The _internal_ evidence for the genuineness of these chapters has
already been partly considered in an incidental way. It is found in the
purity of the Hebrew, which belongs to the age of Isaiah, not of Cyrus;
in the undeniable allusions to the temple sacrifices and oblations as
then existing (43:23, 24), and to the sin of seeking heathen alliances
(57:9); and especially in the fact that a writer living near the close
of the exile must have referred in a more particular and historic way to
the great events connected with Cyrus' conquests. It may be added that
there are in the later prophets some clear allusions to this part of
Isaiah. Jeremiah, who undeniably made use of prophecies contained in the
first part of Isaiah, was acquainted with the second part also. Compare
Jer. 10:3,4, with Isa. 40:19, 20; 41:7; Jer. 31:35, with Isa. 51:15,
where a whole clause is repeated from Isaiah, which agrees in the Hebrew
to every letter; Jer. 50:2, with Isa. 46:1, 2. Compare also Zeph. 2:15,
with Isa. 47:8; Nah. 1:15, with Isa. 52:7.

9. The arguments urged against the genuineness of certain sections of
the first part of Isaiah are for substance the same as these that have
now been examined, and need not a separate consideration. We come on
solid grounds to the conclusion that Isaiah was the author of the whole
collection of prophecies which bear his name, and that the arrangement
of these prophecies in their present form also proceeded from him.

II. JEREMIAH AND THE BOOK OF LAMENTATIONS.

10. In passing from Isaiah to Jeremiah, the contrast is as great as it
can well be; and yet it is a contrast necessary to the completeness of
divine revelation, which employs men of all characters and temperaments,
and living in every variety of outward circumstances. Isaiah, like the
apostle John, seems to have lived above his personal relations in the
sphere of divine truth. He never alludes to his private history, except
where the nature of a given narrative requires it. It is not probable
that he was subjected to such an ordeal of persecution as that through
which Jeremiah passed. However this may be, we gain almost no knowledge
of his private life from the book of his prophecies. But Jeremiah, like
the apostle Paul, unfolds to us very fully the history of his inward and
outward life. With his peculiarly tender and sensitive mind it could not
have been otherwise. If he had not woven into his prophecies his own
inner and outer life, he