Jewish history and politics in the times of Sargon and Sennacherib; an inquiry into the historical meaning and purpose of the prophecies of Isaiah

Front matter

JEWISH HISTORY AND POLITICS

IN THE TIMES OF SARGON AND SENNACHERIB gin Inqutrg

INTO THE HISTORICAL MEANING AND PURPOSE OF THE PROPHECIES

Preface

It is now many years ago that, by the advice of my friend Mr. Maurice, I proposed to myself to make the science of Politics my study. In order to give Jewish History and Politics their proper place in that study I chose the period of which* this Volume treats ; and the reader is here offered the results of my inquiry. The present edition has been revised throughout, and considerable additions have been made to it

This period — the last half of the eighth century b.c. — is of characteristic importance in the history of the Jewish nation, which had now reached its highest point of civilization, and was come into contact with the Assyrian Power, which was overwhelming the Eastern world. Its social and religious condition, and its politics, home and foreign, are known to us through the contemporary discourses of the Prophets, the political and religious advisers of the kings and people. A new and interesting light is thrown upon it by the Assyrian Inscriptions, which show us, as facts, many events and circumstances of which, without them, we could only infer the existence. And the genius of Isaiah, the greatest of the prophets of that or any time, has called out a series of learned and thoughtful commentaries on his writings, such as are hardly available for the student of any other book.

PREFACE.

Taking then each of Isaiah's prophecies in succession, I have brought it into connection with all that we know, from itself, or from other sources, of the events to which it refers, as well as of the internal state of the nation, and of its relations with other countries. And thus I have endeavoured, in a manner which should not be the less complete because it is gradual and somewhat informal, to take in the whole subject proposed in my title-page.

In thus reading the Book of Isaiah I have, to the best of my ability, handled it by the method of our modern historians of Greece and Eome, and treated it as they — with thorough freedom and thorough reverence — treat the classical books. Wherever the method led I have followed ; and if I have found differences as well as resemblances between the Jewish and the classical literatures, this is not the consequence of a difference of method, but of facts. Thus, I have recognized, for I should think it unscientific criticism not to recognize, the fact that, while no one now worships the national gods of Greece or Eome, a large part of the most educated and most thoughtful men in modern Europe still believe in, and worship the national God of the Jews. And again : — the Jewish, the Greek, and the Roman histories all tell us of national growth and national decay. The patriots and the philosophers of Greece and Rome could find no remedy for the decay : they admitted at last that there was nothing left for the state but military despotism, and nothing in religion but an organized superstition without faith — which indeed would do nothing towards restoring the life of the nation, but might make its inevitable death more gradual, or less convulsive, than if they continued to try successive forms of anarchy in the hope of regaining freedom. But the Jewish teachers maintained that there was a law of national life powerful enough to control and

PREFACE.

vii reverse the action of the law of death ; and that it would eventually assert and establish itself, if not in the Jewish nation yet in future times and other nations. And this belief of the ancient Jew is still held by many a modern political philosopher and practical statesman : which fact, and what it involves, I have also recognized.

The Text of Isaiah — the Authorized Version revised — is given at the end of the Volume. The question of the Authorship of the Book I have treated at some length. I consider it to be still far from settled, and that it needs more and other discussion than it has yet received.

Of the Assyrian Inscriptions of the period under consideration I have given, in the proper places, all that is yet translated, and that is of importance to my subject.

Chapter I. Page

The Greek Orator. — The Hebrew Prophet. — The modern Preacher.-— Schools of the Prophets. — The Book of Isaiah. — Its arrangement. — Its unity. — Hypothetical and positive criticism . . 1

CHAPTEE II.

The Book of Isaiah. — Its title. — Date of Chapter i. — Prophetic imagination. — Hebrew oratory rhythmical. — Parallels in other nations, — Contents of Chapter i. — Times of Uzziah and Jotham. — Forms and spirit. — National brotherhood. — Political ideals . . . .22

Chapter III

Isaiah ii., iii., iv. — Hebrew genius imaginative rather than logical.— Perfect and imperfect tenses in Hebrew. — The last days. — Contrast of the ideal and actual state of the nation. — Foreign influences. — Private idolatry. — Political materialism. — National decay. — Laws of God's government of the world. — Good and evil of commerce. — Hebrew matrons. — Female luxury. — Its punishment. — The Branch of Jehovah. — The restored though humbled nation . . . .42

