in connection with the creation of a new heaven and a new earth, the perfected kingdom of God.”  Introduction to the Old Testament, Sec. 65.  This view of the glorification of the Theocracy in the latter days is preeminently just, provided only that we do not understand the Theocracy in a gross literal sense.  It is the true kingdom of God, once embodied in the old Theocracy, but now existing under the freer forms of Christianity, that is heir to all this glory.

7.  As Isaiah holds the first place among the Hebrew prophets in the canon, in the extent of his writings, and in the fulness of his prophecies concerning the Messiah and his kingdom, so has he been first also in receiving the assaults of those who deny the supernatural character of revelation.  Since the last quarter of the last century persistent attempts have been made to show that the whole of the second part (chaps. 40-66) and various sections of the first part, particularly all those that relate to the overthrow of Babylon, belong not to Isaiah, but to an unknown prophet who lived about the close of the exile.  In support of this view many arguments have been adduced; but the real argument which lies at the foundation of the whole is the belief that no such insight into the future is possible as that which this part of the book manifests, upon the supposition that Isaiah was himself the author of it.  The denial of the genuineness of the chapters in question began and has always gone hand in hand with the denial of the reality of prophetic inspiration.  In the view of rationalists prophecy is no revelation of the future through the illumination of the Holy Spirit.  It is only anticipation and shrewd conjecture of the future from the course of the present.  The possibility of prophecy, therefore, is limited by the possibility of human foresight.  Reasoning from this false position, the critic first assumes that Isaiah cannot have been the author of the last part of the book which bears his name, and then proceeds to find arguments against its genuineness.  To meet him we must plant our feet firmly on the great historic truth that God has made to men a supernatural revelation, of which prophecy in the proper sense of the word—­the revelation of the future by his Spirit—­constitutes an important part.  We do indeed find that in the matter of prophecy, as in all other parts of God’s operations, the great law is:  “First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.”  The way for the fuller revelations is prepared by previous intimations of a more general character.  Precisely so was it in the present case.  Moses himself had more than once predicted the captivity of the covenant people and the desolation of their land as the punishment of their foreseen apostacy from God’s service, and also the preservation of a remnant and its restoration upon repentance.  Lev., chap. 26; Deut., chaps. 28-32.  When Solomon had dedicated the temple, and his kingdom was at the