process of reasoning-no weighing of probabilities. It was not the product of calculation. It was sight. And they saw not the visible world with the outward eye more distinctly than they foresaw what they foretold. Such were the ancient prophets. "Abraham,” said Jesus, "saw my day and was glad." The eye of the body is but a dim type of the eye of the prophetic soul. But never in the flesh have we had such a manifestation of prophetic vision as in Jesus Christ. He has cast all other prophets into the shade. His prophetical ability came not by education nor by reasoning. It was a special gift of God. Still its whole manifestation in the life of Jesus is in perfect harmony with nature. It is new, unprecedented, but still analogous to all that we see and know of mind, of spirit. And thus it reveals upon itself the divine signature, and proves that it is the inspiration of the Father of spirits.

Wonderfully endowed as Jesus was, he could not but be a prophet. I pray the reader to ponder the case well. I would disclose to him new grounds of faith.

While on earth, as the Gospel of John declares, the Son of Man was in Heaven, in that spiritual and eternal world where no veils of time circumscribe the view. Having the purest moral sense, he saw the moral aspects, circumstances, relations, destinies, of the scene in which he stood. He knew himself and those around him. "I know," said he, "those whom I have chosen." Are we not able, therefore, to track, a little way at least, that mysterious power of intuition or inspiration-I know not its name, certain only that

THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY.

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it is divine-by which he foretold his own fate, the fate of his nation, even to many minute particulars, the treachery of one of his disciples, the cowardice of another, and the desertion of all? His foreknowledge was marvellously profound and accurate. How does it draw aside the veil which hides from us the wonderful powers of the spiritual world, revealing to us a spirit commanding disease and death, and penetrating into futurity! But altogether unprecedented as was the prophetical knowledge of Jesus, it was still limited. The precise time when that national catastrophe would take place which he predicted, he declared he did not know. It was known only to God.

This account of the prophetical power of Jesus will be regarded by most, I suppose, as a mere speculation; and, (it grieves me to say it,) a bold speculation. I strive to think freely, but I do not covet the reputation of boldness. The view I take of the prophetical character of Christ seems to me the simplest, most natural, and unspeakably the most vital, and to take much less for granted than the popular theory of the case. This, like the popular idea of the miracles, appears to be founded upon the unconscious, but most extravagant assumption, that the whole order of things, material and immaterial,-all the forces and limits of that mighty spirit, which is around and within us-are perfectly known; that God, instead of being ALL IN ALL, sits "outside," having delegated the care of all ordinary matters to another power, the order of Nature; and that when anything occurs out of the little circle of the experience of man, child of

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yesterday! then only is His arm stretched forth. According to this popular impression, the prophetic utterances of Jesus are not recognised as the natural issues and expressions of a mighty spiritual Power working in or with his spirit. But as such, we ought, by all sound principles of thought, to regard them, so long as the spiritual world to which he belonged, and which is all around and within us, remains an unexplored deep. That deep must not be hidden from us by a theory of the mode of the divine existence and government, constructed out of false, human analogies, and confidently reposed in by multitudes, among whom are many wise and many great, as if it were the living temple of truth, not made with hands! Rather does it become us to lie prostrate with trembling awe and humility, at the gates of the unknown world, which stand open within us, waiting for I know not what demonstrations of power to issue therefrom, and trying, by the light of their coming, to penetrate into the unfathomable abyss. An awful voice of power and prophecy has been heard in the world. We overlook the actual utterer. It is true he bore the semblance of a man, and human was the voice that spake. But there was in him, as there is in every human shape, the transcendent mystery of a spirit; and until we have solved that, and ascertained that the Almighty is not here, that his kingdom is not within us, his throne not in our hearts, we ought not to turn elsewhere to track the goings of his power.

In accordance with the foregoing views I remark, that the prophetic declarations of Jesus were among his most simple, natural, characteristic utterances.

They are not announced with any formal peculiarity of tone or manner. They illustrate him. "Why can I not follow thee now?" said Peter, "I will lay down my life for thy sake." "Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake?" replied Jesus, "verily I say unto thee, the cock shall not crow till thou hast disowned me thrice." How, save by the inspiration of God, he foresaw Peter's denial of him, I am utterly ignorant. And yet, though there were an immediate influx of supernatural light into his mind, I see no reason to decide that the laws of his spiritual being were interrupted. The divine inspiration, so far from overlaying, concurred with his native energies, and elevated them. All that I can see and know of the Man of Nazareth creates the presumption that he was fitted for extraordinary communications from Heaven. Being such as we all believe him to have been, with his piercing spiritual eye, his thorough knowledge of Peter's character, his frequent experience of Peter's weakness, how is it possible that he could have been without some foresight of the conduct of Peter in the approaching crisis? And his unsurpassed moral elevation prepared him to be the recipient of I know not what higher lights and aids; and this without the least violation of the laws of mind.

Again. When I consider the great end to which he felt himself-his whole being irrevocably bound, and the numerous and overpowering manifestations of an opposing spirit, which he encountered at every step, it seems to me utterly impossible that the result could have been wholly hidden from his eyes. He knew his own unalterable purpose. He knew the

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temper of the times. The very excitement he produced revealed the coarse worldly bent of the people; that inveterate Jewish hope, which he saw he must disappoint at the cost of his life. Many," says John, “believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did. But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man.”

Once more.

The effect of his ministry-how must it have laid bare to him the inmost depths of the Jewish character, the Jewish national existence ! He saw that the public heart was bound up in the hope of a grand outward political revolution. The transcendent power he was putting forth, though destined ultimately to triumph, in its immediate action had no influence but to excite the worst passions. He must have seen that the nation was rushing madly on into a collision with that mighty Roman domination, by the bare idea of which it was already so much chafed, a collision that would grind it to atoms. He saw that his country was animated by no principle that could control its destiny. If it had been, how was it that his mighty voice was powerless! A short time before his death, he approached Jerusalem, attended by a vast multitude. They rent the air with triumphant shouts, but he was not deceived. He saw that the popular feeling was excited by the belief that he would prove the great national Deliverer. And in this false expectation, he read the fate of the nation so clearly, that when he came in sight of the city, he wept, exclaiming, "O that thou hadst known, at least in this