During the same interview, our blessed Lord speaks to his disciples these remarkable words: "Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory?" His resurrection was but the first step to that glory. Neither was his ascension the crowning stroke thereof, though it set a scal to that great mystery of godliness, "God manifest in the flesh." These, His resurrection and ascension, as well as His adorable high-priesthood and precious intercession for us, are but means to an end-are but steps to the consummation of His promised glory. Which consummation may be summed up in the words, "that He may present you perfect before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy" saying, "Behold I and the children which God hath given me." (Heb. ii. 13.) The heavens must receive Him till, and therefore in order to, the "restitution of all things" (Acts iii. 12); a promise which comprehends the full restoration of all things in their due order; and so a complete deliverance of the regenerate from sin and misery. He was crowned with glory and honour, as He is the Captain of our salvation (Heb. ii. 9); so that this glory is not possessed by Him merely for Himself, for He was glorious in His Deity before; but that He might communicate it to our nature. And then shall His glory be at its meridian height; when He comes to be glorified in His saints. (2 Thess. i. 10.) When, therefore, our Lord expounded to the two disciples from their own prophets the things concerning Himself, in the same prophets must have been found those things connected with the crowning height of His glory. Bishop Horsley was therefore guilty of no exaggeration in asserting that "a far greater proportion of the prophecies even of the Old Testament, than is generally supposed, relate to the second advent of our Lord; that few comparatively relate to the first advent by itself without reference to the second; and that of those supposed to be accomplished in the first, many had therein only an inchoate accomplishment; and have yet to receive their full completion." But how is the general reader to find a key to the complications of this subject, when within a few verses, nay, sometimes within one verse, is comprehended actions which embrace so great a divergence in their time and character? The key has been found, and offered to our acceptance; but it is too often laid aside and forgotten.

Faber remarks

"Between chronological aad unchronological prophecies there is a striking difference, which should always be kept in mind. A chronological prophecy is incapable, from its very nature, of receiving a twofold accomplishment; because it is simply an anticipated history. But a prophecy which only predicts certain future events, without specifying the precise time when these events will come to pass, or so connecting them with any preceding series as to compel us to assign them a particular era, is not restrained in the same manner.

Vol. 59.-No. 276.

We perpetually find predictions of

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this nature evidently constructed with the express design of receiving a double accomplishment. This is remarkably the case with prophecies which treat of the restoration of the Jews, and the advent of the Messiah."

He then instances those predictions which received a sort of inchoate accomplishment in the return of the Jews from Babylon; but many of which, from the elevation of their style, and from other circumstances connected with them, must ultimately be referred to the yet future restoration of Israel from all the countries whither they have been scattered.

"This typical mode of foretelling future events very materially affects the phraseology of prophecy. At the era of the restoration of Judah, some great confederacy of God's enemies will be destroyed. This confederacy is variously pointed out by the prophets under the mystic names of the several ancient enemies and oppressors of the house of Israel. Sometimes it is styled Babylon; sometimes Nineveh; sometimes Tyre; but most frequently Edom. The literal Babylon was indeed destroyed at the era of the first restoration; but this was not the case with either Nineveh, Tyre, or Edom; and yet, since they have all long since been overthrown, it is manifest that none of them can literally experience the vengeance of heaven at the yet future era of the second restoration. Hence it is plain that some mystical Nineveh, Tyre, and Edom, can alone be intended. This single circumstance—the close connection of their overthrow with the bringing home of Israel—will be enough to teach the commentator whether in any particular prophecy he ought to understand these names literally, or whether he is warranted in looking beyond their literal to their mystical import."

In proof of the importance of a more accurate acquaintance with Old Testament prophecy, we would allude to certain remarks in the essay of Dr. Rowland Williams, one of the contributors to the Oxford Essays and Reviews, as commented upon in the Christian Observer for June, page 382. He there objects to arguments drawn from the prophets as to the birth and character of our Saviour, because they contain notices of persons and places whom we know to have been contemporaneous with ancient Israel. "If," says he, "we should quote Micah, as designating Bethlehem for the birthplace of the Messiah, we cannot shut our eyes to the fact, that the Deliverer to come from thence was to be a contemporary shield against the Assyrian." In reply to this remark, we will quote the whole passage from Micah, with Faber's commentary:

"But thou Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. Therefore will He give them up until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth; then the remnant of His brethren shall return unto the children of Israel.... And this man shall be the peace when the Assyrian shall come into our land; and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven shep

herds, and eight principal men. And they shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nineveh in the entrances thereof: thus shall He deliver us from the Assyrian, when He cometh into our land, and when He treadeth within our borders.' The prophet here foretells that although the goings forth of the Messiah have been from everlasting, the place of His earthly nativity should be the small town of Bethlehem. The Divine Ruler cometh to His own, and His own receive Him not. Therefore will He give them up to be led away captive by their enemies, till the time when the daughter of Zion shall travail and bring forth a whole nation at once; or till that mystic birth of the restored Jewish people shall take place, which the prophet had already announced. Then shall the remnant of Christ's brethren according to the flesh return unto the children of Israel, and form with them only one nation. Their once rejected Messiah shall be their king; and shall feed His flock in the strength of the Lord. He however will be revealed, not only to be peace unto His people, but likewise to be a terror unto His enemies. When the mystic Assyrian, the Antichristian head of the Roman Babylon, shall enter into the land of Palestine; when He shall plant the curtains of His tents between the seas, in the glorious holy mountain: then will the Lord go forth in His anger, and deliver His chosen from the hand of their oppressor; then shall the wilful king come to his end, and none shall be able to help him. The tyrant of Babylon that shook whole kingdoms, and made the world a wilderness, shall in his turn feel the avenging arm of God. For the Lord will surely break the Assyrian in his land, and upon the mountains of Israel tread him under foot; so that his yoke shall depart from off the sons of Jacob, and his burden from off their shoulders.'

