which may be clearly traced in the writings of Moses, David, and Isaiah. That view of the Mosaic dispensation which regards this Jewish bigotry as its genuine spirit is demonstrably a false one. The true spirit of the old economy was not indeed a latitudinarian indifference to its institutions, or a premature anticipation of a state of things still future. It was scrupulously faithful even to the temporary institutions of the ancient church; but while it looked upon them as obligatory, it did not look upon them as perpetual. It obeyed the present requisitions of Jehovah, but still looked forward to something better. Hence the failure to account, on any other supposition, for the seeming contradictions of the Old Testament, in reference to the ceremonies of the Law. If worthless, why were they so conscientiously observed by the best and wisest men? If intrinsically valuable, why are they disparaged and almost repudiated by the same men? Simply because they were neither worthless nor intrinsically valuable, but appointed temporary signs of something to be otherwise revealed thereafter; so that it was equally impious and foolish to reject them altogether with the skeptic, and to rest in them forever with the formalist.

It is no less true, and for exactly the same reason, that the genuine spirit of the old economy was equally adverse to all religious mixture with the heathen or renunciation of the Jewish privileges on one hand, and to all contracted national conceit and hatred of the gentiles on the other. Yet both these forms of error had become fixed in the Jewish creed and character long before the days of Hezekiah. That they were not universal even then, we have abundant proof in the Old Testament. Even in the worst of times, there is reason to believe that a portion of the people held fast to the true doctrine and the true spirit of the extraordinary system under which they lived. How large this more enlightened party was at any time, and to how small a remnant it was ever reduced, we have not the means of ascertaining; but we know that it was always in

existence, and that it constituted the true Israel, the real church of the Old Testament.

To this class the corruption of the general body must have been a cause not only of sorrow but of apprehension; and if express prophetic threatenings had been wanting, they could scarcely fail to anticipate the punishment and even the rejection of their nation. But in this anticipation they were themselves liable to error. Their associations were so intimately blended with the institutions under which they lived, that they must have found it hard to separate the idea of Israel as a church from that of Israel as a nation; a difficulty similar in kind, however different in degree, from that which we experience in forming a conception of the continued existence of the soul without the body. And as all men, in the latter case, however fully they may be persuaded of the separate existence of the spirit and of its future disembodied state, habitually speak of it in terms strictly applicable only to its present state; so the ancient saints, however strong their faith, were under the necessity of framing their conceptions, as to future things, upon the model of those present; and the imperceptible extension of this process beyond the limits of necessity would naturally tend to generate errors not of form merely but of substance. Among these we may readily suppose to have had place the idea that, as Israel had been unfaithful to its trust, and was to be rejected, the Church or People of God must as a body share the same fate; or in other words, that if the national Israel perished, the spiritual Israel must perish with it, at least so far as to be disorganized and resolved into its elements.

The same confusion of ideas still exists among the uninstructed classes, and to some extent among the more enlightened also, in those countries where the Church has for ages been a national establishment, and scarcely known in any other form; as, for instance, in Sweden and Norway among Protestants, or in Spain and Portugal among Papists. To the most devout

in such communities the downfall of the hierarchical establishment seems perfectly identical with the extinction of the church; and nothing but a long course of instruction, and perhaps experience, could enable them to form the idea of a disembodied unestablished Christian church. If such mistakes are possible and real even now, we have little reason either to dispute their existence or to wonder at it, under the complicated forms and in the imperfect light of the Mosaic dispensation. It is not only credible but altogether natural, that even true believers, unassisted by a special revelation, should have shunned the extreme of looking upon Israel's pre-eminence among the pations as original and perpetual, only by verging towards the opposite error of supposing that the downfall of the nation would involve the abolition of the church, and human unbelief defeat the purposes and make void the promises of God.

Here then are several distinct but cognate forms of error, which.appear to have gained currency among the Jews before the time of Hezekiah, in relation to the two great distinctive features of their national condition, the ceremonial law and their seclusion from the gentiles. Upon each of these points there were two shades of opinion entertained by very different classes. The Mosaic ceremonies were with some a pretext for idolatrous observances, while others rested in them, not as types or symbols, but as efficacious means of expiation. The pre-eminence of Israel was by some regarded as perpetual, while others apprehended in its termination the extinction of the church itself. These various forms of error might be variously combined and modified in different cases, and their general result must of course have contributed largely to determine the character of the church and nation.

It was not, perhaps, until these errors had begun to take a definite and settled form among the people, that the Prophets, who had hitherto confined themselves to oral instruction or historical composition, were directed to utter and record for

constant use discourses meant to be corrective or condemnatory of these dangerous perversions. This may at least be regarded as a plausible solution of the fact that prophetic writing in the strict sense became so much more abundant in the later days of the Old Testament history. Of these prophetic writings, still preserved in our canon, there is scarcely any part which has not a perceptible and direct bearing on the state of feeling and opinion which has been described. This is emphatically true of Isaiah's earlier prophecies, which, though so various in form, are all adapted to correct the errors in question, or to establish the antagonistic truths. This general design of the predictions might be so used as to throw new light upon their exposition, by connecting it more closely with the prevalent errors of the ancient church than was attempted in the other volume. Guided even by this vague suggestion, an attentive reader will be able for the most part to determine with respect to each successive portion whether it was specially intended to rebuke idolatry, to rectify the errors of the formalist in reference to the ceremonial system, to bring down the arrogance of a mistaken nationality, or to console the true believer by assuring him that though the carnal Israel should perish, the true Israel must endure forever.

But although this purpose may be traced, to some extent, in all the prophecies, it is natural to suppose that some part of the canon would be occupied with a direct, extensive, and continuous exhibition of the truth upon a subject so momentous; and the date of such a prophecy could scarcely be assigned to any other period so naturally as to that which has been specified, the reign of Hezekiah, when all the various forms of error and corruption. which had successively prevailed were co-existent, when idolatry, although suppressed by law, was still openly or secretly practised, and in many cases superseded only by a hypocritical formality and ritual religion, attended by an overweening sense of the national pre-eminence of Israel, from which even the

most godly seem to have found refuge in despondent fears and skeptical misgivings. At such a time, when the theocracy had long since reached and passed its zenith, and a series of providential shocks, with intervals of brief repose, had already begun to loosen the foundations of the old economy in preparation for its ultimate removal,-such a discourse as that supposed must have been eminently seasonable, if not absolutely needed, to rebuke sin, correct error, and sustain the hopes of true believers. It was equally important, nay, essential to the great end of the temporary system, that the way for its final abrogation should be gradually prepared, and that in the meantime it should be maintained in constant operation.

If the circumstances of the times which have been stated are enough to make it probable that such a revelation would be given, they will also aid us in determining beforehand, not in detail but in the general, its form and character. The historical occasion and the end proposed would naturally lead us to expect in such a book the simultaneous or alternate presentation of a few great leading truths, perhaps with accompanying futation of the adverse errors, and with such reproofs, remonstrances and exhortations, promises and threatenings, as the condition of the people springing from these errors might require, not only at the date of the prediction but in later times. In executing this design the Prophet might have been expected to pursue a method more rhetorical than logical, and to enforce his doctrine not so much by dry didactic statements as by animated argument combined with earnest exhortation, passionate appeals, poetical apostrophes, impressive repetitions, and illustrations drawn both from the ancient and the later history of Israel. In fine, from what has been already said, it follows that the doctrines, which would naturally constitute the staple of the prophecy in such a case, are those relating to the true design of Israel's vocation and seclusion from the gentiles, and ofe ceremonial institutions under which he was in honourable bon