cies, as if the precious extract of warning and counsel had been separated and passed away, were thrust down to a place of secondary importance. And hence a natural tendency to transfer as many predictions as possible into the class of unaccomplished prophecies, which might thus be still available for the guidance of the Church.

Such appears to have been the hidden main-spring of the new school of interpretation. From this source it has drawn whatever show of spiritual vitality it may have possessed. To expose, then, the separate errors, or deplorable rashness to which it has led, is not enough, unless we remove this main fallacy, and break this charmed talisman, by which the shadowy structure has been reared into the semblance of truth. And this cannot be done while we confine our view simply to the lower objects of prophecy. Fresh evidence of truths already known and believed will never appear so momentous as insight into the coming dangers and deliverances of the Church. We must rise higher, and take a larger range of thought, before the balance can be restored, and fulfilled prophecy appear equally profitable as the unfulfilled, for the great ends of doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness. But when once we rise into the nobler view of these sacred visions, we lose sight of the changeful boundary line which separates at each moment the past from the future, and we see all to be alike glorious with the manifested wisdom and love of the unchangeable God, "who was, and is, and is to come, the Almighty." Let us endeavour, then, to trace some of the practical benefits to be derived from the fulfilled prophecies, in those parts which have already passed under our review.

There

First in order of thought, though not first in importance, is their use as evidence of revealed truth. was once, perhaps, a tendency to dwell on this purpose,

to the exclusion of all the rest; now there seems an opposite danger of forgetting it entirely, or greatly undervaluing its worth. The Christian who is himself thoroughly established in the faith of Christ may naturally deem all fresh evidence superfluous. But this would be a partial and selfish view of the whole subject. We might here appeal to the concessions of these writers themselves. They affirm, almost with one consent, their expectation of a speedy and vast eruption of open infidelity, in times near at hand. With such a prospect in view, how can it be safe, or lawful, to neglect one help, whether great or small, which has been provided to strengthen and confirm the faith of the Church? The evidence of daily miracles it has pleased God, for wise reasons, to withhold for many ages. The highest and deepest proof of Christianity, drawn from the inward enjoyment and experience of its truths, is confined, in its very nature, to spiritual believers. The moral evidence, and the evidence of prophecy, are the proofs chiefly available for the conviction of the unbelieving. Whatever contracts either of these into a narrower compass, inflicts thus a serious injury on the cause of divine truth. It resembles the cursed policy of the Philistines, and robs the camp of Israel of their weapons of war. What though we ourselves may have bread enough and to spare, in that rich provision of evidence which God has made for his people!—there are thousands and millions who are still perishing, the present or anticipated prey of infidel delusions; and for their sakes the command applies to us—“Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost." The guilt cannot be small which would remove one stone from that complete arch of sacred evidence which God has reared to the glory of His prescient wisdom, in the fulfilled prophecies of His holy word.

Nor even with regard to Christians themselves is

this character of fulfilled prophecy to be neglected or despised. Their faith is not so full and strong but that it admits of large increase. In the sight of God and the blessed angels it is still only as a grain of mustard seed. And, therefore, every fresh proof of the divine foreknowledge, and of the inspiration of holy Scripture, is most profitable even for them. They need every link which may bind their hearts faster and closer to eternal things. And thus the fulfilment of God's prophecies, in the rise and fall of mighty empires, and in all the changes of the world's history through a thousand years, is a mighty help towards a more lively apprehension of every other message and doctrine of the word of God.

A further benefit, closely connected with the former, is the deeper and fuller impression of God's all-controlling providence. This doctrine, it is true, all Christians profess to believe; but its hold upon their thoughts is surprisingly faint. The truth overwhelms and oppresses us by its vastness. In the events of daily life, and even in the grand and public changes of the world's history, it is hard to rise into the apprehension of that ceaseless Providence, which orders all the varying plans and thoughts of men to the fulfilment of its own deep and wonderful counsels.

Now these fulfilled prophecies lend a great help to our thoughts in seeking to attain this holy and divine elevation. They reclaim the course of the world's history from that atheist darkness in which it would otherwise remain skírouded. They reveal to us the outlines of a divine plan, which gleams brightly upon our view amidst all the perplexing changes of time. We no longer seem to be living in a world left to itself, and forsaken by the divine presence. The Holy One appears visible to us in all the events of Providence, order

ing, directing, and controlling them, according to the counsel of His own will. History, otherwise a dark and cheerless ocean, becomes bright with the sunshine of the divine presence. The influence of these sacred visions, when digested in the soul by continued meditation, is like the brightness of the morning sunbeams spread over the wide landscape of human history, and we can enter into that song of praise, which forms their divine and beautiful preface—“ Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever, for wisdom and might are His. And He changeth the times and the seasons; He removeth kings and setteth up kings; He giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding. He revealeth the deep and secret things; He knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with Him."

It is difficult to estimate the full importance of these prophecies, viewed in this aspect alone. That human history, the main field where the worldly heart delights to expatiate, should be redeemed from the service of vanity and pride, and minister to the glory of God, and the spiritual instruction of the believer, is a benefit of no common kind. Perhaps there is nothing which would tend more to give stability to our faith, depth to our devotion, reverence to our worship, and intense reality to every truth of religion, than the habit of reading all the past events of time in the light of these sacred visions. The Church would thus attain a lively foretaste of that promised felicity, wherein God himself shall be all in all.

Another benefit of the same kind may be found in the sacred associations which are thus thrown around all the main objects of classical study and pursuit. The period from Cyrus the Great to the time of Augustus, Vespasian, and Titus, was the golden era of classical

learning. And this is just the period to which these fulfilled prophecies belong. All the main subjects, named and unfolded in the classic authors of Greece and Rome, here meet us in a new and sacred connexion. And since the diseased woman could say, "If I may but touch the hem of His garment, I shall be made whole," surely an effect, not unlike, must result from the contact of this new and sacred element with these truths of profane history. The conquests of Cyrus, and his appointment as the minister of vengeance on Babylon and mercy to Israel; the greatness of the three kings who succeeded him; the enormous wealth and vast expedition of Xerxes; the changing forms of the leopard dominion of Greece; the might, and victories, and rapid course of Alexander, and the divisions of his kingdom; the court of the Ptolemies, the abode of art and science; and the power and fall of Antiochus, are subjects which meet us everywhere in the standard authors of Greek and Roman literature. Now these are the facts which the prophecy here singles out for notice. And surely nothing else could be so effectual a cure for the moral taint which is so apt to infect the pursuit of classical learning, as this constant memorial, amidst the records of heathen history, and the triumphs of Grecian oratory, and the subtle and deep speculations of Athenian sages, that One was standing among them whom they knew not; and that the victories of Thermopyla and Marathon, and the minutest events in those proud triumphs of Greece and Rome, were revealed links in that mighty chain of events which was to prepare for the higher and nobler triumph of the everlasting kingdom of Christ.

It is not from a few passing sentences that the vast importance of this connexion can be fully seen. But when we think how large a share the events and the