348 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1874- 



the fulness of the glory of Christ ; but every prophet 

 looked in the right direction, looked toward that glory, 

 and saw more or less clearly some of the great lines in 

 which the Kingdom of God must move forward. That 

 is the true significance of prophecy. It always pointed 

 Israel and the Old Testament dispensation towards an 

 end which in its realisation lost the idea of the nation in 

 that of the Universal Kingdom of God, and swallowed up 

 the Old Testament in the New. It is in this, and not in 

 individual predictions, that the supernatural inspiration 

 of the prophets is clearly seen. The immediate sphere 

 of their labours might be in some petty corner of national 

 life. Their immediate concern might be about some 

 treaty with Egypt, some war with Edom, some matter 

 which in its details was of the most transient importance. 

 But in the smallest matter they held to ideas which were 

 wide in their scope and distant in their range. They 

 taught the people to look at everything in the light of 

 God s work and God s purpose. And that purpose was 

 gradually made clearer and clearer to them till at length 

 when Christ came He could look to the prophets for a 

 declaration, unmistakable though undeveloped, of every 

 part of His work and every characteristic of His Kingdom. 

 To make out clearly this most wondrous characteristic 

 of prophecy, to show how all prophecy tends in one 

 direction, how through all the multiplicity of historical 

 circumstances it works ever consciously to one great end, 

 will be the second great aim of our winter s work. We 

 shall try as we trace the prophetic succession through its 

 work in Israel s history, to trace at the same time the 

 marvellous way in which the prophets reached with ever- 

 increasing clearness and fulness of view out beyond their 

 own times and their own dispensation towards the new 

 things of Christ and His spiritual kingdom. But these 

 Messianic hopes we must always seek to comprehend in 

 their connection with the circumstances and needs of the 

 prophet s own time. No prophecy can be mechanically 



