the same kind of criticism as the 137th Psalm would be if it were arranged in the middle of Isaiah's denunciations of Sennacherib; which in other words we are induced by mixed considerations to place in a category of doubtfulness as regards authorship. Whether the historical chapters which follow chap. xxx. &c. (A. V. xxxvi. &c.) were written by Isaiah, and from him transcribed, or written in the book of Kings by a recorder, as Joah, Asaph's son, and transferred as an illustration to Isaiah's works, must be judged by comparison of the passages, taking into account 2 Chron. xxxii. 32, and 2 Kings xviii. 18. It is certain that all beyond the xxxixth chapter of the Anglican Version is distinguishable in style and subject by marks of time, the full import of which will disclose itself upon investigation.

The more any one considers such an arrangement as has been described, the more he will be led to feel its fragmentary character. My own work being governed by the principle of making as little change as possible, I should hardly venture to adopt all the conjectural improvements which critics have suggested in the order of collocation, if even I were more convinced than I am of their certainty. In truth it seems to me far from certain, if even it be consistent with the laws of religious development, that the Prophet should record poetically his calling in the same year in which it happened; and if he had done so, he might still preserve the record, until opportunity offered for its insertion in a work of a larger character; that is, in such a collection of his sayings, as might derive from it significance, and appear as the result of the crisis through which his mind had passed. If we read under the guidance of such a hint the first eleven chapters, then, (whatever we may think of the fragment in the second chapter,) we shall hardly fail to observe an unity, even if we doubt

whether it is due to the author, or to his editors. In either case, it comes down from a date too near his time, for us to have the right of disturbing it. The same remark will apply to the five chapters, xxiv. &c. which commence with denunciation of the drunkards of Ephraim. A conclusion not very dissimilar, may lead us hardly to disarrange the Burdens,' or Utterances, upon Damascus, Egypt, Tyre, xiv.-xx.; and only in one instance have I ventured to do so.

We must arrive at a different verdict, after fully considering the denunciations on Babylon, chap. xii. on Edom, xxix. and xxx. and the three chapters describing the desolations during the Exile, or following it, xxi.—xxiii. I will not here repeat the reasons, (which I have sufficiently given under each passage, and which in larger works may be found detailed more fully than my readers would wish,) by obedience to which my judgment is determined. If hereafter it should be thought right to arrange these manifestly later portions apart from the primary Isaiah, by placing them after the account of Hezekiah's sickness and the embassy from Babylon, such a course would tend to apprehension of the sense of the Bible. In the mean time, without disputing, whether profounder scholars have carried decomposition of Isaiah farther than evidence requires, (certainly farther than in my state of information I am prepared to follow,) I hope to give such aids as will enable readers to apprehend the nature of the problem.

A patristic error, which Jerome refuted, though most (plerique) of his contemporaries received it, made Amotz, Isaiah's father, the same as the prophet Amos. A Rabbinical fable, which Kimchi rejected (Ges. i. 1.), made Amotz brother, the prophet consequently nephew, to king Amaziah. An Arabic legend, (Ges. p. 6.), which may be founded on a true conception of the Prophet's character, represents him as not checking the assumption of the

priestly office by Uzziah; and on that account suffering interruption of his prophetical gifts. If any such tradition, beyond the limits of his own book, contain the faintest vestige of history, it is the story of his being sawn asunder by orders of king Manasseh, under whom he would be likely to suffer. The earliest source to which the story has been traced is the Ascensio Isaia, a highly apocryphal book, which Abp. Lawrence has edited.