Chapter IV

Isaiah v. — Coming woes. — Fusing power of imagination. — Hebrew idyll. — Ancient fertility of Judsea. — Present barrenness. — The vineyard of the Lord of Hosts. — Selfishness in an aristocracy. — Rights and duties of landowners. — Property a trust. — Hebrew and English laws of entail. — "Word and work of Jehovah. — God a constitutional ruler. — Abuse of words by worldly men. — Thucydides. — Fulfilment of Isaiah's threats — to his contemporaries — and to all ages since. — Grotius on prophecy . 59

Chapter V

Isaiah vi. — The Prophet's commission. — The Temple. — Its scenes. — The Yision. — Insight into the life of things. — Prophecy rational and intelligible. — God the real and actual King. — His holiness. — His justice. — Patriotic hopes of Isaiah ....... 77

Chapter VI

Isaiah vii. — The accession of Ahaz. — Political state of king and people. — ' Jehovah said.' — Topography of Jerusalem. — The Virgin conceiving. — The Incarnation an universal idea — how realized. — Loss of Hebrew independence. — Isaiah not a magician . . . ,95

X

CONTENTS.

Chapter VII. Page

Isaiah viii. — ix. 7. — The symbolical family. — Ancient and modern habits of public men. — Siloah and Euphrates. — The panic of Judah, and its remedy. — Galilee of the Gentiles. — The national gloom. — The great light. — The Messiah. — Gradual development of the Prophet's anticipations 113

Chapter VIII

Isaiah ix. 8 — xii. — Epic unity. — Obstinate energy of the Hebrew race. — Lawlessness of the Ten Tribes. — Legalism of Judah. — The king of Assyria. — Gods in the image of men. — The scourge of nations, and its wielder. — Ancient roads. — The king of the stock of Jesse. — The golden age. — Fusion of conflicting elements in a nation. — Consequences of the revolt of Ephraim. — Deportation of Jews in Isaiah's time. — The universal Church — its relation to the world. — The water of salvation . 124

Chapter IX

Isaiah xiii., xiv. — Genuineness of the prophecies on Babylon. — Sceptical criticism — its origin and progress — not positive or constructive. — Orthodox criticism. — Results of the controversy. — Traditional comments confounded with the text. — Hebrew historical notices of Babylon — Assyrian notices. — Babylon sacked in Isaiah's time by Persians, and perhaps by Medes. — Babylon a diagram or ideograph. — Arguments from style. — Suspense better than hasty decision. — Final overthrow of the empire of force 154

Chapter X

Isaiah xiv. 28 — 32. — Philistia. — Origin of the Philistines — their extermination commanded by Moses. — Law of conquests and exterminations. — British conquest of India. — Evil not eternal. — Philistia' s relations with Judah — with Assyria. — Sargon and Sennacherib in Philistia 184

Chapter XI

Isaiah xv., xvi. — Moab. — Probably reduced by Shalmaneser. — History of Moab — picture of its overthrow. — Tribute of lambs due to Judah. — Friendship with Judah advised. — Modern distinction between the animal and spiritual life. — Corporate unity of a state . . .197

Chapter XII

Isaiah xvii., xviii. — Damascus, Ephraim, and Ethiopia. — Probable date and unity of this prophecy. — The rush of nations. — The general panic. — Worldly alliances. — God's deliverance. — Notion that the destruction of Sennacherib's army is a myth — not well founded . 206

Chapter XIII

Isaiah xix. — Egyptian dynasties in the time of Isaiah — contemporary or successive. — Historical notices from various sources. — Anarchy. — Invasion of Sargon. — Sack of Thebes. — Treaty between Egypt and Assyria. — Multitude of gods and of castes unfavourable to political unity. — Exclusive wisdom of priesthood. — The city of destruction. — Alexander and Ptolemy. — Temple of Onias. — Septuagint. — Philo. — Church of Alexandria. — Bacon on prophecy 212

CONTENTS.

xi

Chapter XIV. Page

Isaiah xx.— Sargon, Shalmaneser, Tartan. — The siege of Ashdod. — Shehna's policy. — Isaiah's symbolical protest against it. — He walks naked and barefoot. — Isaiah's policy probably more expedient — certainly more befitting Israel's place in universal history . . . 218

