THE THEOLOGICAL REVIEW: A JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT AND LIFE. "Our fathers worshiped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is "The hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jeru- WILLIAMS & NORGATE, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, MANCHESTER: JOHNSON & RAWSON, 89, MARKET STREET. 1866. THE THEOLOGICAL REVIEW. No. XII. JANUARY, 1866. I-THE PROPHET ISAIAH. WE once heard the present Bishop of Salisbury preach, in his own cathedral, from a text in the thirty-fifth chapter of Isaiah. The sermon would by many have been termed eloquent, being well composed, and delivered with the due intermixture of emphasis and earnestness. It was, in substance, an exposition of the supposed evangelical purport of that beautiful chapter. The preacher took it for granted throughout that the burden of the prophecy is the coming of Christ and the spiritual glories of his kingdom-in accordance, of course, with the interpretation so conveniently at hand for episcopal use in the heading of the chapter, as it stands in an ordinary English Bible. The literal, or historical, meaning of the words, as an exalted poetical description of the return home of the captive Jews from Babylon, seemed to have no interest, or no existence, for the bishop, even if it were at all glanced at, as a sort of primary and carnal sense, altogether unworthy to be thought of now. For us Christians, the whole is simply a prophecy, plainly worded too, of the future triumphs of the gospel-nothing more, and nothing less. The discourse was, in short, such as did not fail to excite the surprise of one, at least, of the audience. We could not help wondering whether the time would ever come, when those who profess to hold the Bible in reverence as the inspired word of God would take the trouble to ascertain its meaning before standing up to teach the people from it; and whether the people themselves would always look up, with such patient, respectful defer |