which it had so often sung was accomplished; but, ere it took its flight, it struck again its sweetest chord of melody, and harped a prelude to the Gentile praises, and sung the sudden coming of the Lord, and then, in farewell notes, struck by the rising "Sun of Righteousness," it warned and left the church four hundred years.

The silence of prophecy after the reformation of Nehemiah, I conceive, forms a strong objection to the litigated point, while the generally-admitted principle of a double reference sufficiently accounts for the language of former predictions.

Third Objection.

"The doctrine of a literal restoration is encumbered with certain difficulties which are not necessary to be encountered, because obviated by an interpretation more simple and more in harmony with the general tenor of the word of God, than that upon which the said doctrine is founded." I am perfectly aware that no objection fairly lies against a prediction simply because the accomplishment appears to be unlikely; for who shall limit the Holy One of Israel?

F

But

as, when two explanations are offered of any fact in natural history, the whole analogy of nature dictates the reception of that which is the most simple and most in accordance with its ordinary processes and developments, so, arguing from analogy still, I am bound to receive that interpretation of the prophecies which is the most simple, and, at the same time, best corresponds with the general tenor of revealed truth. Thus we admit, as the most simple, the Copernican system of astronomy in preference to that which would suppose a much more complicated and stupendous machinery, and a much greater expenditure of physical energy.* And thus any other theory that should be equally plausible, and at the same time more simple, might very properly supersede the system of Newton himself. And thus, we admit the opinion, as most consonant with the same theory (Newton's), that the planets of our solar system are

* Copernicus alleged the simplicity of his theory as its strong recommendation, and acknowledged that the confusion of the favourite system suggested to him the idea of examining its claims to implicit adoption.

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opaque bodies, deriving their light, as the earth does, from the sun, in preference to the notion that they are orbs of essential light. And thus, upon the same principle, further illustrations of the force attaching to the objection now advanced may be derived from Scripture. Heaven is described with gates of pearl and pavement of gold; and who will say the description must, of necessity, be incorrect? Yet who ever thinks that the description is literally true? The angels of God, it is declared, shall cast transgressors "into a furnace of fire." They shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." If this language admitted of no other interpretation, we should be bound to take it literally (as some persons really have done), however great the difficulty involved of fire ever acting yet not consuming; for what is too hard for "Him who dwelt in the bush?" But there is no necessity for encountering this difficulty, because a solution more simple and more in harmony with the general tenor of the divine record, is suggested upon other prin

ciples.* These remarks will apply with equal force to the difficulties into which the doctrine of a literal restoration is encumbered; but before I state what these difficulties are, it may be well to meet an objection that may be advanced against this line of argument. It may be said, the objections advanced against the final restoration of the Jews might equally have been advanced against their return from Babylon and other deliverances. But I presume the cases are widely different. The promise of Canaan (worldly blessings) was to Abraham and to his seed under the law; the promise of an eternal inheritance was to the children of faith. When the old dispensation then was abrogated, the promise of worldly blessings ceased, and, since the dawn of Christianity, the promises to the Church involve chiefly spiritual

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Simplicity of interpretation cannot be too much insisted upon. "As those wines which flow from the first treading out of the grapes," says Lord Bacon, are sweeter and better than those forced out by the press, which gives the roughness of the husk and the stone; so are those doctrines best and wholesomest which flow from a gentle crush of the Scripture, and are not wrung into controversies and common place."

blessings. No valid objection could have been advanced by an individual, disposed to spiritualize the prophecies predicting the return from Babylon, on the same principle as that on which a literal restoration is now objected to. Whatever difficulties apparently lay in the way of their return from Babylon, (difficulties, by the bye, not comparable to those now in question,) they were absolutely necessary to be encountered, and could not be obviated by any spiritual interpretation in consonance with the genius of the Old Testament economy. The prophecies on the subject demanded a literal fulfilment without alternative.

In my next, I shall proceed to state the difficulties with which the doctrine of a literal restoration is encumbered.

Till then, and ever, believe me truly,

Yours, &c.