pectedly forthcoming to vindicate the Scriptures along the whole line of their history, whenever and wherever serious doubts have been raised and assaults made.

From the earliest announcements regarding the Deluge,* Noah and his sons, and Abraham in Ur of the Chaldees or in Egypt, down through every vicissitude to the very close of the Old Testament history, fuller light is being shed on every other record when it comes into contact with the Bible; and much that would have otherwise remained obscure, has thus been made definite and intelligible. To the general historian, the Bible is proving of priceless value; and some of those who have most indulged in sneers at seeming inaccuracies, have been constrained to confess their error, and to pay to its authority a not ungenerous homage.

In the rapid progress of archæological discoveries in the East, there is everything to warrant the anticipation of Sir Henry Rawlinson, that scholars will soon be able so to classify both the Chaldæan and Assyrian kings, and so to spread out their annals, that "they shall have an historical tableau of Western Asia, ascending to the twentieth century B. C., or anterior to the exodus of Abraham from Chaldæa, far more determinate and continuous than has been obtained for the sister kingdom,"†

*See "Assyrian Discoveries," chapter 10, "Flood Series of Legends," pp. 165-222. "It appears," Mr. Smith says, "that at that remote age the Babylonians had a tradition of a flood which was a divine punishment for the wickedness of the world; and of a holy man who built an ark and escaped the destruction; who was afterwards translated, and dwelt with the gods." These and similar coincidences in the records are in some respects very remarkable. "Athenæum," 1854, p. 343.

Egypt. The recent successful labors of Mr. G. Smith add interest and emphasis to this expectation; and is it not marvellous to find the Bible, in its earliest and in its latest historical intimations, shining with increasing splendor as archæologists and historians translate conjecture into fact, and displace myths by universally acknowledged realities?

CHAPTER XIV.

BIBLE HISTORY IN RELATION TO PROPHECY-THE EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY-THE IDEA OF THE SUPERNATURAL IN

SEPARABLE FROM IT.

History is the occasion of prophecy, but not its measure; for prophecy rises above history, borne aloft by its wings, which carry it far beyond the present, and which it derives, not from the past occurrences of which history takes cognizance, but from Him to whom the future and the past are alike known. It is the communication of so much of His own supernatural light, as he sees fit to let down upon the dark movements of history, to show whither they are going.—PRINCIPAL FAIRBAIRN.

ALTHOUGH We have hitherto examined the Bible and other ancient histories in precisely the same way, we cannot leave them as if no marked differences appeared. Our work is but half finished. No one can carefully study the Bible for its historical information alone, without discovering that its History has at times assumed an entirely distinctive character. It anticipates the future. Prophecy becomes history, as the mystery of prediction passes into the light of fulfilment. History records prophecies before their accomplishment; traces the progress of events; and, at last, separates such as have been indisputably fulfilled from those which have not. Prophecy and history thus act and react on each other; they are inseparable; they blend as lights.

I. BIBLE HISTORY IN RELATION TO PROPHECY.

While prophecy embraces two departments, the moral or doctrinal and the predictive, it is with the latter we have at present to do chiefly, and with that only in its specially distinctive character. Some exalt the one and depreciate the other; but both have their value. Comprehensively, prophecy includes all those truths, or secrets, which men could not, in the circumstances of their age, ascertain by their own unaided energies. It was the privilege of those who were appointed by the Great Revealer, to proclaim them, whether the truths unfolded had reference to the past, the present, or the future, or to all combined; and, be the form or substance what it may, it was still a revelation. If we even restrict our view of prophecy to the moral alone, as fundamental, we discover so much that is distinctive, that the Bible cannot be classed with other histories. The laws of God, his dominion, his providence, his majesty, his holiness, justice, and mercy; man's obligation of obedience to him, and his duties to his fellow-men, are all set forth with a vividness and an authoritativeness which are elsewhere unequalled. So thickly are the pages of prophecy strewn with the original principles of morality and religion,* that no unprejudiced student can fail to be arrested by them.

And if we adopt the view in which prophecy is regarded as merely predictive of events which could not possibly have been foreknown by any science or wisdom

"Davidson on Prophecy," p. 28. 1870.

of man, but which must have been revealed by the Omniscient Ruler, there is that which is so singular that it raises the Bible above all the ordinary histories by which it has ever been tested.

As the older prophets, one after another, traverse the sphere of Bible History, the observant student recognizes in each an accredited "Man of God." Their messages, their looks, their tones, are so singular that they cannot be classed with even the greatest actors in the world-histories. Their place and their function are peculiarly their own. In their fervent unselfishness, in their lofty aspirations, in their intuitional insight, they are peerless. In following their footsteps, the student realizes an ennobling companionship, and cherishes impressions which were hitherto unknown to him.

Although there are exceptions to this general statement, in such instances as those of Balaam and Caiaphas-the one an unwilling, and the other an unconscious, instrument*-and although it must be slightly modified to meet such a faltering of faith, and love, and submissiveness as Jonah temporarily exhibited, or such selfishness and hardihood as the old prophet at Bethel showed, they only the more strikingly manifest the general rule of the Divine procedure as in harmony with the sovereignty of the Divine purpose. The greatness of the prophets of the old as well as of the New Testament is distinctly visible, not so much in their unfolding present truth and instructing the people, as in their insight of the distant future, regarded as an evolution from the present.

* "Fairbairn on Prophecy," p. 499. Second edition.