sin rendered this impossible: the seal of Baptism has proved no surer a mark than the seal of Circumcision; again have the people whom he brought out of Egypt corrupted themselves. Still there is, and ever has been, a remnant; still there are those whom Christ owns now, and will own for ever. Theirs are the promises in all their fulness; not that their own righteousness is proportioned to such blessings, but because they are Christ's, and Christ is God's. In us there is still as in times past the same incapability of answering to the language of Prophecy; but the kingdom which Christ has gained is for his sake given to his true people. It is given to those whom, at the last great day, when he shall judge to whom all hearts are open, he shall acknowledge to be his.

So then the promises and the consolations of Prophecy may all be ours. Christ's triumph is not for himself alone; we all may partake in it; to us all may, through him, be given the full extent of blessing which the 91st Psalm and other similar passages contain. Those passages may be a dead letter to us, but they may also be life and reality. If, looking on the world as God looks on it, we feel keenly the struggle which is going on between good and evil, and fain would take our part in it to the death under Christ's banner; then along with all the anxieties and the sufferings of the contest we have our portion besides in the hopes of the final issue. Then, as we become more deeply interested in it,

the language of Prophecy becomes more welcome; the pledge of its truth, the fact of Christ's resurrection, becomes more unspeakably precious. With such anxieties, such efforts, and such hopes, we have the Christian's sure seal; not that outward seal of baptism, which is too often broken, but the seal of God's Spirit, that as Christ was, so are we in this world. Blessed are they, in whom the hopes and fears, which are the common portion of us all, are directed to those objects, which Christ's true people hope for and fear; to whom Prophecy is no empty language about matters of other days or other persons, but the answer given by God to the earnest questionings of their nature, "Has God cast me off for ever, or shall it be a blessing to me to have been born?"

NOTES.

Note 1, page 3.

"It is anticipated History, not in our common sense of the word, but in another and far higher sense."

This, according to a very common interpretation, is the sense of the famous words in St. Peter's second Epistle, πᾶσα προφητεία γραφῆς ἰδίας ἐπιλύσεως οὐ γίνεται. History is especially días TXUσews: that is to say, what the historian relates of Babylon, is to be understood of Babylon only; of the city so called on the banks of the Euphrates, and not of any other place more or less morally resembling it. But what Prophecy says of Babylon is xovñs émiλúσews: it does not relate exclusively, nor even principally, to the Babylon of History; but to certain spiritual evils of which Babylon was at one period the representative, and Rome at another, and of which other cities which may have succeeded to the greatness of Babylon and Rome, may be the representatives now. And thus the Babylon of History is only for a limited time, and in an imperfect degree, the Babylon of Prophecy. It is so for a limited time only, because the historical Babylon has long since perished; but the Prophecies in the Old Testament against it have been repeated in the New, almost in the very same words; so that the prophetical Babylon must have been in existence long after the historical Babylon had been destroyed. And only in an imperfect degree, because the language used respecting it is the exact opposite to that used with

respect to Jerusalem; and as the historical Jerusalem never came up to the pictures of the holiness and happiness of the prophetical Jerusalem, so neither have we any reason to believe that there was any such peculiar and unmixed wickedness in the historical Babylon, as to make it the proper and ultimate subject of the denunciations uttered against the Babylon of Prophecy. Not the proper and ultimate subject, but the subject of them partially and in the first instance; as Rome was partially also in the second instance; and as other places may be, and I believe are, in the third instance: so that the Prophecies, as I believe, will go on continually meeting with a typical and imperfect fulfilment, till the time of the end; when they will be fulfilled finally and completely in the destruction of the true prophetical Babylon, the World as opposed to the Church.

In the case of Babylon, it is easy to perceive what is the prophetical idea, if I may so speak, of which the historical Babylon is made the representative. Whether this could be discovered with regard to all the cities or nations which are the subjects of Prophecy, I will not venture to pronounce an opinion. In some instances it seems to be discernible; as, for example, the curse upon Amalek, Deuteronomy xxv. 17—19. appears to be illustrated by the woe denounced by our Lord upon those who shall "offend one of the little ones who believe in him." St. Matthew xviii. 6. Amalek smiting the hindmost and the feeble of the host of Israel, when they had been just redeemed out of Egypt, and were faint and weary, belongs surely to the general idea of hindering weak Christians on their way towards heaven, instead of assisting and encouraging them. And the same sin appears to constitute in great measure the idea of the prophetical Edom. Ezekiel xxxv. Psalm cxxxvii. 7.

I wish it to be remembered, that I am by no means denying the literal and historical sense of the Prophecies relating to different cities or nations, but only contending that the historical sense is not the highest sense and that generally the language of the Prophecy will be found to be hyperbolical as far as regards its historical subjects, and only corresponding with the truth exactly, if we substitute for the historical subject the idea of which it is the representative. Babylon, in the Prophecies of the Old Testament, means undoubtedly the city so called in Mesopotamia; Amalek means the historical Amalek: Edom or Mount Seir signifies the historical people of Edom. And as it was a great blessing to belong to the Israel of History, because she was chosen to represent the idea of God's true people; so it was a great calamity to belong to the historical Babylon, or Amalek, or Edom, because they had certain points in them which made them be chosen to represent under its various forms the idea of God's enemies. But in neither case was the representative or symbol of the idea, the full and adequate expression of the idea itself.

Note 2, page 5.

"The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head, but the serpent notwithstanding shall first bruise his heel."

In their first and literal sense these words are true, and perfectly intelligible. They describe the relations existing between man, and a class of inferior and noisome animals; whom he can destroy or keep under, but who are able in their turn to inflict some pain and injury on him.

But in proportion as our notions of other parts of the story of the Fall become raised above the literal meaning, so also must they be raised with respect to this particular

verse.