In truth, Isaiah has written in his own works whatever we are likely to know, or need know, of his life. We there find him highly gifted, poetical, devout; evidently trained, we know not how, with the perfection of such training as the schools of the Prophets in their highest bloom could afford; personally attached to the ideal of the religious system which he had received, but dissatisfied with its realisation by its official administrators; occasionally not incapable of assuming the part of a politician, but having as the key-note of his policy a profound trust in God, with a sense alike of his nation's sacredness and its unworthiness, and a strong hope, that when the dross was purged, judgment would leave metal behind; or that a better generation would grow up to be spared, such as he saw, with a father's eye, commencing in his own children, or with a patriot's hope conceived embodied in Hezekiah, and gathering around his throne. Conscious of having been called to the service of God as early as the last year of Uzziah,(ch. vi.) he has left little sign of activity within the following reign of Jotham; more striking proofs of it during the reigns of Ahaz and Hezekiah. The great body of his utterances falls loosely into two masses, grouping themselves around the Syro-Ephraimite war (ch. vii.) and the series of Assyrian invasions. (ch. viii.-xx.) In both cases, the counsel of Isaiah seems justified by the event: for although a disturbing element is introduced by the

discrepant statement in 2 Chron. xxviii. 6-16, the earlier account in 2 Kings xv. and xvi., implies in connexion with Isaiah vii. 7, that the confederacy failed. More confidently we may affirm the memorable failure of Sennacherib; and that by an overthrow of such a kind, as to justify the tenor of counsels, which had not pointed to chariots of war, or fortifying the wall (ch. xix.), but to quietness and confidence in God. Little as we know, how far particular songs or expressions of the Prophet were elaborated antecedently to the event, there is hardly a possibility of doubting that the tendency of his influence would be what the record affirms it to have been. His life was a prophecy, if not his Ode on Sennacherib's fall. Probably this is the strongest instance in favour of that theory which seriously ascribes to the Prophets a supernatural mission, comprehending the disposal of kingdoms and armies, as well as the spiritual reformation of nations. If it be asked, since one prediction has an appearance of fulfilment, may not many more have been fulfilled; I have no desire to maintain the negative, and did not undertake this work with a view of doing so, but will state lower down the apparent tendency of research on the subject. There can be no harm in believing Prophecy: but great harm in distorting Scripture, to create it.

With whatever confidence Isaiah foresaw a clear issue to either one of conflicting counsels, he conceived his mission to comprehend the prescription of policy to the realm in no less, probably in a larger, measure than the prediction of events. To what righteous ends a king should reign, what princes or nobles should surround him in council, how sacred a function, and yet on account of its sacredness how responsible to man, the priest should wield, what blessings, reaching to the utmost bounds of poetic imagination, might be expected from the righteousness of God upon

obedience of Israel, are burdens successively of his precept, protestation, presentiment. Hence a full intelligence of his book would include some apprehension of the kind of commonwealth which floated before his mind's eye. If not rigidly Mosaic, it would recall in its dislike to great social inequalities and their outward signs, the prescriptions of the earlier law. It is more wholesome for the general reader to fasten upon the religious feeling, which was to be the salt of the whole; or more accurately, the sense of responsibility to God, which was to comprehend all relations of life. Not what we distinguish as feeling from action; not what we oppose as religion to morality, or prefer as piety to duty-at least not mere emotion, cultivated for its own value, and priding itself on its delicacy -constituted the religion of Isaiah. Rather a profound awe of a God, whose name is thrice Holy, and the flash of an intuitive inference that righteousness and kindness are dearer to Him than ceremonies and formulas, prompt the words which suggest our earliest, and confirm our latest, impression of the Prophet's mind : "Cease to do evil, learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed; judge the fatherless, plead for the widow."

Though Isaiah's kingdom is as emphatically of this world, as Christ's is of a heavenly world, he is almost as free from technical doctrine as Christ. He teaches with that authority which speaks straight to the heart. Tradition of the past is employed by him to touch the imagination, not to burden the intellect. The law of Moses he hardly seems to mention. The Sabbath he just touches to disparage it. Ritual he seems to have loved, for he transports it into the spiritual presence of the King eternal, invisible but he subordinates it to the offering of a conscience undefiled. Hence he supports that idea of Revela