manner in which the Song of Solomon has been interpreted by most expositors, has had the effect of exposing it to unmerited ridicule and contempt. Not entering into the style and spirit of Oriental poesy, they have given to some passages a coarse and indelicate appearance; and not distinguishing between the literal and allegorical senses, they have destroyed the consistency and beauty of the poem, and bewildered the mind of the reader. To understand this part of Scripture requires not only a renewed heart and an enlightened mind, but a sober and cautious judgment. The spiritual senses must be exercised to discern clearly spiritual truths, and the imagination must be curbed by a reverential apprehension of the majesty and condescension of God. Among the Jews, they were not allowed to read it until they had attained the sacerdotal age of thirty years.

SECTION IV.

OF THE PROPHETICAL BOOKS.

This division of the books of the Old Testament is so called, because the subjects thereof are chiefly, though not exclusively, prophetic.

If we take up the prophetic volume, we find it readily distinguishes itself into two parts, which may be called the moral or doctrinal, and the predictive. It is not a series of mere predictions far from it. It abounds in matter of another kind: the continued strain of moral doctrine which runs through it, including under that name the only efficacious and sufficient moral doctrine, that which is founded upon a knowledge of God, his attributes and his will, with a sense of the direct, personal, and responsible relation of man to him. Accordingly, the most frequent subjects of the prophet are the laws of God; his supreme dominion, and his universal providence; the majesty of his nature, his spiritual being, and his holiness; together with the obligations of obedience to him, in the particular duties of an inward faith and worship; and of justice and mercy to man: the whole of these duties enforced by explicit sanctions of reward and punishment. These original principles of piety and morals overspread the pages of the book of prophecy; they are brought forward; they are inculcated from first to last. They are often the subject when nothing future is in question: they are constantly interwoven with the predictions; they are either

the very thing propounded, or connected with it; and all the way, they are impressed with a distinctness and energy of instruction, which shew it was none of the secondary ends of the prophet's mission to be this teacher of righteousness; insomuch that, if we except the Gospel itself, there can no where be shewn, certainly not in the works or systems of Pagan wisdom, so much of luminous and decisive information concerning the unity, providence, mercy, and moral government of God, and man's duty founded upon his will, as is to be gathered from the prophetic volume. Let the predictions of prophecy, then, for a time be put out of our thoughts; and let the prophetic books be read for the pure theology they contain. With what feelings of conviction they are read by the religionist, it is not hard to tell. He perceives that he is instructed and elevated by the discoveries made to him of the Supreme Being, and the kind of worship and obedience required from himself; and these discoveries, made with an authority and a commanding power which argue them to be what they are given for, a law of life and practice; doctrines, not of theory, but of self-government and direction; the most useful, therefore, to himself, and the most worthy of the source whence they profess to come. On this view of the prophetic writings, Origen, who does not overstate their persuasive force, says, that "to the meditative and attentive reader they raise an impression of enthusiasm” (a true and rational enthusiasm, like a spark of their own inspiration)," and by his perceptions convince him, as he reads, that these compositions can be none of the works of men which have obtained the credit of being the oracles of God."

The more sceptical reader will see in them something to arrest his attention, at least, and excite in him a suspicion, that the teachers of so excellent and virtuous a discipline of life, and the expositors of so rational a theology, are not to be set down for vain pretenders to inspiration, unless it can be proved that other divines, or sages, in that period of the world, spoke so much to the purpose, or that such was the ordinary march of reason in these subjects, which, more than any other, have tried the rectitude of the human intellect.

We may further remark, that this moral revelation, made by the succession of prophets, holds an intermediate place between the Law of Moses and the Gospel itself. It is a step in progress beyond the Law, in respect of the greater distinctness and fulness of some of its doctrines and precepts; it is a more perfect exposition of the principles of personal holiness and virtue; the sanctions of it have less of an exclusive reference to temporal promises, and incline more to

evangelical the ritual of the law begins to be discountenanced by it; the superior value of the moral commandment to be enforced; and altogether, it bears a more spiritual, and a more instructive character, than the original law given by Moses. In a word, in the prophets there is a more luminous, a more perfectly reasoned, rule of life and faith, than in the primary law; and therefore God's moral revelation was progressive. It is more perfect in the Prophets than in the Law; more perfect in the Gospel than in either.* Lastly, the Prophets, beside their communication of doctrine, had another and a practical office to discharge, as pastors and ministerial monitors of the people of God. To "shew Jacob his transgressions, and Israel his sins," was a part of the commission they received. Hence their work to admonish and reprove; to arraign for every ruling sin, to blow the trumpet to repentance, and shake the terrors of the divine judgments over a guilty land. Often they bore the message of consolation or pardon; rarely, if ever, of public approbation and praise. The integrity and fortitude with which they acquitted themselves of this charge, is attested by impartial history, which recites the death and martyrdom which some of them endured. But it lives also in their own writings; not in the praise of their sincerity and zeal, but in the faithful record of the expostulations and reproofs which they delivered in the face of idolatrous or oppressive kings, a degenerate priesthood, and a corrupt, idolatrous people.Great was the fidelity, and great the boldness of the prophets," is their just panegyric. But in this service they betray none of the spirit of turbulent and fanatical agitators, men who step out of order to make the public sin their field. of triumph; but a grave and masculine severity, which bespeaks their entire soberness of mind, and argues the reality of their commission. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, are all eminent examples of this ministerial duty. And if St. Paul could say of holy writ, that it" is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness," as he speaks of the Old Scripture, so to no part of it does that idea more fitly belong, than to the admonitory homilies of the prophets.t

