produce the intended degree of obscurity was various. Sometimes the prediction was intended to be more readily understood---there the event was more clearly developed. Sometimes it was intended that a far distant age should be requisite to explain the oracle-in such case therefore the mystery was deeper. In each instance, according to the design in this respect, the degree of manifestation was variously adapted. When a threatening of destruction is intended to produce immediate repentance, the Prophet's message is clear and beyond all misconception. When the thing predicted is an event of long futurity, and only at present to be believed and hoped for, it is more darkly shadowed, and more room is intentionally left for a humble and devout faith.

THE GRADUAL UNFOLDING

[Lect.

There is this remarkable observation to be made with regard to the causes of obscurity in the prophecies-that, while in many cases that obscurity arose from the highly figurative diction, in which they were delivered, and the mysterious visions by which they were shewn to the Prophet himself; in other cases the difficulty and the mystery arose entirely from the very opposite cause, even from the clearness of the revelation and the perfectly literal language in which it was expressed. When Isaiah sings of the Messiah's reign, that the wolf, &c.-xi. 6: no man ever supposes that these events are literally to happen, the terms are manifestly figured; and from the wide application of such figures to the whole world, or to empires, or to individuals, a degree of uncertainty and obscureness results, so that this prediction is understood and acknowledged to be obscure by the figures which are employed to express it. But when Isaiah predicts, a Virgin shall conceive and bear a son'-the language is literal and express-facts have shewn its reference, and we perceive that it was no figure, but a reality which the Prophet foretold.-Not so was this prophecy to the men of other times. It was a proposition, so strange and so mysterious, that the Jews could not take it literally. They understood it metaphorically, and would endeavour metaphorically, to explain it. And the very plainness and literal expression of the oracle would be the immediate cause why it would seem to be dark and mysterious. In fact, there are no mysteries so unfathomable as the real events of nature and of fact and when those real events are spoken of beforehand, nothing seems so improbable. In like manner, when "the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow" were "testified beforehand," they were not understood there was no obscurity nor mystery in the language, there needed no veil of figure to conceal the event-it was the thing itself that wore all the mystery.

Thus, by one method or another, the revelations of the future were made to require study and diligent search. And our Saviour assures us that many Prophets and

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