the fierce energy of a warrior king? He, in the feminine softness of his nature, would not shed a drop of human blood, much less take part in the cruel carnage of a battle-field, to gain for himself a throne, or for his race an empire. What, therefore, could mean this strange antagonism between his peaceful disposition and the warlike aspirations of the nation? If he were indeed the Messiah of the prophets, must not his countrymen have mistaken the true meaning of Scripture? He concentrates his attention on the entire range of Hebrew literature, ardently inquiring what was the career predestined for him by the prophets of Judah.

John had attained absolute conviction that he was the predestined forerunner of the Messiah, by arbitrarily identifying himself with the imaginary voice which Isaiah had heard crying in the wilderness; why should not Jesus also discover in sacred Scripture his prophetic destiny as the man in whom the Baptist had recognised the Messiah? He studies Moses, Joshua, and Samuel; weighs every sentence of Job, David, and Solomon; and passes on, without result, through the vague declamation of the prophets, until his attention is suddenly riveted on the anonymous bard of the Captivity, whose poems have been published in the name of Isaiah: He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities:

1 Isaiah liii.

the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off from the land of the living: for the transgression of My people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.’

Modern criticism detects in this language of the bard, a poetic description of the unmerited sufferings of that unhappy fanatic, Jeremiah; but, as Jesus reads the words of the prophet, controlled by the superstition of his age, his heart throbs with one of those sudden and startling convictions which flash through men's minds in the supreme crisis of their career. If he is indeed the Messiah-and who can doubt the declaration of the inspired Baptist ?-away with illusory dreams of earthly thrones and kingdoms! His heavenly Father would not have bestowed on him the soul of a martyr to accomplish the triumphs of a warrior king. The words of Isaiah depict the career of the true Messiah, and the prophetic decree has gone forth dooming him to humiliation, suffering, and death. Now, after the lapse of nearly two thousand years, evangelical theologians, sustaining the dogma of the atonement, dwell on this passage of the Hebrew bard as a definite and cir

cumstantial forecast of the sufferings and death of Jesus, as the predestined sacrifice for the sins of the world; but as we gaze across intervening centuries, and see Jesus rise up from the study of Isaiah with the sad smile of a doomed man on his lips, we know that he has fallen under the dominion of that most pernicious. superstition-prophetic fatalism-and will inevitably follow the example of John by fulfilling prophecy, under the fatal delusion of submission to the will of his Father in heaven, as expressed in his reproof of Peter in the garden of Gethsemane: But how then shall the Scripture be fulfilled, that thus it must be?'-words of fatal import, which briefly define the true nature of the superstition in which the religion of Christianity originated.

If Isaiah forecast a crown of martyrdom, from which prophet did Jesus borrow the triumphant glories of futurity? We answer, from the visions of Enoch, which depict with glowing imagery the advent of the 'Son of Man sitting upon the throne of his glory; before whom the book of life is opened, the wicked condemned, and driven forth with shame and confusion to the vengeance of eternal fire,' in the companionship of fallen angels who had been cast into the lowest depths of the fire in torments, and in confinement shall they be shut up for ever;' and the righteous rewarded by eternal happiness in the presence of the Son of Man.

We annex the following passages from Archbishop Laurence's translation of the Book of Enoch :-' Behold, he comes with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon them, and destroy the wicked, and re

prove all the carnal for everything which the sinful and ungodly have done and committed against him.'1 (See Jude 14, 15.)

The Lord of spirits sat upon the throne of his glory, and the spirit of righteousness was poured out over him. The word of his mouth shall destroy all the sinners and all the ungodly, who shall perish at his presence. In that day shall all the kings, the princes, the exalted, and those who possess the earth, stand up, behold, and perceive that he is sitting on the throne of his glory, that before him the saints shall be judged in righteousness, and that nothing which shall be spoken before him shall be spoken in vain.'

Trouble shall come upon them as upon a woman in travail. One portion of them shall look upon another. They shall be astonished, and shall humble their countenance, and trouble shall seize them when they shall behold this Son of woman sitting upon the throne of his glory. Then shall the kings, the princes, and all who possess the earth glorify him who was concealed; for from the beginning the Son of Man existed in secret, whom the Most High preserved in the presence of His power, and revealed to the elect.' 2

'He shall sow the congregation of the saints and of the elect, and all the elect shall stand before him in that day. All the kings, the princes, the exalted, and those who rule over the earth, shall fall down on their faces before him, and shall worship him. They shall fix their hopes on this Son of Man, shall pray to him and petition him for 3 mercy.'

6

Then shall the Lord of spirits hasten to expel them

1 Enoch ii.

2 Enoch Ixi.

3 Enoch lxi.

from his presence. Their faces shall be full of confusion. The angels shall take them to punishment, that vengeance may be inflicted on those who have oppressed his children and his elect: but the saints and elect shall be safe in that day; the Lord of spirits shall reign over them, and with this Son of Man shall they dwell, eat, lie down, and rise up for ever and ever."1

This marvellous book-the boldest and most definite product of Hebrew imagination—was, in fact, the Scripture which supplied Jesus with his vivid conceptions of Angels, Devils, the Resurrection, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell. Some of its language and imagery is borrowed from Daniel (chap. vii.), but it is to the Book of Enoch we must turn for full and elaborate details of the Messianic kingdom, the Son of Man, the Elect One, the Son of God, supreme in righteousness, knowledge, and wisdom, pre-existent before the creation of the world,' and proclaimed before the Lord of all spirits, before the sun and the stars of heaven were created.'

How intense the perplexity of Jesus as he studies conflicting prophets! Isaiah has doomed him to ignominy and death, but in the pages of Enoch his career is a triumphal march. Both are inspired prophets, and therefore cannot err; but who can reconcile predictions mutually destructive?

Days and weeks pass away in doubt and perplexity, preventing even a hint to his disciples that he is indeed the Messiah of the prophets. His only confidant is his Father in heaven, to whom he prays for divine enlightenment in this great crisis of his destiny. At length it flashes upon him as a revelation. There are two advents