hich we uphold our own position and our own opinions!"

The spirit of the world asks first, Is it safe? secondly, Is it true? The
spirit of the Prophets asks first, Is it true? secondly, Is it safe? The
spirit of the world asks first, Is it prudent? secondly, Is it right? The
spirit of the Prophets asks first, Is it right? secondly, Is it prudent?
Taken as a whole, the prophetic order of the Jewish Church remains alone.
It stands like one of those vast monuments of ancient days, with ramparts
broken, with inscriptions defaced, but stretching from hill to hill,
conveying in its long line of arches the pure rill of living water over
deep valley and thirsty plain, far above all the puny modern buildings
which have grown up at its feet, and into the midst of which it strides
with its massive substructions, its gigantic height, its majestic
proportions, unrivalled by any erection of modern time.

The predictions of the future by the Prophets of Judaea were far higher in
their character than those which come occasionally to mankind through
dreams and presentiments. Yet no doubt they proceeded from the same
essentially Iranian faculty. This also is asserted by the Dean of
Westminster, who says that there is a power of divination granted in some
inexplicable manner to ordinary men, and he refers to such instances as
the prediction of the discovery of America by Seneca, that of the
Reformation by Dante, and the prediction of the twelve centuries of Roman
dominion by the apparition of twelve vultures to Romulus, which was so
understood four hundred years before its actual accomplishment. If such
presentiments are not always verified, neither were the predictions of
the Prophets always fulfilled. Jonah announced, in the most distinct and
absolute terms, that in forty days Nineveh should be destroyed. But the
people repented, and it was _not_ destroyed. Their predictions of the
Messiah are remarkable, especially because in speaking of him and his time
they went out of the law and the spirit of the law, and became partakers
of the spirit of the Gospel. The Prophets of the Jews, whatever else we
deny to their predictions, certainly foresaw Christianity. They describe
the coming of a time in which the law should be written in the heart, of a
king who should reign in righteousness, of a prince of peace, of one who
should rule by the power of truth, not by force, whose kingdom should be
universal and everlasting, and into which all natio