very of the command given to the prophet on that occasion as I observed in the Second Appeal (page 142.) With a view to invalidate this interpretation the Editor inquires (page 569.) What has Abraham's day to do with Isaiah's vision?" In answer to which I must allow that Abraham's day had nothing to do with Isaiah's vision except that as Abraham saw the day of Christ, (properly speaking the reign of Christ) by prophetic anticipation and not through ocular vision (John VIII. 56.) so Isaiah as another prophet of God must have seen the glory of Christ (if he had seen it at all) through the same prophetic anticipation, and must have spoken of Christ's commission (if he had spoken of him at all) through the same prophetic power: the reference therefore is one which goes to prove that whenever the prophets such as Abraham, Isaiah, or any other prophets are declared to have seen or spoken of future events, they must have seen or spoken of them through the prophetic power vested in them by God. I never attempted to prove that the words " day" and " glory" are synonimous, nor did I declare that Isaiah saw the day of Christ, that the Editor should have occasion to advance that "it is not the day of Christ which the Evangelist describes Isaiah as having seen but his glory."

However I cannot help being of opinion that in such phrases on particular occasions as "he saw the day of the king Messiah" or "he saw the glory of the king Messiah" the words "day" and "glory" amount almost to the same thing. My limited understanding cannot like the Editor's discover how "Isaiah fixes the time when he thus saw Christ's glory, even when it was said "he hath blinded their eyes" &c. for I find the Jews were from time to time charged by several of the prophets with disobedience and with having been blinded and hardened. Deut. XXVIII. 28. "The Lord shall smite thee with madness and blindness and astonishment of heart XXIX. 4. The Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear unto this day" 1 King XVIII. 37. "Hear me; O Lord, hear me that this people may know that thou act the Lord God and that thou hast turned their heart back again." Isaiah LXIII. 17. aş noticed before.

The Editor refers to the prophet Isaiah (533. and 570.) saying that Isaiah in ch. VII " predicting the birth of Christ identifies his divine and his human nature," behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel." This passage the holy spirit ap

plies to Christ in Matthew I. 22 and 23. He regrets my applying the above verse to Hezekiah in an immediate sense, though totally unable to reject the proof of such application deduced by me in my Second Appeal from its context and from the sacred history. He rests bis rejection entirely upon the phrase "A virgin shall conceive" found in the English version as being used in the future tense, on the ground that " Hezekiah could not have been the child at the time about to be conceived by the virgin, for this plain reason that God never foretels past things. The birth of Hezekiah was not then a thing to come; for, he was at least six years old when this prophecy was spoken.This our author will see by merely comparing the fact that Ahaz reigned sixteen years and Hezekiah began to reign when he was five and twenty years old. Hezekiah must then have been six if not seven years old when this prophecy was delivered." The Editor then charges me with having expended in vain 12 pages on this as well as on the passage in ch. IX. of Isaiah. Here we find again a new instance in which a diligent study of the Bible for thirty or forty years but accompanied with early religious prejudices has not been able to save the student from making such an error as to take the

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"pregnant" in the original verse in Hebrew as meaning absolutely "shall con ceive," and to declare unthinkingly that " He zekiah could not have been the child at that time to be conceived." How will the Editor render the same term 64 found in Genesis XVI. 11. "Thou hast conceived or art with child." Will he on his adopted principle interpret it "thou shalt conceive"? He must in that case overlook verses 4th. and 5th. of the same chapter which testify Hagar's having already conceived before the angel of the Lord had seen and spoken to her in verse the 11th." He went in unto Hagar and she conceived and when she saw she had conceived &c. (4.) And Sarai said unto Abraham " My wrong be upon thee: I have given my maid unto thy bosom, and when she saw that she had conceived &c." (5.) Did not the Editor ever reflect upon Jeremiah XXXI. 8. containing the same terms "" "pregnant" and "" or bearing" as are found in Isaiah VII. 14. ?; a passage which might have suggested to the Editor the propriety of not making so positive an assertion that "Hezekiah could not have been the child at that time to be conceived." Did the Editor entirely overlook the same term "signifying pregnant in 2d Samuel XI. 5. and Isaiah XXVI. 17. Genesis XXXVIII. 24.

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25. Exodus XXI. 22. 2d Kings VIII. 12. Amos. I. 13. The fact is that we find in the original Hebrew "bn" signifying "the virgin" which, if not referred to a particular person before mentioned, implies in the figurative language of the scrip ure either a city or the people of a city, as I noticed in page 128, 129, and 136. of my Second Appeal; and also we find synonimous with the participle "conceived" instead of "shall conceive," The verse therefore thus runs; "Behold the virgin (the city of Jerusalem or the nation) is preg nant and is bearing a son and shall call his name Immanuel" (14.) For before the child* shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good the land that thou (Abaz) abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings" (15) i. e. Rezin the king of Syria and Pekah the king of Israel, who at that time had besieged Jerusalem; as is evident from the preceding verses; and such personifying phrases as "oppressed virgin" and "bring forth children" are found also applied to the city or the peo

In the 17th. year of the reign of Pekah the king of Israel Abaz was born, and twenty years old was Ahaz when he began to reign in Jerusalem and he reigned sixteen years 2 Kings XVI. 1 and 2. Hence it appears that he lived thirty-six years only and as Hezekiah began to reign after the death of his father Ahaz when he was twenty and five years old (2 Kings XVIII. 2.) he must have been born when his father Abaz was ten or at most eleven years of age which was rather contrary to the common course of nature.