With respect to the precise nature and extent of prophetic inspiration, much has been written, with which it is quite unnecessary that we should trouble the reader. We may rest satisfied in the assurance, that these "holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost" (2 Pet. i. 21); and

*Davison's Discourses on Prophecy, pp. 41-48.
+Ibid, pp. 53, 54,

that by them "God spake at sundry times and in divers manners unto the fathers," Heb. i. 1.

The prophetical books are 16 in number; and in modern editions of the Bible, they are usually divided into two classes, viz. the greater Prophets, comprising Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, who were thus distinguished from the length of their books; the minor Prophets, comprising Hosea, Joel, Amos, Jonah, Obadiah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. These books are not placed in our Bibles in the order of time in which they prophesied, but which circumstance should be carefully attended to in order to understand them correctly.

The great object of prophecy was a description of the Messiah and of his kingdom. The particulars of these were gradually unfolded by successive prophets, in prophecies more and more distinct. They were at first held forth in general promises; they were afterwards described by figures, and shadowed forth under types and allusive institutions; as well as clearly foretold in the full lustre of descriptive prophecy. The prophets were oftentimes the representatives of the future dispensers of evangelical blessings; as Moses and David were unquestionably types of Christ, Ezek. xxxiv. 23; Matt. xi. 14; Heb. vi. 20; vii. 1—3. Persons were sometimes descriptive of things also, as Sarah and Hagar were allegorical figures of the two covenants, Gal. iv. 22-31; Rom. ix. 7-13. And, on the other hand, things were used to symbolize persons, as the brazen serpent and the paschal lamb, were signs of our healing and spotless Redeemer, John iii. 14; comp. Ex. xii. 46, with John xix. 36. Hence it was, that many of the descriptions of the prophets had a two-fold character; bearing often an immediate reference to present circumstances, and yet being in their nature predictive of future occurrences. What they reported of the types was often, in a more signal manner, applicable to the thing typified; what they spoke literally of the present, was figuratively descriptive of future particulars; and what was applied in a figurative sense to existing persons, was often actually characteristic of their distant archetypes. Many passages, then, in the Old Testament, which in their first aspect appear to be historical, are in fact prophetic; and they are so cited in the New Testament, not by way of ordinary accommodation, or casual coincidence, but as intentionally predictive, as having a double sense, a literal and mystical interpretation. This mode of wrapping up religious truth in allegory, gives great interest to the sacred books, in the dili

gent perusal of which, the most admirable contrivance and unexpected beauty will be discovered. That many of the prophecies in the Old Testament were direct, and singly and exclusively applicable to, and accomplished in our Saviour, is certain; and that some passages are cited from the Old Testament, by way of accommodation to circumstances described in the New, is perhaps equally true. But that this typical kind of prophecy was likewise employed, is evident from a vast number of passages. And it is this double character of prophecy which occasions those unexpected transitions and sudden interchange of circumstance, so observable in the prophetic books. Thus different predictions are sometimes blended and mixed together; temporal and spiritual deliverances are foretold in one prophecy; and greater and smaller events are combined in one point of view. To unravel this, requires much attention, and a considerable acquaintance with the scope of the Scriptures. *

The language of the Prophets is remarkable for its magnificence. Each writer is distinguished for peculiar beauties. The ornaments of the prophetic style are derived, not from accumulation of epithet, or laboured harmony, but from the real grandeur of its images, and the majestic force of its expressions. Its sudden bursts of eloquence, its earnest warmth, its affecting exhortations and appeals, afford very interesting proofs of that vivid impression, and of that inspired conviction, under which the prophets wrote. No style, perhaps, is so highly figurative as that of the Prophets. Every object of nature and of art, which can furnish allusions, is explored with industry; every scene of creation, and every page of science, seems to have unfolded its rich varieties to the sacred writers, who, in the spirit of Eastern poetry, delight in every kind of metaphorical embellishment.

On the style of the prophets much has been written, particularly by Calmet, Lowth, Vitringa, Michaelis, and Newton. From the preliminary observations to Dr. Smith's "View of the Prophets," &c. where the principal observations of these learned writers have been abridged with great judgment, the following remarks have been selected.

The writings of the Prophets, the most sublime and beautiful in the world, from their not being more generally understood, lose much of that usefulness and effect which they are so well calculated to produce on the souls of men. Many

*For an able discussion of the structure and gradual development of prophecy, reference is made to Davison's Discourses on Prophecy, a work which cannot be too highly commended.