Chapter XV

Isaiah xxi. — A vision in a dream or trance. — Bible meaning of inspiration. — Divination. — Ancient oracles. — Special powers of nations and individuals. — One Greece, one Shakspeare. — Discernment of political effects in their causes less possible now than formerly. — 'The Desert of the Sea.'' — Tbe Prophet a watchman. — The tribes of Arabia. — Subjected by Assyria 225

Chapter XVI

Isaiah xxii. — Political parties at Jerusalem. — Shebna and the majority. — Eliakim and the minority. — Isaiah's attack on Shebna. — Preparations for tbe siege. — Topography of Jerusalem. — Site of Zion. — Spirit of the people and king. — Fall of Shebna. — Sufferings of modern nations from invasion. — Moral and religious results. — Prussia. — Switzerland 235

Chapter XVII

Isaiah xxiii. — The Phoenicians — historical notices — their trade — carriers of philosophy and politics — relations with Israel. — The Tyrian Hercules — their religion political, not natural. — Siege of the Island- Tyre by Shalmaneser — by Nebuchadnezzar — by Alexander — present state. — Authorship of the prophecy. — The dispenser of crowns. — The Queen of cities dishonoured. — Tyre forgotten seventy years — shall sing as an harlot 253

Chapter XVIII

Isaiah xxiv. — xxvii. — Utter desolation of J udah — actually caused by the Assyrian armies. — National covenant broken by Ahaz — he shuts the Temple. — God's counsels of old. — Moab put for Assyria. — Patience in national calamities. — Tbe wife divorced, and taken back. — The silver trumpet sounded. — Expansion of Isaiah's views . . . 266

Chapter XIX

Isaiah xxviii. — xxxv. — Political and religious prospects of Judah. — Ariel, the Lion of God. — Worldly state-craft. — True insight. — The embassy to Egypt. — Persecution of the prophets. — Dumb idols and the unseen teacher. — The holy solemnities. — Talmudical account of festive processions. — The stroke of doom on Sennacherib. — The real Deliverer. — Social influence of women. — The siege raised. — Edom put for Assyria. — Return of the ransomed captives .... 276

Chapter XX

Isaiah xxxvi., xxxvii. — Historical events of Sennacherib's invasion and retreat — his letter — how answered — unconscious genius in the narrative. — Rab-shakeh's theology. — Isaiah's inspiration. — 'The incarnate wrath of God.' — Zion's defiance. — The ' sign' of the spontaneous crops. — The destroying angel. — Sethos delivered by Vulcan. — German war of freedom. — History teaches a belief in Providence. — Niebuhr.— Grote 302 xii

CONTENTS.

Chapter XXI

Isaiah, xxxviii. — The sickness of Hezekiah — importance of his life to his nation — his desire of recovery not purely selfish. — Fear of death in old times. — Christ's resurrection. — The sign of the shadow on the sun-dial. — Two accounts — the contemporary one not miraculous. — The Bible to be treated like other books. — Not so treated by sceptics. —The hymn of Hezekiah 320

Chapter XXII

Isaiah xxxix. — The embassy from Babylon. — Chronicle of Eusebius, and Berosus. — Sennacherib's annals. — Books of Kings and Chronicles. — Value of the latter. — The sin of Hezekiah. — Trusting God in politics. — Modern history. — Niebuhr and Naples. — Colletta. — Nations and rulers re-act on each other. — Hezekiah' s reception of the embassy. — Isaiah's denunciation.- — 'Apres moi le Deluge.' — Prosperity of England. — Religious temper of our statesmen. — Mr. Gladstone 330

Chapter XXIII

Isaiah xl. — lxvi. — Question of the genuineness of the last chapters of Isaiah. — Arguments on each side. — A third hypothesis. — The name of Cyrus. — Coresh, and Jehovah's servant. — Modern explanations. — Doubts and certainties. — The positive method. — Coherence of earlier and later prophecies. — The earlier not fulfilled as Isaiah had expected. — Enlargement of his views. — Finite and infinite ideals. — Facts for induction as to the nature of prophecy .... 345

Chapter XXIV

Isaiah xl. — lxvi. — The vision of the exile and return. — The transitory and the permanent. — The G-od of nature, and of man. — The powerless gods of the nations. — The Jewish institution of the Redeemer. — Its effect on the more enlightened Jews. — The Deliverer, King, and Teacher. — The work of Isaiah and Hezekiah. — Its success and its failure. — Jewish idea of the Messiah. — Its relation to their political life. — Atonement a human fact. — A rational idea. — Union of half-truths. — The Messiah of the Gospel. — The Prophets and the Apostles. — Isaiah's science of politics. — His death. — His triumph . 370

Appendix — the English Text op the Book: op Isaiah . . .391 Index . . . 477

JEWISH HISTORY AND POLITICS.

