itself to Jehovah under the administration of the Messiah; and the earth should be “filled with the knowledge of the glory of God, as the waters cover the sea.”  Their glowing descriptions of the future enlargement and glory of Zion have been the stay and solace of God’s people in all succeeding ages.  The student of the Bible should not fail to notice that these bright visions of the future were vouchsafed to the Hebrew prophets, and through them to the church universal, not when the Theocracy was in the zenith of its outward power and splendor, as in the days of David and Solomon, but in the time of its decline and humiliation.  The hopes so ardently cherished by the covenant people of a return of the outward glory of Solomon’s reign were destined to utter and final disappointment.  It was not to feed their national pride, but to prepare the way for Christ’s advent, that God established the Theocracy.  Now that its outward glory was departing, it was suitable that the hopes of the pious should be turned from the darkness of the present to the brightness of “the last days” that awaited Zion in the distant future.  When Isaiah began his prophecies, the kingdom of Israel was tottering to its fall, and before he had finished them it had suffered an utter overthrow.  The invasion of Judah by the allied kings of Israel and Syria, in the reign of Ahaz, and by Sennacherib king of Assyria, in the reign of Hezekiah, furnished an occasion for predicting not only the present deliverance of God’s people, but also the future triumph of Zion over all her enemies, and the extension of her dominion over all the earth.  In his present interpositions in behalf of Zion, God mirrored forth his purpose to give her a final and universal victory.  And so it was with all the other prophets.  With their backs towards the gloom and distraction of the present, and their faces steadfastly turned towards the glory of the latter days, they uttered words of promise and comfort that can have their fulfilment only in Christ’s kingdom, which is the true heir to all the promises made to the ancient Zion.  Out of Christ these promises are vain and delusory.  In Christ their fulfilment has been begun, and shall be completed in the appointed time.  Out of Christ no amount of learning will enable a man to understand the Hebrew prophets; for the veil is on his face, which can be done away only in Christ.  What if more than eighteen centuries have elapsed since our Lord’s advent, and the domain of his kingdom is yet very limited?  In the divine reckoning, “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”  If it took four of these days to prepare the world for Christ’s advent, can we not allow two days and more for the complete establishment of his kingdom?

We add a notice of each separate book of the Greater prophets.

I. ISAIAH.