or his temporary asylum in Egypt, or the actual piercing of his side with a spear, while there was a formal agreement with the prophecies mentioned in connection with those events by the evangelists, there was manifestly something more; in that outward verification no intelligent believer could fail to perceive the sign and index of a deeper fulfilment, which was at the same time accomplished, and which reached to the inner mysteries of the kingdom.1

It is in this typico-historical element more especially, so widely diffused through Old Testament prophecy, that we are furnished with a safeguard against the rationalistic tendency to carry to excess its figurative character, and are enabled to resist the temptation, presented by apparent contrarieties between prophecy and history, of attempting to resolve all its announcements into vague generalities. Real contrarieties are not to be found, if only the language of prophecy is understood and interpreted in accordance with its distinctive nature. But, certainly, there may be no difficulty in finding apparent ones, if the same principles of interpretation are indiscriminately applied to prophecy and history. And it is the practice alike of infidels and rationalists to make diligent search for contrarieties of this description, which they take to be real, and thence argue against every thing specific and supernatural in prophecy. We shall be prepared and fortified against this error, if we keep properly in view the connection between prophecy and type, and the comparative approach that might be made, particularly in this direction, to a measure of historical distinctness. For, on account of this connection, it necessarily moved within definite relations, which had their historical basis in the past, and must likewise have a historical basis in the future; it embraced transactions, which had their points of contact with the outer world, as those also had, which corresponded to them in the earlier dispensations. So that in perfect accordance with its figurative character, as bearing respect to events, which were to

1 For the illustration and proof of this, see "Typology of Scripture," Book I. chap. v., and Appendix B on the Old Testament in the New.

constitute an extraordinary era, and introduce an immense rise in the divine economy, prophecy might, and actually did, contain a considerable variety of particulars which were capable of receiving a plain and palpable verification.

SECTION V.

Third Peculiarity of the Prophetic Style and Diction—the Exhibition of Events as Present, or Successive only in Relation to each other, rather than as linked to definite Historical Epochs.

THE scenical nature of the mode in which prophetic revelations were given, naturally brought along with it this additional peculiarity. The prophet was in spirit transported into the midst of the representations which emblematically unfolded the coming future, and depicted them as they passed in vision before the eye of his mind. Some of these, as in a picture or panoramic exhibition, might appear nearer, others more remote; one series of actions might be seen to terminate and another to begin; but they must have been continuously present to the prophet, or have stood related to each other as successive operations in the same line of things. "The prophets," says Crusius, "by the divine light which illuminated them, for the most part beheld things to come much as we look upon a starry sky. For, while we see the stars above us, we are incapable of rightly discerning at how great a distance they are from us, or which are nearer, and which more remote." So also, Bishop Horsley, in the main correctly, though not without a certain tendency to excess, "If you have observed, that this is the constant style of prophecy-that when a long train of distant events are predicted, rising naturally in succession one out of another, and all tending to one great end, the whole time of these events is never set out in parcels, by assigning the distinct

epoch in each; but the whole is usually described as an instant -as what it is in the sight of God; and the whole train is exhibited in one scene without any marks of succession: if you consider that prophecy, were it more regularly arranged, and digested in chronological order, would be an anticipated history of the world, which would in a great measure defeat the very end of prophecy-which is to demonstrate the weakness and ignorance of man, as well as the sovereignty and universal rule of Providence: if you take these things into consideration, you will, perhaps, be inclined to think, that they may best interpret the ancient prophecies concerning the Messiah, who refer to two different and distant times, as two distinct events, His coming to make reconciliation for iniquity, and His coming to cut off the incorrigibly wicked."