Chapter I. The Greek: Orator. — The Hebrew Prophet. — The Modern" Preacher

SCHOOLS OF THE PROPHETS. — THE BOOK. OF ISAIAH. — ITS ARRANGEMENT — ITS UNITY. — HYPOTHETICAL AND POSITIVE CRITICISM.

THE Spartan king told Xerxes that he was no match for the Greeks, ' because they, though free, had a master — the law — over them, which they feared more than the Persians did his despotic will.' And the Athenian orator, looking back on the great struggle after a generation or two had passed, gave his countrymen a farther explanation of their fathers' success 1 against the barbarian myriads of the king of Asia :' he pointed out how ' they had done such noble and wonderful deeds, because they were already organized into a free commonwealth in which the good were honoured, and the bad restrained, by law ; because they knew and held that it should be left to brute beasts to control each other by mutual violence, suah as oriental kings and subjects lived by, but that it became men to define rights by law, to persuade to its maintenance or expansion by rational and instructive speech, and in their conduct to follow the guidance of both these, — the law their king, and speech their teacher.'

The orator enunciated an eternal truth. Had it been less than eternal, it could not be still keeping its ground, and still sustaining the life of every nation which holds to it, or indeed, although we (not to judge of others) hold never

LA W AND FREE SPEECH.

so imperfectly to it : for though we are ready enough to thank God that we English are not as other men, we might more reasonably reflect how often we are all on the verge of doing what lies in us to disturb the perfect play of those two forces, of entire obedience to the law and absolute right of discussion, according as either may check some private opinion or class interest ; and how seldom we remember that one step beyond that verge lies the region of mutual violence with the correlates of despotism and insurrection in which its vitality consists. But this truth, this universal law of human society, has not only outlasted the polities of Greece, but was not first discovered there, as the Athenians supposed ; nor was the exercise of this master right and power of words ' so originally and peculiarly the possession of Greeks alone among all living creatures, that ' (as their panegyrist goes on to say) • if any other people did acquire it from them, this only extended the name of Grecian to distinctions of mind as well as race, so that they were called by it who shared their education rather than those who had their blood.' Another people had been set, many centuries earlier, to work out some of the same, with some very different, problems of human society, and under not wholly dissimilar conditions, internal and external : and while the Hebrew as well as the Greek could have pointed to various other proofs that his was a commonwealth, or constitutionally organized body -politic, as distinguished from the inorganic despotisms of Assyria or Persia, the one fixed on the same marks as the other did, as the characteristic ones : the ' Nomos and Logos ' of the Greek were anticipated by their true counterparts the ' Law and the Prophets ' of the Hebrew."'"

* Since this was published in 1853, it has received the support of a not dissimilar view of the position of the Hebrew Prophets by Mr. Mill. He says : — ' The Egyptian hierarchy, the paternal despotism of China, were very fit instruments for carrying those nations up to the point of civilization which they attained. But having reached that point they were brought to a permanent halt for want of mental liberty and individuality, — requisites of improvement which the institutions that had carried them thus far entirely incapacitated them from acquiring; and as the institutions did not break down and give place to others, further improvement stopped. In contrast with these nations, let us consider the example of an opposite character, afforded by another and a comparatively insignificant Oriental people — the

THE GREEK ORATOR.

Isaiah, no less than Demosthenes, might have said that it was the office of the political speaker and adviser, ' to see events in their beginnings, to discern their purport and tendencies from the first, and to forewarn his countrymen accordingly ; to confine within the narrowest bounds those political vices of habitual procrastination, supineness, ignorance, and love of strife, which are inevitable in all states ; and to dispose men's minds instead to enlightened concord and unanimity, and to the zealous discharge of their social duties :' and he too might have added, ' All these things have I done, and no creature can say that I have ever left any of them undone ; I do not shrink from your scrutiny, be it never so strict.' * But there were

