Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, hired thereto by Ahaz with the treasures of the Lord's and of the king's house, 'in the days of Pekah,' and before the other sign Mahershalalhashbaz could articulate the words father' and 'mother.' Judah had rest until the fourteenth of Hezekiah, or during a period of thirty years; at the end of which time, the people, having long 'refused the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and rejoiced in Rezin and Remaliah's son'-acted as if they courted a similar visitationthe Assyrian invaders were turned upon them in a torrent, under Sennacherib. Yet even then the mercy of the Lord prevailed over his justice; again did the staff snap upon the shoulder of Judah; the rod of his oppressor was again broken; and the battle was fought for him, which, as in the day of Midian,' was 'with burning and with fuel of fire.' And that Immanuel lived to see and share in the predicted prosperity, appears from the prophecy in which the invasion under Sennacherib is foretold, and which, extending from the fifth verse of the eighth to the seventh verse of the ninth chapter of Isaiah, contains intrinsic evidence that it could not have been delivered before the sixth or seventh of Hezekiah. In this prophecy the 'sign' is addressed by name: 'He shall pass through Judah; he shall overflow and go over; he shall reach even unto the neck; and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel!' And thus was the prophecy accomplished, in these the primary meanings of its terms.

The prophecy was accomplished, but it was not 'fulfilled,' for it contained further and stupendous

us.

meanings; and these meanings (we are now in the days of Augustus Cæsar) God is about to reveal to The name of virgin, lost by the mother of Immanuel almost as soon as the prophecy had passed the lips of Isaiah, is now revived, and given to an humble handmaid of the Lord, who, under the appellation of the Virgin Mary, is to go down to all posterity, 'blessed of all generations.' This virgin, too, conceives; but how! The term conception sinks at once beneath the weight of meaning it is called upon to bear: the Holy Ghost has come upon her, and the power of the Highest has overshadowed her;' and though with child, she still remains a maid. The reason why the original virgin of the prophecy was indicated by action rather than name—the reason why the prophecy commences with the words 'the virgin'-is now disclosed :'THE VIRGIN' is emphatically the title by which Mary must henceforth be known:-God has created the new thing in the earth, and the world is summoned to behold it in the exhibition of the virgin mother. Mary, too, bears a son; but what a son! Son of Man, and Son of the Most High! one who, even in the humanity of his nature, claims the proud title of the Son of God: Therefore that holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.' Mary, too, names her son; and by the terms of the prophecy he must be called Immanuel. He is so, and much more; for he receives a name which at once comprises within it, and swallows up in the immensity of its meaning, all that Immanuel can import. He is called JESUS: not merely Immanuel; not merely 'God with us;’

,יהושע

not merely God for us:' 'God for us:' but JESUS, but JESUS, JEHOSHUA, -JEHOVAH THAT SAVES US.' The name Immanuel denoted the interference of Almighty God, to protect his people from the wrath of two smoking firebrands, which at the worst could end but in death temporal; the name Jesus proclaims the purpose of the Lord to effect the deliverance of the human race from the wrath denounced against sin and ungodliness, from the second death, and from the lake of fire, the smoke whereof ascendeth for ever and ever :-The first Immanuel was a worm of earth, though decorated with a splendid title; the second Immanuel is the thing his name imports: The first Immanuel was of the earth, earthy; the second Immanuel is the Lord from heaven: first Immanuel took his title by favour, and claimed it as of gift; the second takes his by inheritance, and claims it as of right: And if, in taking it, he affect equality with God, he seek to make himself equal with God,' he thinks it no robbery;' he takes what is his own, for he is himself the great I AM,' the High and Holy One that inhabiteth eternity.'

The

TOUTO de oλov yeyove-says Saint Matthew-all this was done, iva λnpwon,'' to fulfil;' and no sooner “ πληρωθῇ, has the Son of God received the name of JESUS, than we hear the Holy Spirit proclaiming, by the mouth of the evangelist, It is done;' the Divine meaning stands at length revealed; and the prophecy of the son of Amoz, Behold, the virgin shall

conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel,'-TEяλNρWται,— IS fulfilled.'

I shall next cite the authority of St. John, whom

we shall find using and rejecting the use of this verb TANρovv in the same breath.-That the institution of the Passover was prophetic of the death of our Saviour Christ, and of the mysterious atonement thereby made for the sins of men, it is, I presume, unnecessary to argue. Did we need any authority for so treating it, the words of Saint Paul, Christ our passover is sacrificed for us,' would be decisive of the question; though this is a prophecy which, in the absence of them, we could never have refused to acknowledge. When, therefore, the beloved disciple, standing beside the cross of the dying Saviour, beheld the blood streaming from his wounds, he beheld the blood of the true paschal sacrifice, even that blood which struck upon the lintel and the door-posts-applied by faith to the heart-will have power in the great day of God's wrath-the day of judgment-to bid the destroying angelpass over.' Yet not on this tremendous accomplishment of prophecy will the evangelist bestow the title fulfilled.' By all this it has been accomplished but in part; and it owes its fulfilment to a circumstance so minute, that until it is pointed out to us by this writer, we are hardly able to discern the presence of it in the account of the crucifixion. God, in the exercise of his prescience, had foreseen that the custom of breaking the legs of criminals exposed upon the cross would be departed from in the case of our Lord, and had intimated to us this foreknowledge at the institution of the passover, when, speaking of the Lamb to be slain by the sons of Israel, he directs, Break not a bone thereof.' Accordingly, Saint John, after telling us,

They brake not his legs,' adds, ivan ypapon πληρωθῇ, Tλnρwon, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, which saith,-A bone of him shall not be broken :'And does thereby intimate to us the nature of this great prophecy, in all its awful meanings; and does, as it were, withdraw from the cross the title affixed to it by Pilate, and nail to it, never to be removed, the words, Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh, away the sin of the world.'

But the same Saint John does, in the next moment, cite to us another prophecy, which he introduces in a very different manner: 'And again, ¿tepa ypapn Xeye,—another Scripture saith-They shall look on him whom they pierced.' Why? Because this is a prophecy which, far from having been fulfilled,' has as yet received scarce any part of its accomplishment. Hear the words of it: 'I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications; and they shall look on me whom they have pierced; and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him as one that is in bitterness for his first-born.' Now the piercing of the body of our Lord is but of the primary and literal meaning of the prophecy-it is the piercing of the soul to which the prediction ultimately and preeminently points; and it will be fully accomplished only when God, in the exercise of his mercy, shall convince the descendants of the murderers of the Saviour of the claims of the Son of David to be God and Lord, and shall work in them such repentance for the ingratitude and obstinacy wherewith they themselves