him were there red horses, speckled, and white."* The progress of the vision clearly proves, -with the consent of all commentators-"the man"-here described, to be the Divine Word,-the Son of God. The prophet is attended by a subordinate angel, who interprets the secrets which are forth-shadowed, and who intercedes for Israel, long suffering under the evils of the captivity. He addresses "the man, who stood among the myrtle trees:"-but in what language ? "Then the angel of the Lord answered and said, "O Lord of Hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem, and on the cities of Judah, against which thou hast had indignation these threescore and ten years? And the Lord (JEHOVAH)– the man standing among the myrtle trees-answered the angel that talked with me with good words and comfortable words. So the angel that communed with me said unto me, "Cry thou, saying, Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, I am jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great jealousy. And I am sore displeased with the heathen, that are at ease; for Iwas but a little displeased, and they helped forward the affliction. Therefore thus saith the Lord; I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies; my house shall be built in it, saith the Lord of Hosts."

In the same strain is the whole series of his predictions written. They follow in regular order from this opening; without change either of person or style; and are of course subject to the same law of exposition. Under the sanction of this alliance with our subject, we reach the concluding acts of his ministerial office. As life advanced, the powers

* Zech. i. 7.

R

of his mind seem to have expanded, and his capacity for more open vision to have increased. It would be vain to seek, even in the pages of Isaiah himself, for more explicit manifestations of the Truth in Christ, than God has suffered him to reveal. Let one suffice. "The burden of the word of the Lord for Israel, saith the Lord, (JEHOVAH) which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him. Behold I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling to all the the people round about..... And in that day I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace, and of supplications; and they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son; and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born."*

The line of prophets is at length closed in the person of Malachi. The spirit of his predictions has issued forth in the same power and under a similar form to the revelations, which we have already brought under review. The light which sets at the eve of the prophetic day, is that which was shed brightly around its dawn; and which has guided us throughout our course, if not with an unvarying radiance, at least with sufficient clearness to discern the Almighty counsels in regard to man's Redeemer. We select a single passage, and close our extracts; merely stating that the opinion of Jew and Christian has ever been in favor of interpreting it of the Messiah. This consent is to a certain degree inevitable. It * Zech. xii. 1.

would be impossible with consistency to interpret it otherwise. The prophet speaks in the person of "the Lord of Hosts." "Behold I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord (Christ) whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in behold he shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts.... And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and against the adulterers. For I am the Lord. I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. Even from the days of your fathers, ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of Hosts."* Again we conclude with the frequent affirmation, that the Lord who spoke; who inspired the prophet; and who asserted thus his power-was Christ-the angel of the Jewish Covenant-the Son of God-the Saviour.

Now whether we are disposed to attribute to Jesus Christ the sole agency in the affairs of men since. the Fall; or whether it is our belief that Scripture bears not sufficient evidence of the fact; one truth is undeniable, that in very many instances Christ did so interfere; and in that interference assumed the worship and the name that were ascribed to Jehovah. It is undeniable, that he came invested with the power and the might of the Father, and that having first called Abraham the progenitor of the Jews; and in a later age, Moses their Legislator and Leader, he freed them from Egyptian bondage,

and guided them through the wilderness into the temporal land of Canaan, by the same power and in the same character, in which he would afterwards have drawn them from the bondage and wilderness of sin into the heavenly Canaan, had not their own blindness and infatuation frustrated his intentions. It is utterly irreconcileable with the law of Scripture to imagine any unorganized and indefinite system of intervention on the part of Christ;-a system which should make his descents on earth dependent upon some peculiar event, or train of events at the time they occurred. The whole Bible has been written with a certain design and the histories and transactions which are therein narrated took place in a perfect accordance with that design. If Christ intervened at all, it must have been in consequence of the foreshadowed design, and not from any lesser and temporary circumstance. The lengthened train of quotations which we have made from the entire history of the Old Testament, is a strong testimony of this fact. Give but a single point at which Christ may be allowed to have intervened, and the subsequent instances will so depend upon that; will make so many references to that; will be so incomplete and confused, unless his ministration is continued, that a difficulty will be at once created, which will require considerable ingenuity (the last thing to be desired)

-to overcome. Of Christ's manifestation of Himself in the Old Testament there can be no possible doubt. Neither can there be any hesitation in admitting that he displayed his attributes and power in every age of the world from "the voice" in Eden to the prophetic revelation of himself to Malachi. We con

sider this position sufficiently established. We consider it equally proved that in his revelations to men, he came in the character of one possessing great and commanding powers; of one who acted by an inherent and divine authority; and as one who had the earth and its affairs in subjection to his will. This was the aim and end of the first proposition laid down-thatIt seemed deducible from Scripture, that Christ, as Mediator, from the time of his intercession having been accepted by the Father, manifested his Power upon the earth. We follow it up with another; that, "The object of his Mediation having been completed in the subjection of all his enemies, it is deducible from Scripture, that Christ will yield up his authority."

Div. 4.

We now come again to the passage which has been extracted from the Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians. * But we meet it now under a far different aspect, than when we adduced it in the commencement of the subject. We received it then in the light of an insulated position of Scripture ; and gave no more weight to it, than we should to any passage which we might have separated from the Bible, without reference to the context. But the course of the enquiry has brought us gradually up to this assertion of the Apostle; and we now take it, not only as a single statement, but as a great truth founded on, and confirmatory of the

* 1 Cor. xv. 24.