Jews. They, too, had an absolute monarchy and a hierarchy. These did for them what was done for other Oriental races by their institutions — subdued them to industry and order, and gave them a national life. But neither their kings nor their priests ever obtained, as in those other countries, the exclusive moulding of their character. Their religion gave existence to an inestimably precious unorganized institution — the Order (if it may be so termed) of Prophets. Under the protection, generally though not always effectual, of their sacred character, the Prophets were a power in the nation, often more than a match for kings and priests, and kept up, in that little corner of the earth, the antagonism of influences which is the only real security for continued progress. Religion consequently was not there — what it has been in so many other places — a consecration of all that was once established, and a barrier against further improvement. The remark of a distinguished Hebrew, that the Prophets were in Church and State the equivalent of the modern liberty of the press, gives a just but not an adequate conception of the part fulfilled in national and universal history by this great element of Jewish life ; by means of which, the canon of inspiration never being complete, the persons most eminent in genius and moral feeling could not only denounce as reprobate, with the direct authority of the Almighty, whatever appeared to them deserving of such treatment, but ^ould give forth better and higher interpretations of the national religion, which thenceforth became part of the religion. Accordingly, whoever can divest himself of the habit of reading the Bible as if it was one book, which until lately was equally inveterate in Christians and in unbelievers, sees with admiration the vast interval between the morality and religion of the Pentateuch, or even of the historical books, and the morality and religion of the Prophecies, a distance as wide as between these last and the Gospels. Conditions more favourable to progress could not easily exist ; accordingly, the Jews, instead of being stationary, like other Asiatics, were, next to the Greeks, the most progressive people of antiquity, and, jointly with them, have been the startingpoint and main propelling agency of modern cultivation.' — Representative Government, by John Stuart Mill, pp. 41, 42.

* Demosthenes, de Corona, c. 73. This, and the preceding passages from Herodotus (vii. 104), Lysias (ii. 17 — 20), and Lsjcrates (iv. 53 — 56), are pointed out as characteristic of the political life of Greece, by Mr. Grote : History, vii. 498, ix. 116. I need hardly remind the realer that the greatness of ancient Pome, too, stood not in her laws alone, but in her laws and her free speech together: the tribune had as large a share as the senator in building up the Republic.

B 2

4 INSTITUTIONS FOR NATIONAL CULTURE.

differences as well as resemblances between the orator and the prophet, and we must look for further illustrations elsewhere.

The history of England, as of other nations of Christendom, shows us in the political constitution of the state an incorporated and endowed body of men called the clergy, or spiritualty, with the business of caring for all those interests of the nation which did not fall under the heads of trade, agriculture, war, or domestic and feudal (that is, patriarchal) government ; who practised the more difficult branches of medicine, law, and statesmanship ; who bestowed a religious consecration on all states of national, family, and personal life — delivering the crown and sceptre to the sovereign in trust from the King of kings, joining the hands of man and wife in the name of God, and enrolling as a citizen the babe who had just before been received into the congregation ; who claimed the right, and acknowledged the duty, of educating each member of the nation to apprehend his privileges and obligations, not only as a citizen but as a man, and of teaching him that his Greatest diernity and happiness, and his highest relations with his fellow-men and with God, belonged to him as a man, and would be his in proportion as this, his proper humanity, was renewed in him : and who rescued one day in each week from work and trade, devoting it to rest, recreation, and public worship, and thus provided the opportunity and means for keeping up that consecration of the nation, and for carrying on that education and civilization of the people. And in the history of the Hebrew nation, we can trace the rudimental, though often rude and imperfect, counterparts of this European spiritualty, of which, indeed, it was in many respects the origin and model. And though decay and growth have conspired to efface many of the original characteristics of the ' Church of England,' and to provide other means for the execution of many of its old functions, it is still not only the best, but a thoroughly effective illustration of the analogous ' estate of the realm ' of Israel, provided that we avoid that bondage in which analogies and illustrations are mistaken for arguments, and keep before us the fact that each nation has

THE WORSHIP OF JEHOVAH.

ever had its own character, institutions, and history, and must be understood and judged of in itself ; and this the more as it is remote in time and place from those with which we compare it.