The tendency to excess in this passage betrays itself chiefly in the application made of the principle at the close. For, if that application were altogether correct, it might seem as if there were not only an indistinctness, as to time, in the prophetic delineations, but an absolute confusion-a juxtaposition of things in the prophecy, such as could scarcely fail to beget a false expectation in regard to the historical fulfilment. If Malachi, for example, at the beginning of chap. iii., on which Bishop Horsley more immediately grounds his remarks, had described the first coming of the Messiah, and then instantly started off to what was to take place at His second coming, we are at a loss to see how the prophecy could have been of any service in bearing testimony to the claims of Jesus. For, in such a case, the question must instantly have arisen, why should the results specified have stood so entirely disjoined in fact from the coming, with which they are prophetically associated? One can easily conceive, that the results indicated may not have been accomplished at once, or may have received nothing more than an initiatory accomplishment at the period of the first advent; but to have conjoined with this advent

1 Works, vol. i., p. 83.

results, which were not to come then into operation at all, nor till another advent separated from it by the distance of centuries, must inevitably have tended to give rise to false anticipations beforehand, and created afterwards a most embarrassing perplexity. It was not necessary, however-and here lay the ground of Horsley's partial misapprehension-that the first coming of the Messiah should always be specially connected with the work of reconciliation, as if that were its only object, and as if the first coming were to have nothing in common with the second. There was to be, in many respects, a fundamental agreement between them; and, in particular, the work of judgment, which is to have its consummation at the second, began also to take effect at the period of the first coming. It is true, that the more immediate and ostensible purpose, for which our Lord came into the world, was not to condemn, but to save it. Yet he himself testifies, "For judgment am I come into this world, that they which see not might see, and that they which see might be made blind." So, even at the period of his birth it had been announced by the aged Simeon, when he said, "This child is set for the fall and for the rising again of many in Israel;" and again by the Baptist, when he spoke of the coming Saviour as one "whose fan was in his hand, and he would thoroughly purge his floor," or, shifting the image, "who would lay the axe to the root of the tree." Indeed, the work of judgment is inseparable from the manifestation of the truth; when the one is brought to bear upon the hearts and consciences of men, the other infallibly takes effect upon their condition. And, therefore, in the prophecy of Malachi respecting the coming of the Lord, there is no need for any formal separation between what is designated the first and the second advent; the judicial procedure, with which it is associated, belongs to the one as well as to the other; only, in the first, there was necessarily a reserve and a limit in its operations, while in the second it will be complete and final.

It is a relative merely, not a total, disregard of time that was proper to the scenical representations of prophecy. An exact

There is a

Hence the

and detailed chronological order was incompatible with its nature, yet not such an order as might be sufficient to mark the comparative distance or progression of events. perspective also in the delineations of prophecy. language of Balaam, "I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not nigh" (Numb. xxiv. 17). A glorious personage rose upon his view, but one descried as at a remote point on the field of vision, because not to appear for ages to come on the theatre of the world's history. Hence, also, Daniel's successive monarchies; successive, and yet in a manner co-existent, for only with the establishment of the last do the others seem finally to disappear. More commonly, however, the description of the future is presented in a kind of continuity-exhibited under some particular phase, and in that carried onwards to its proper consummation. Thus, in the prophecy of Isaiah, respecting Babylon, noticed in the preceding section, the whole drama of her coming downfal and ruin is set forth in an unbroken delineation, which in one rapid sketch embraces the history of ages, and connects with the first stroke of vengeance inflicted by the Medes the last sad proofs of her prostrate condition. A representation, precisely similar, is given by Jeremiah respecting the same proud city (chap. 1. and li.); and by Ezekiel respecting Tyre, Egypt, and Assyria (chap. xxvi.-xxxii.) Many, also, of the prophecies respecting Christ and His times possess the same character; they comprise the entire outline of the history in the particular aspect or class of relations under which they present it. Striking examples of this are to be found in such Psalms as the ii., xlv., lxxii., cx., or in the eleventh chapter of Isaiah, where, after having depicted, in the chapter preceding, the discomfiture and overthrow of the Assyrian power, which was then the peculiar rival and enemy of the kingdom of God, the prophet breaks forth into the description of a new and very different scene in the land of the covenant. This scene began with the appearance as of a tender shoot out of the decayed stem of Jesse, by which, beyond doubt, is to be understood the Messiah in His original humiliation and outward littleness.