Providence interpreted Prophecy, or rather we should say confirmed it, that the whole world might see that although "all flesh is grass and all the glory of man is as the flower of the field, the word of God abideth for ever," and that nothing is more sure than that " one jot or tittle of the law shall not fail till all be fulfilled."

In the chapter from which the text is taken, God, by the mouth of the Prophet Isaiah, foretells the final destruction and overthrow of an enemy of His and of His people Israel and of His Church which shall take place in the midst of scenes of such terrific grandeur and furious slaughter that the heavens and earth shall quake and all nature tremble with horror. Although the enemy is described under the general name of Idumea, because, when the prophet wrote, Edom was the bitter enemy of Israel, yet it is evident from the whole description that this is only a generic title, as are also Assyria and Babylon. In the vengeance poured out upon the foes of Israel and Israel's God, the inhabitants of Idumea shall come in for their share, and their country may possibly be a part of the battle ground in which the Lord will avenge the quarrel of His Covenant, when, as the prophet says, verse 3, "His indignation shall be upon all nations and his fury upon all their armies." But there is evidently much in this chapter which can not and does not apply to any great conflict in which the interests of the seed of Abraham have yet been concerned. What the prophet declares in verse 8 to be the cause of this war, viz., "the day of the Lord's vengeance and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion," has evidently never yet taken place, for the people referred

to are still dispersed and with few exceptions oppressed all over the earth. Neither will the conflict here described ever be realized until their deliverance is effected. Whatever plausible interpretations commentators may give of this Prophecy we have this one evidence of their being either true or false, viz., the manner in which their interpretations affect the fortunes of the Jewish people. They are the key note of the Prophecy, without which every interpretation is out of tune, and can make no harmony with the text And any interpretation which leaves them in their present state has a prima facie evidence of its falsity.

We must therefore regard this whole Prophecy as still future, and if so, as still awaiting that providential exposition which in the time appointed of God it shall receive.

Now if twenty-five hundred years ago the Prophet Isaiah, having delivered this prediction with all its details, called attention to it by saying in the words of the text, "Seek ye out of the book of the Lord and read: no one of these shall fail, none shall want her mate, for my mouth it hath commanded, and my Spirit it hath gathered them;" with how much more force do these words come to us now, standing, perhaps, on the verge of the fulfillment of this Prophecy. How does it become us, in the remarkable times in which we live, while wonderful events are constantly taking place, to keep an eye upon the Scriptures of truth and see whether some of these events which are taking place may not be the MATEs, to use the language of the prophet, which the prediction has long been waiting for. Every Prophecy is engaged

to those events in which it is to be fulfilled by the promise of God, and therefore the fulfillment is called its mate for which it waits in confidence and sometimes very long; when the mate arrives and the union between the thing predicted and the thing accomplished takes place, then Prophecy becomes History.

Almost all the great historical events which have befallen the world and the Church, have been matters of Prophecy before they became matters of History. The flood was foretold one hundred and twenty years before it took place. The deliverance from the bondage of Egypt four hundred years before it was accomplished. All the events of our Lord's life many centuries before His advent. His birth, suffering, death, resurrection and ascension, which were for ages matters of prediction, are now subjects or events of history. The rise and fall of the four great empires which have successively borne rule over the whole earth, and which so many historians have chronicled, Daniel wrote prophetically during the existence of the first of them, and Rollin has written historically, together with Gibbon, since the fall of the last. None of these Prophecies has wanted her mate; just the things foretold have been fulfilled; and why? For the reason given in the text, "my mouth it hath commanded them, and my Spirit it hath gathered them." That secret influence which God exerts over matter and mind and the motives of men, directing them according to His will, is called in the text His Spirit which gathers them, i. e., gathers together those circumstances which control those events which (sometimes indeed unconsciously and often unintentionally to those who are actors in the

scenes) produce the very results which the prophet foretold. We have a remarkable example of this in the fulfillment of our Saviour's Prophecy concerning the destruction of Jerusalem and the overthrow of the temple. It is well known that the Roman general was anxious to preserve that beautiful structure intact, and gave orders to that effect, but a Roman soldier, in a mad frenzy, rushed with a torch into the holy place and threw it from him, whereupon the whole temple was almost instantaneously, as if by a miracle, in a blaze, and the fire, which seemed to be maddened by a divine purpose, could not be extinguished.

How wonderfully have all the predictions of Moses and the prophets concerning the dispersion and oppression of the Jews been fulfilled in their minutest particulars. The history of that race for centuries past has been a living commentary on those Scriptures which they have preserved with such pious care. Seek ye'out of the book of the Lord and read, ye who have any doubts of divine inspiration, and tell us, who are these "people that dwell alone and are not reckoned among the nations," who have maintained a separate existence for so many centuries among the multitudes of the Gentiles, without a country and a home, and yet have not been called by their names, but have preferred the name of Israelite above that of any other nation; whom no oppression could subdue nor any motive of gain induce to become Gentiles either by religion or by intermarriage? Are they not those whose history was written by the pen of inspiration, first as Prophecy? Do they not resemble in all the events of their wonderful career those to whom

Moses said, "It shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God to observe to do all His commandments, that the Lord shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies, and thou shalt be removed unto all the kingdoms of the earth, and the Lord shall scatter thee among all people, and among those nations thou shalt find no ease, but the Lord shall give thee a trembling heart and sorrow of mind, and thou shalt have none assurance of thy life, but shall be a proverb, a bye-word and a hissing among all people ?" How wonderfully has this been verified for centuries past! and although this land was the first to set an example of toleration to that race by the removal of all civil disabilities and odious restrictions of social intercourse, yet in Europe, Asia and Africa it still exists (with some exceptions) in an almost unmitigated degree, and according to the very letter of the prediction made more than three thousand years ago. What shall we say to these things, but that "there is none like Him who declares the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure ?" As History has always been the best practical commentator on Prophecy in ages past, so it will perform the same useful office to the word of God in ages to come.

The unwritten history of Prophecy will probably be much more interesting than that which is written, because the events yet to take place are more terrible and glorious than those which have already been accomplished. What, for example, is the first coming of our Lord to the second ? What the deliverance of the Jews from