speaks as the Lord of Hosts, Jehovah himself: "After the glory he hath sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye." And he talks as God when he continues, (Zechariah xii, 10,) “And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the house of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications; and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him as one that is in bitterness for his first born." Why the prophets spoke of Christ as the angel of the Lord, the root out of dry ground, and in other mysterious representations, instead of plainly and unmistakably, it is not our province to discuss. Perhaps one of their reasons was the same that Christ had when he used to speak to his auditors in parables and "dark sayings.”

The Work of the Messiah.

The three orders which connected the people of Israel with God were those of the Prophet, Priest, and King. In some passages we find them all mentioned in conjunction, for example, Jeremiah ii, 26: "As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so is the house of Israel ashamed; they, their kings, their princes, their priests, and their prophets." This mediation of the prophetic class was through the Instructing Word; that of the priesthood through the Expiatory Deed; and that of the kingly order through the Final Conquest.

The Instructing Word. When we look at Israel, as that people appeared before the time of Christ, we find that to them alone were committed the oracles of God. All other nations were excluded from participation in the rich mercy of God's revealed will. And, to all natural appearance, this was the sealed doom of the whole Gentile world. But far above this hopelessness the voice of the ancient seer was heard, declaring that the day would come when the knowledge of the Lord would be universally diffused, just as the waters cover the great deep. The prophets declared that the excluded nations would be brought into as intimate relations with God as Israel herself was. None of their predictions are clearer and freer from misapprehension than these. But the question is, How was the world to be brought into these relations? What great event was to

take place that would effect it? What great Teacher would there be to instruct these long-lost nations? Isaiah tells us of the Light-bearer when he says, (Isaiah lix, 6,) "I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth." When the same prophet predicted the appearance of the offspring of David he added, "to it shall the Gentiles seek." Ezekiel represented the Church of the future as a lofty mountain; and Isaiah more emphatically says, (ii, 2,) "And it shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it." What a picture rose before his mind on another occasion when he exclaimed, "The isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arm shall they trust." Christ is the prophesied one through whom all these distant parts of the earth are to be made one. He is the Word which is to be for the healing of the nations.

The Expiatory Deed. The consciousness of the distance of man from Deity has led all people to the idea of an offering and a priest. Prayer is the gift of the heart to God, and an offering is the outward expression of prayer. But this approach to God is through the medium of a priest. Now the prophets, proceeding upon these things so evident in their time, showed that there would appear a priest "once for all." "I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins; return unto me, for I have redeemed thee." Isaiah xliv, 22. "In that day there shall be a fountain opened in the house of David for sin and uncleanness." Zechariah xiii, 1. "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you." Ezekiel xxxvi, 25. But. more clearly still does Jeremiah (xxiii, 6) reveal the expiatory character of Christ: "In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall die safely; and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS." But Christ was not to bring an offering, nor to offer a sacrifice; the prophets declare he was to become himself the offering for the sins of the world. In Zechariah xii, 10 and xiii, 7, we find Christ predicted as the offering for sin; and the whole of the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah may be taken as the description, above all

others in the Old Testament, of his sacrificial and substitutional atonement. But these proofs need not be multiplied. Any one who confesses that a Messiah is prophesied must also acknowledge that his character is clearly defined.

The Final Conquest. Christ, being declared a future king, he is finally to be the great conqueror. David saw his victories when he said, (2 Samuel xxiii, 4,) " And he shall be as the light of the morning when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain." But he is to appear first as king to his own people. "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy king cometh unto thee he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass." Zechariah ix, 9. Thus much as king; but Zechariah, in the very next verse, shows that the king is conqueror also: "And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off: and he shall speak peace unto the heathen and his dominion shall be from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth."

These three characters of Christ-Prophet, Priest, and King -were brought out by the prophets in the clearest light. The Jewish mind understood them in a great measure, and so decided were their conceptions of the Messianic utterances that they have formed a definite idea of how Christ should appear. But in this they were mistaken, having taken many predictions far too literally. The Jews were disappointed because Christ did not seem to fulfill their previous views of his incarnation. But with our knowledge of his life, death, and ascension, we cannot but confess that in every respect, save the universal diffusion of his Gospel, which is yet in the future, the Messianic prophecies have been verified. The accounts given of Christ by the evangelists bear internal evidence of indubitable truth; but they are only the noonday lessons concerning Him of whom the prophets spoke about in the midnight of centuries agone. Isaiah was the first evangelist, and he was true to his mission; but he was only one of the galaxy of prophets "who desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them." Yes, it was to Christ that

prophecy tended. He was the burning center on which was fixed the gaze of those inspired seers of God. The poet Hayes is right:

"The gift

Of prophecy was lost; O proof beyond

A doubt, that every oracle of old

To the same center tended, and that all

The promises to God's selected race

Through every age, received the stamp of truth
In the appearance of the blessed Seed."

ART. VI.-THE EFFECTS OF THE FALL UPON THE CREATION.

In years past the prevailing opinion of theologians was that all the disasters, disorders, abortions, and imperfections of nature were consequences of man's sin and fall. The discoveries of modern science have raised a doubt about this opinion, and led to an inquiry into the proofs upon which it is founded. The devotees of science-all who ground their belief more upon the revelations of nature than the word of God-have taken positive ground against this belief; and, thinking that they have found the means to prove that one of the dogmas of theology is false, one of the teachings of the Bible untrue, they would gladly conclude that the whole of it is founded in error. Others, who admit the evidence of both nature and revelation, and who believe in the harmony and truth of both, have looked for means to reconcile the apparent disagreement, and have asked themselves and the world if the opinion which has been entertained upon this subject is really taught in the Bible, and if it is a necessary understanding of the language of Scripture.

Dr. Bushnell, jealous of orthodox theology and of the opinions of the fathers upon this subject, has come forward, in his "Nature and the Supernatural," with a new theory, in which he proposes to maintain the ancient belief and yet admit all the proofs and inferences of modern science. He admits that disorders and imperfections in nature existed before man was

created, and that animals lived and devoured each other, and that thorns and thistles grew upon the earth before Adam sinned; but he still holds that they were consequences of sin. He says they were anticipatory consequences of man's sin, or else results consequent upon the sin of other beings who lived and fell before man was created. In endeavoring to maintain this position I think he has greatly weakened his general argument. By this, and by assuming the position that Adam was under a condition privative which rendered it almost necessary for him to sin, he has made two vulnerable points in his otherwise impregnable fortress.

We will first consider the scriptural proofs upon which the opinion of the fathers rests. In the curse pronounced upon Adam for his disobedience we find these words: "Cursed is the ground for thy sake." Now this teaches us nothing definite. How this curse affected the ground, what should be the consequences of this curse upon the ground, how its effects should be manifested, we are not told. Whatever opinions we may entertain in regard to this must be only conjecture. Again: "Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth unto thee." From this it has generally been inferred that thorns and thistles did not grow before the fall. But is this a necessary conclusion? When God made a covenant with Noah he said: "I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud." Now are we to understand from this that no rainbow was ever seen until after the flood? I know of no commentator who thus explains this passage. The laws of refraction were instituted when light was created. Through all the previous ages of earth whenever a transparent prism was formed of a liquid or solid, the direct rays of light which passed through it were decomposed, and the rainbow colors appeared. We are to understand from this passage, then, not that the rainbow appeared then for the first time, but that henceforth it should be the sign of God's covenant with the world that the human race should never again be destroyed by water. So thorns and thistles shall the earth bring forth unto thee. Not that no thorns or thistles had before grown-none may have grown in that particular part of the earth where God had