Let us only enlarge our prophetical sympathies, and enter into frank and true fellowship with those holy men of the Old Testament who prophesied of the grace that should come unto us; Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand of the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow.” (1 Peter i. 11.) This His glory is not yet manifested: He is from henceforth expecting till His enemies be made His footstool;" when it shall be openly showed in the deliverance of His universal church from all her enemies. When "we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness." And where is the development of this promise to be found, but "in all His holy prophets which have been since the world began."

Were we but half as diligent in deciphering the typical places and mystical names in the ancient prophets, as our men of science have been in investigating the puzzling inscriptions of Ancient Egypt and Assyria, we should by degrees find ourselves able to read with astonishing plainness the outlines of the events foretold. And surely such investigation cannot be deemed premature; seeing the matters in question are those which must certainly follow upon the drying up of the Euphrates: whereof every tyro

knows the application to the Turkish empire. Even worldly men have of late been roused to a consideration of these subjects, and have acknowledged that we may look to a few short years as being perhaps "the close of the world's long working week, and the era of its magnificent and long predicted millennial rest." [See School of the Prophets.] These prophetic problems will doubtless be found much less difficult than the unravelling of the cuneiform inscriptions, of which it is affirmed there are no fewer than 400 distinct characters in those of Assyria alone. We need only compare the New Testament with the Old-Paul and Peter and John, with Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel-and we shall no longer turn coldly from the subject with the palpable excuse, “I am not learned;" or, "This is a sealed book."

With this key in our hand, then,-viz. the close connection of the overthrow of some great adversary, with the permanent settlement of the house of Israel in their own land,-let us examine the leading points of that most remarkable chapter of Isaiah, the fourteenth. The first three verses, without any doubt, describe the yet future restoration of Israel. "For the Lord will have mercy on Judah and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land; and the strangers shall be joined unto them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob. And the people shall take them, and bring them to their place: and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the Lord for servants and handmaids: and they shall take them captive whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors." (v. 3.) From the fourth to the twentyfourth verse inclusive, we find a proverb or taunting speech against the king of Babylon; who appears to be the chief enemy and oppressor of Israel to the very last. Who, then, is this king of Babylon is the designation a literal or a mystical one? know that Babylon, used prophetically, is a name of mystery; we believe it to designate the head of the fourth empire upon earth, i.e. the Roman. "It is revealed that four empires only are to appear in succession, and then the everlasting reign of Messiah will begin." (Birks.) "Four only are announced by name in the word of God, from the time of Daniel to the close of the sacred canon." (Idem.)

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We come next to what is spoken of this king; and highly metaphorical as the description is, Scripture itself will furnish us with the master key; and lead us to turn our expectations towards literal matters of fact.

We find this king of Babylon addressed as the "day-star, son of the morning," who, having fallen from his place, does now again aspire to a similar domination; and says in his heart,—"I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds ; I will be like the most High." (v. 13, 14.) Let us examine

the symbolical meaning of the word heaven. "And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." (Rev. xii. 1, 2.) This woman, by universal consent, symbolizes a church; but as there can be no travail, whether literal or spiritual, in either the atmospheric, the starry, or the third heaven, the heaven where the woman was seen must indicate the place of ecclesiastical rule. Next, the stars of God: do they not answer to the stars in Christ's right hand, of St. John's vision, interpreted by our Lord Himself as the angels or bishops of the churches? The expression, the sides of the north, is already appropriated to the chosen hill of God: "Mount Zion, in the sides of the north, the city of the great king." (Ps. xlviii. 2.)

We have here, then, the exhibition of a power destined to be overthrown in Palestine, in the midst of some impiously daring career. Faber, writing on this subject in the year 1808, thought he recognized in this description the prophetic picture of the first Napoleon, then aiming at universal empire, and exercising an undoubted sway over the European princes: in other words, having made himself the secular Head of the ten horns or kings. But the description seems much more applicable to a power aiming at universal dominion in the church of God-backed, of course, by the secular arm. Such a one might well say, The vicegerency of heaven is my rightful throne, and I will exalt it above the stars of God (above all that call themselves bishops or angels of the churches): and I will seat myself on the "Mount of the congregation;" displacing those whom I anathematize as contumaciously heretical. That the self-styled vicar of Christ, or his representative the priesthood, will be found in that region and in confederacy with the enemies of Christ, we have the testimony of Revelation, xix. 20.

In his "Letters on Isaiah," the well known bishop Horsley has this remark: "God, who all this time regards that dwelling place which he never will abandon, and is at all times directing the events of the world to the accomplishment of his own purposes of wisdom and mercy-immediately before the final gathering of his elect-will purify His church by such signal judgments as shall arouse the attention of the whole world." He adds, "At this period the apostate faction will occupy the Holy Land. This faction will certainly be an instrument of those judgments by which the church is to be purified. But after such duration as God shall see fit to allow this power, the Jews, converted to the faith of Christ, will be unexpectedly restored to their ancient possessions." In Horsley's time, and even when Faber wrote, Palestine might be designated "The land that is very far off;" still further from our business and bosoms, than from our island shores. But wonderful is the change since those days! Syria