God. This work, in its gradual progress to the consummation, has its successive stages, through which it has passed or has yet to pass; and it rests for its accomplishment upon another purpose that of the incarnation. God assumes human nature in order to raise man to a participation of the divine. The incarnation thus becomes the central point in human history, as it is the hinge on which the destinies of the world are suspended. All things converge to bring it about, that its effects may then diverge over the earth. Every thing is bent first to prepare the way for the coming of the Son of God, as that which shall provide salvation and spread it over all mankind. His coming, as the salvation which he effects, is not a thing by itself, unlooked for, with no previous preparation, and nothing to induce it, flashing suddenly and unaccountably upon the world as a meteoric phenomenon, but the end of a long process, the termination of a series which had it from the first in view, and was framing its steady progress towards its accomplishment. This is no mere growth of nature, no product of natural causes, either acting of themselves or under superior control. The result is due to God's almighty agency, yet not exerting itself in the way of some sudden unexplained intervention of bare omnipotence, but gradually maturing the fruit, whose seeds had ages before been cast into the soil of human history. This, which was true of the history of the world in general before the advent, was true in a very special manner of that portion of the race which was under particular divine conduct with reference to this very thing, which was made the depository of divine revelation, and from the midst of which the salvation of the world was to go forth. The incarnation of the Son of God with a view to the salvation of man is thus made the capstone of the Old Testament pyramid, the apex towards which all was converging; and as each successive course was laid from the foundation up, it was so placed as to indicate what the whole would be when completed, and to awaken the anticipation of what was yet to come. In this sense, the whole of that history is predictive of the future. It bears in itself the evidences of a plan, unfinished indeed, but so regular in its structure, and so evident in its design, that from any stage whatever of its advancement there may be derived data sufficient on which to base a conception more or less accurate of the whole.

Now, this plan of God, not left for human sagacity to discover and figure out, but revealed, and under such gracious superintendence as secures that it shall not be ultimately defeated, but be ever advancing to its accomplishment, renders sacred history, which is the field of its development, predictive in two ways-both from its positive and its negative side, both by rea

son of its possessions and its needs, what has been gained and what is still lacking, what it has and what it has not.

This plan is furthered to its completion not so much by aggregation, like the successive courses of a building, as by what more resembles an organic development; not so much by superposition from without as by an unfolding from within. That is from the first given to man in embryo which is destined for him in its perfection. At any period in this progress, then, what is possessed is nothing for itself; it is not the end, but only a step towards the end, and as such a sign of what is yet to come. It has ever in it the germ of a succeeding future, waiting for its season to be unfolded. Just as the seed reveals to the observer the future plant wrapped up in itself, or as the bud holds in it the flower, and the flower the fruit, and this again is but the seed of a new growth, so each stage of the history has that in it which marks it as preparatory to a succeeding stage-that which it would not have were it the end beyond which nothing is to be looked for. Each fresh advance grows out of that last preceding, and is itself prognostic of the next.

The negative side of the sacred history is equally predictive with the positive. A perfect Saviour and a complete salvation is the end designed. It is only necessary, therefore, that a deficiency or a want should make itself felt, in order to furnish an indication of something to be provided as its supply. The partial is predictive of the complete, the limited of the universal. Every thing imperfect, every felt necessity which is not as yet adequately met, reveals a new constituent which will be required to make up that which is to come, in which there shall be no imperfection.

While, however, all the history is thus tending to its ultimate goal, and is everywhere predictive of it, it is not so equally in every part. It does not flow with a steady, uniform current throughout; but there are premonitions of the sublime cataract, in which it is to have its issue, in the many antecedent waterfalls scattered along its course. Before it reaches the end it passes through several crises, as it were, in which the characteristics of the end come more evidently out, are brought more prominently into view; which are in a more eminent sense preliminary, a foreshadowing of what is yet to come. As in climbing a mountain we rise by a succession of steep ascents, followed by a level space or even slight declivities, each of these ascents being in brief what the mountain is on a grander scale; so in the history we find some characters and some events, in which He, for whose coming all is a preparation, is more plainly imaged forth. While all is typical, these are types par excellence. It is as though the history were a living thing, and were

endowed with an instinctive struggling to bring forth the like of that which is its grand and ultimate product. Abraham, David, Solomon, clearly foreshadowed Christ, and the period of the Exodus overflowed with typical references to him; while in other men and other times the prediction was often faint.

The preparation which was going forward on Old Testament ground for the coming down of God into the flesh had both its divine and its human factors. The plan was of God, the efficiency was of God; yet its unfolding was to take place upon the arena of human history, the product in a measure of the free agency of man. Hence the possibility of an abnormal as well as of a normal development. The plan being of God, could not be endangered as to its ultimate success; yet for a season, through the culpability of man, it might seem to stand still, or even to go backward, and there be nothing to point to the destined end. The men to whom the process was confided might betray their trust; and for that season the type would go wholly out in darkness. Only those who act the part assigned them, and in some good measure correspond to the ideal pattern of what they ought to be, are predictive, and only in so far as they do this are they predictive. All the rest are excrescences on the plant, not part of its natural healthy growth, not belonging properly to it. Thus the kings of the theocracy as a whole are emblems of Messiah the Prince; but among those kings, pious princes, such as David and Hezekiah, are to be reckoned specific types of Christ, while in wicked princes, such as Ahaz and Jehoiachin, the type is almost, if not quite obscured. Solomon reigning righteously is predictive of Christ, but not Solomon building high places for the abominations of the heathen.