To the Tribe of Levi, then, the Mosaic constitution gave special functions in the state, and distributed them over the land for their performance. They were to carry on the sacrifices and other services of the Tabernacle or Temple ; to conduct the local worship of Jehovah ; to assist in, and give a religious sanction to, all the main proceedings of the nation and its kings ; to instruct the people in the law, — for which end they had the tithes allotted to them, that they might reside in every part of the country when their turn was past for attending at the temple ; to keep the genealogies and other records of the state ; and to administer what we should now call its sanitary code. I include the local worship of Jehovah among their functions ; for though the Jewish historians and interpreters of the law — writing when the restriction of that worship to Jerusalem seemed the only means of rooting out the old local idolatries, and when the diminution of the extent and population of the kingdom made such restriction practicable — often condemn the worship of Jehovah in 'the High Places,' through the land as a corruption of the faith, yet they have given us a multitude of facts* which show that it did long prevail with the sanction of judges, prophets, and kings. It was supported by patriarchal practice and tradition, by the Mosaic constitution, and by its own reasonableness if only it could be prevented from degenerating into idolatry ; and, notwithstanding its corruptions, it helped to form the national character, so religious in spirit and not merely in forms, and of which we see one of the final developments in the organization of the synagogues all over the country in later times. And out of this spiritualty, or order of clergy, grew the institution and order of Prophets, or

* Gen. xii. 7, 8; xxviii. 18; xxxi. 54. Judges vi. 24 ff. ; xiii. 16 ff. ; xvii. 7ff. 1 Sam. vii. 9, 17 ; x. 3, 8 ; xiii. 8, 9 ; xiV. 34, 35 ; xvi. 5. 1 Kings iii. 2ff. ; xviii. 30. 2 Kings xii. 3; xiv. 4; xv. 4, 34, 35 ; xviii. 4; xxiii. 5, 9. 1 Chron. xxi. 26. 2 Chron. xv. 17. Psa. lxxiv. 8. It has been suggested that Rabshakeh (Isa. xxxvi. 7), appealed to a discontented faction who opposed the suppression of the worship of Jehovah in the High Places.

6 NATIONAL EDUCATION OF THE HEBREWS.

preachers, educated in colleges or schools of the Prophets. Such colleges existed at Ramah, Bethel, Jericho, Gilgal, and Jerusalem ; there was a president or ' father,' in which office we find Samuel and Elisha ; and his disciples and associates, who bore the names of ' sons of the prophets,' lived with him in a common habitation, and shared a common table. We are told that they 'prophesied with the psaltery, tabret, pipe, and harp :' their writings show them to have been students, nay masters, of poetry, rhetoric, and philosophy, as well as of music; and they were historians, though only brief abstracts of their historical works survive : practical, no less than speculative and literary, politicians, they show themselves educated to the use of the mental and moral powers which were required for advising their kings, at home and in foreign affairs ; and — what belonged to a still higher training — for advising and directing the people how to resist those kings when the latter set the constitution deliberately at nought, and yet not fall into the same guilt themselves. There seems reason to suppose that kings and princes were, when they pleased, educated in these schools, as well as the prophets. It was eminently a national education : in the Psalms, Prophets, and other Scriptures of the Old (nay, of the New) Testament, we see its results, extending through the whole life of the nation for 1500 years : in the Pentateuch we see how its foundations were laid by the great Hebrew legislator, in furtherance of his design, that all nations should have cause to say, ' Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people ;' and in the historical notices, brief as they are, of these schools of the prophets, we have sufficient evidence of an instrument adequate to connect the design and the results. But though regular education was not less, neither was it more, important in the Hebrew than in other nations. The prophet Amos says, ' I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son ; but I was an herdman, and a gatherer of sycamore fruit : and J ehovah took me as I followed the flock, and Jehovah said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel.' And no doubt this was not the only instance in a body of whom

SCHOOLS OF THE PROPHETS.

one of the characteristic features was that they should not belong exclusively to any one tribe, or rank, or profession, and that each should ' speak as he was moved by the Holy Ghost.' Yet here as elsewhere the settled institutions of the country will have exercised their due influence in forming the character even of those individuals who did not come into immediate contact with them. And while we may pursue our illustration by comparing the schools of the prophets with the monasteries and colleges which have hitherto sent out most, if not all, the great prophets of Christendom, as well as the multitude of ordinary teachers, we shall find a real and instructive resemblance between these and the Hebrew prophets. The sermons and other discourses of a Latimer at Paul's Cross, of a Luther at the Diet of Worms, of a Knox before the Popish queen and nobles, or of a Savonarola in Florence ; the fieldpreachings of a Wesley or Whitfield ; and, within narrower limits, the orations of a Burke in defence of justice, laws, institutions ; — these, taken with the lives and acts, and, where need was, the deaths of the men, are the true counterparts of what Isaiah and the rest of the Hebrew prophets said, did, or suffered.