The Divine Programme of the World's History

in Gen. xiv.— Their confirmation by recently discovered Babylonian
and Assyrian inscriptions.-Ur of the Chaldees identified with
Mugheir on the Euphrates.- Remains of its idolatrous temple and
palace.-Rank polytheism of the country.—Terah's removal to
Kharran.—Abraham's visit to Damascus.—The first promise.—The
second and subsequent promises. - The covenant.-Three main
features of the programme. -Abraham to be the father of many
nations, and especially of one. - The future of Ishmael's descendants.

All nations to be blessed through Abraham's seed.—Brief review of

Jewish history.–Marked tendency to rapid multiplication.—No

natural genius for monotheism.-Identification of Ishmaelitish races.

Marvellous and long-continued independence of the Arabs.- Sara-

cenic conquests.-All the monotheism in the world traceable to

Abraham.—Contrast between the Monotheistic (or Abrahamic)

and the Polytheistic nations in the 19th century.-Challenge to the

infidel

. pp. 115–165.

CHAPTER IV.

THE MOSAIC PROGRAMME.

Condition of Egypt at the time of the descent of the Israelites.—The

Hyksôs dynasty ending with Aphobis.-Oppressions of the succeed-

ing Theban dynasty.— Illustrations from the monuments. The court

in which Moses grew up.-Heliopolis and its university.—The great

decision.- Moses in Midian.—The nature of the enterprise he under-

took.—The plagues especially directed against the idolatries of Egypt.

-Their character and order.—The Exodus the commencement of

Israel's national history.-M. Lottin de Laval's translation of the

Sinaitic inscriptions. Sinai and its law.—The self-sacrifice of Moses.

-His foreview of the future.—National apostasy and Divine judg-

ments of a specific character.—Subjugation, sieges, famines, en-

slavement, and world-wide dispersion of the Jewish people, yet

preservation of their distinct nationality.-Nothing parallel in history.

-A standing miracle. - Messianic prediction of Moses.—"A prophet

like unto me.”—Points of resemblance.—The similarity traced by

Eusebius.—The prophetic portrait.—The veiled, or typical, pro-

phecies.- Footnote on the chronology of the Exodus. pp. 169-221.

CHAPTER V.

THE DAVIDIC PROGRAMME.

David a prophet.-His distinctly prophetic writings.-A royal programme
govern an eternal kingdom. 2. The dominion of David's illus-
trious descendant was not to be Jewish merely, but universal. 3. The
great King of David's line would be Divine, as well as human, in
nature. 4. This anointed and superhuman Ruler would, before His
exaltation, undergo a preliminary experience of rejection and suffer-
ing, of death and resurrection. 5. That in the interval prior to His
ascent of His earthly throne, the Son of David would be called to
occupy a heavenly throne, and to rule in the midst of His enemies
from the right hand of God in heaven. 6. That the coming king
was to exercise a priestly, as well as a kingly, sway. 7. The earthly
kingdom of David's son would be introduced by His return in glory
from heaven to earth, and by the execution of terrible judgments on
His foes.—Outline of the history which has fulfilled this programme
to a certain point.—The unfulfilled remainder.-Davidic outline as a
whole met by Christianity, and by it alone.- Historic evidence of the
truth of the gospel narrative which has fulfilled it.—Evidential force
of accomplishments on such a scale .

and a kingly author.-Character of David.—Contemporary con-
dition of surrounding nations. The points of the Davidic pro-
gramme : 1. David's seed was to be enthroned for ever, and to

pp. 225-267.

CHAPTER VI.

THE DANIEL PROGRAMME.
Intermediate group of prophets, and their Jewish, Gentile, and Messianic

predictions.-Sketch of the interval from David to Daniel.—The
Captivity crisis.-Condition of nations. -Gentile magnificence on the
Euphrates.- Babylon and its builder.- Remains and inscriptions of
Nebuchadnezzar.-Character of Daniel.— His section of the Divine
programme gives-(1) an outline of the history of the Gentile world
for twenty-five centuries.-Double prediction of four great empires,
to be followed by the kingdom of God.—Angelic interpretation of
essential symbols.- Babylonian conquests.--Medo-Persian empire.
- Herodotus and Xenophon. — The Canon of Ptolemy.--Greek
empire. - Theodoret.-Thucydides.-Connection of Alexander the
Great with the Jewish people.- Josephus. - The fourth, or Roman,
empire predicted clearly by Daniel, though not referred to in later
writings of Herodotus.- Its iron character and universal sway:-
Gibbon's description of its extent and power.— Its division into ten
kingdoms.—The sphere of these-Western, or Latin, not Eastern, or
Greek.-Sir Isaac Newton's demonstration of this.—Machiavelli's
list of the ten at the fall of the Western empire. — Lists of the
actual kingdoms occupying Western Europe, at intervals of a
century apart, from the 9th to the 19th centuries.—The present ten.-
The persecuting little horn which reigns over the ten identified with
the Roman papacy.—The fall of the stone not the First Advent.-
(2) A chronological prediction of the First Advent.—The prophecy of
the “ seventy weeks "-Dan. ix.- Response to the prayer of the aged