That this development, which God is conducting amongst men, may not be, on the one hand, as respects them, a violent or an unconscious one, but that they may be free, intelligent, and responsible actors in it; and that it may, on the other hand, be raised above all possibility of failure through their ignorance or perverseness, two things were necessary-they must be enlightened, and they must be controlled.

In the first place, they amongst whom this plan is unfolding must be made acquainted with the end toward which all is tending, and with the place which each advance, as it is made, holds in the general scheme. The plan did not originate with them. The grace and wisdom of God projected it. It is not any thing springing from them, but solely the presence of God in the history, which renders it predictive. As a general rule, men never understand their own age; much less could they detect this supernatural plan, and discover its real nature, unless it were revealed to them from heaven. This revelation

is the aim of prophecy. It is addressed to them who live when it is spoken, for their benefit, to solve the problem of their own times, to make known their present duty, to give them the encouragement, the consolation, the warning, the direction they require. Hence, with this as its task, prophecy cannot reveal every thing at once, nor every thing indiscriminately. It would be out of place, useless, and injurious; would retard instead of furthering the development, or shape it out of due proportion. Merely to give a proof of the divine omniscience. to future generations, or to authenticate the claims of the Messiah when he should come, is not its aim. The Messiah had independent testimonials in himself sufficient to convince; and it would be strange if so large a part of divine revelation were intended to be a sealed book, and answer no valuable end for centuries after it was communicated. It was intended primarily and mainly for the prophet's contemporaries; and that not with the view of gratifying a vain curiosity in its passion to pry into the future, but to throw light upon the present, and to set it in its true relation to what is yet to come. It draws its lessons of duty, encouragement, or warning, from the whole plan of God, that which remains to be unfolded as well as that which has been unfolded already; yet only such lessons as are appropriate to the present. Consequently, though without being absolutely bound to this, it yet prevailingly looks upon the future as it is the product of the present, sees it through the medium of the present. What prophecy shall disclose is not a question as to the extent of God's omniscience, but as to man's capacities and wants. The language of the Saviour regarding his own teachings is equally applicable to the teachings of his Spirit, as he spoke by the prophets. "I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." He spake as they were able to receive it. Every thing in its proper place, order, and measure, is the universal law of the divine procedure and distribution. The plant is not created before there is a soil in which it may root itself; nor does the fruit attach itself to the stem until the bud and the blossom have first preceded it. God might have revealed to Adam (whatever infidels may say to the contrary) every event that has ever occurred, or is yet to occur, upon this world's surface. But prophecy would thus be degraded to mere soothsaying. And is it not apparent that such random, uncalled-for predictions, having only the doubtful merit of disclosing a distant future, but with no particular end in view, and of no particular use to the times when it was made known, would have been vastly inferior to the wisdom and goodness of that system of disclosure which pervades the prophecies, by which the present is made the mirror of the future, and the future is made to educate the present?

Thus is produced what may be called an organic connection of the Old Testament prophecy and its history. One grows with the other, and they are inseparably entwined together. As the plan of God in the history advances to its completion, prophecy is unfolded with a corresponding ratio. At the outset its announcements are made chiefly in general outlines, then become gradually more full and distinct. With every fresh want that makes itself felt, prophecy draws a new trait in the coming Saviour by which that want shall be supplied. With every image of the future good which the grace of God brings into the history, prophecy points again at the great Original, of whom this is the imperfect foreshadowing. To anticipate the progress of the history, and hold Him up as a remedy for evils which had never yet been experienced, or to describe him by images which have no type in the present, and no significancy, no felt reality for it, would be unseasonable and unwise. At each point of time, what the people needed to know just then was revealed to them; future necessities were left to be supplied as they should arise. A prophecy which was required by the condition of things in the time of Isaiah, would have been wholly out of place delivered to Abraham. Prophecy has thus its historic aspect, as the history has its prophetic aspect. They are closely linked in together, and correspond ever in their advances; the prophecy keeping pace with the history as its interpreter, or outrunning it as its guide.

Such was the end to be answered by one of the divine functions of the sacred history-one of the modes in which God interfered to conduct it to its destined end. Prophecy was to enlighten man. It has been already said that in order to prevent failure and insure a happy issue, it was needful that man, though free and acting freely, should nevertheless be controlled. This required another mode of divine interference, and introduces a new divine function into the history. God dwells indeed in all history, conducting it to the end which he has purposed shall be accomplished by it. But the history of that people among whom the salvation of the race was to unfold itself, he pervaded in a very especial manner. The purposed result was not one of natural ability but of divine grace. Left to the conduct of men, there would have been a perpetual degeneracy and a certain failure. There was needed, therefore, constant strengthening and correction from above to set it right, and keep it so, and push it forward to completion. God not merely presided over it, superintending, directing, overruling, but was ever in it, pervading, vivifying it by his sovereign almighty agency, and ensuring that the result should be brought about. This supernatural agency of God in the Old Testament history is more or less distinct according to circum