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It seems to shew that the Almighty had given them a special lesson, which they were to exemplify before the nations. Again, every argument for the antiquity of the Pentateuch renders the * See the XlXth Sermon in yolnme called "Bftiional Godliness." M. P. 26 402 PENTATEUCH. JOSHUA. more wonderful portions of the narrative more credible, since it leaves less room for the shaping power of the imagination. Here also come in the striking prophecies of the Hebrew destiny, which the same books contain; for if these precede the first occupation of Canaan, they give a wonderful forecast of the future in its more general features down to the siege of the city by Titus. Yet they have not that specification of names and persons which has appeared questionable elsewhere. " The genuineness and authenticity of the Pentateuch being allowed, I do not see that any earlier date for the book of Joshua need be asserted, than what the book itself points to. It is evidently compiled firom docimients older than itself; and theae may have been contemporary with the conquest*. It shews the good &ith of the writer, that he enables you to fix his date, without the remotest insinuation to the contrary. The received title may refer to the subject, and is not affixed to the author. Our Master Christ has nowhere said, that we should place the books of the Old Testament otherwise than they place them- selves. Nor has He determined how Hax they are afiected by the more general laws of Divine Providence in history. Thus, if in Joshua we find tables of the division of the land among the tribes, and also quotations from a book of songs, we may leave every man to determine, whether the nature of prose and poetry should alter his way of understanding either ; but whatever way is the truest is the scriptural one ; and freedom, with sincerity, in adopting either way, is most agreeable to our Christian £euth. Only we shoidd not doubt the Israelite conquest of Canaan, for there is no reason to doubt it. "What you have said of the Psalms only fills me with amazement, that you shoidd conceive such criticism to be an objection. True, David, as the most illustrious of the psalmists, has precedence of the others in name. But how many of the psalms are expressly ascribed in our Bibles to Asaph, Heman, the sons of Korah, and others? Yet more weighty than any * This 18 argued wdl and minutely by Jahn, in his IntroducUon, &c. BOOK OF PSALMS. 408 titles are the contents of the Psalms themselves. If they allude to events extending firom the age of the Judges, or earlier, to that of Antiochus Epiphanes, they give thereby an echo and a wit- ness to the living Providence which so long wielded the national destiny. If they cling with especial fondness to the temple- service, this is what might be expected from the existence of a worship divinely appointed. If they enter into the deepest recesses of the heart, by expressing thoughts common to true penitents both then and now, this shews the truth of their breathing the influence of One Eternal Spirit. K in some of them are harsher sayings pointed against personal or national enemies, this both answers to what we are told of the people among whom they arose being a rugged one, and justifies the Christian in his preference of the general spirit to the particular letter; and again, is a sign of God having brought us into something better, according to His ancient promise. Yet if things spoken of worldly enemies can, with slight change, be applied by us to the enemies of our soul's peace, this shews the same Jehovah to have governed the Jewish kingdom of the body, and the Christian kingdom of the soul. Hence too those who might be in danger of gazing only into heaven, and be- coming dreamy spiritualists, are wholesomely reminded of the life in which Divine Providence fixes us, and add a cheerful* and practical tone to the deeper piety of the Grospel. Neither the many ages, then, over which the composition of the Psalms extends, should be any argument against their sacred character, nor vestiges of things temporal in them any sign that they do not partake of that Eternal Spirit, into whose kingdom we have entered. " What has been said of the book of Daniel is a little more difficult. But scholars are not all agreed that this may not have been written under Cyrus in Babylon, as the contents * Some excellent remarks on the use of the Psalms in Christian worship may be found in Alexander Knox's Jtemaint, As early as St Augustine the Psalms were used by the Chorch, and hymns, in preference, by the sects. 26— a 404 DANIEL. ZECHARIAU. DEUTERONOMY. seem to imply. But if the later date mider Antiochus should turn out correct, the book will still express, though in a less historical form, the strong faith of the Hebrew in the Grod of his fathers, and a confidence that out of the lowest distress He would yet fulfil His kingdom. This expression of faith will still precede the Christian era by a full century and a half; and what is more remarkable, it will equally have been fulfilled. For it was in the low estate of Jewry that God set up a king- dom not to be moved, which prevailed over the kingdoms of the earth. The mental nature of this had been denoted by calling it ' a stone cut without hands* ;' as St Paul also calls the Church * a temple not built with hands,' thereby repeating the very words of Christ. Even the prohibition of the Law by Antiochus increased the study of the Prophets, whicli con- tributed (with the help perhaps of this very book) to awaken men's minds for a spiritual resurrection. The book then will still have been a part of the Divine education of the Hebrews for a better kingdom. "But while I am willing that, as to Daniel and part of Zechariah, you should assign them whatever date is most pro- bable, it must be questioned if some prepossession as to prophecy does not here influence theory. For in Zechariah, you say, Greece is mentioned. But if every uncertain book is brought as low as possible, there will remain the very ancient book of Deuteronomy, which foretells the 'nation swift as the eagle flieth,' and 'the delicate woman eating her own child' in the distress of the siege. The wildest scepticism would not deny these sayings to be very many centuries before the Christian era; yet they came to pass in the siege by Titus, A. d. 70. Since then you find some literal prophecies fulfilled in Jewish history, you gain little by diminishing their number. For even a few would shew the book to have an imique character, and from a few, certain, you may infer more as probable. Yet you seem to admit, that such a spiritual view of prophecy as my ■ Daniel iL 34; a CorinthiaiiB v. i ; Hebrews ix. xi ; St Mark xiv. 58. NATURE OP PROPHECY. ISAIAH. 405 friend Blancombe has propounded, cannot suffer from any sncli inquiries. Nor again are you able to take away that inherent tendency of the Hebrew polity to develop itself into something nobler, which we contend to be the reflexion of a Divine idea presiding over it through every age. So that the only risk dependent on such questions as you raise about Daniel is this question, Are we to take as a key to prophecy on the largest scale, the external view which makes it descriptive of coming events, or the more profound one, that it is perceptive of great truths, and so pregnant with hopes and fears, yet also with unforeseen applications? In either case the common teaching of Providence by sagacity and presentiment will have its limited field. But beyond such limits, we admit the possibility that prophecy means spiritual predication rather than literal predic- tion. This is the utmost question really dependent on such criticisms as we have heard, and this does not either way affect the truth of Divine Revelation. Many indeed would think the more spiritual view to be the more Christian, both in itself and in its consequences. " The above principles will govern all that need be said about Isaiah. It is not yet agreed that any wide chasm inter- venes between the earlier portion and the later. But if such should turn out to be the case, it will only extend the domain of those interpretations which according to the text are the most literal, for they apply its utterance to contemporary events, yet according to the ultimate design are the more spiritual, for they extend its application to that kingdom of thought which God brings to pass out of the ancient history.