It is an unconscious

knowing something about the future. paving of the way for the future. It consists in the preludes "of the present God, who lives in the world, but especially in man" (p. 16),—and who knows no more about what he is doing, than man whom he employs as his instrument.

At p. 54, again, Hofmann says, "The distinguishing characteristics of a nation I can discern in the topstone and culminating point of its history; and as Augustus Cæsar enables us to understand the history of Rome, so does Jesus Christ the history of Israel."

At p. 55, "At the very outset we should expect that the word of salvation would keep pace with the facts of salvation. The hope of a coming Messiah will be founded upon, and arise out of, the events of natural life." If history is ruled by a blind impulse, the "word of salvation" will naturally be also unable to break through the magic circle of unconsciousness.

At p. 56, "There is never more than one passage of prophetic history, which manifests itself in one deed or one word, one prayer or one prediction." "The age and its utterances have the same vocation."

Starting with the view that prophecy is merely a product of history, Hofmann has attempted, as it were systematically, to extinguish its light in all those ages in which he cannot discern any distinct Messianic predictions.

Of the Protevangelium nothing is left, that deserves the name; and in its place we have simply trifling (we cannot choose any other word). "All that we read here, is that the enmity between the woman and the serpent was to be transmitted to the posterity of both" (p. 75).

On Noah's prophecy in Gen. ix. 25-27 he observes, "this curse and blessing do not profess to be a prediction, but they are both fulfilled, because they are dictated by a just conception of the nature of the event which has just occurred" (p. 91).

Even the announcement made to Abraham is robbed of its deeper meaning, according to the example set by rationalistic commentators. "In thee and in thy descendants will the whole world discern, what it regards as its own blessing, and in thee will it find such prosperity as it will desire for itself" (p. 98). Gen. xlix. 10 is said to refer, not to Christ, but to Judah only,

and to mean that Judah will at length come to the enjoyment of peace, and be obeyed by whole nations, p. 118, "That all this would be really a good, and that it is just the blessing which we should necessarily expect for Judah in this series, needs no proof whatever." The naturalistic disposition, which measures everything by a human standard, is well saved by such exposition as this.

With reference to Ps. cx., in the face of the clearest declarations on the part of the Lord in Matt. xxii., he says (p. 176), "We have met with nothing in this Psalm that carries us beyond the limits of David's reign. Circumstances, with which we have already become acquainted in other ways, are all that are here expressed."

"The 45th Psalm brings Solomon in his regal glory before our minds." (p. 118). In ver. 17, where the Psalmist says to the king "whom (thy children) thou mayest make princes in all the earth," according to Hofmann, "the poet means nothing more, than that the king will have sons enough to be able to appoint them as superior officers over all the land, wherever he may require them." (p. 188).

"In Ps. lxxii. Solomon prays for a reign of righteousness and peace."

The origin of the Messianic idea is described as follows (p. 200): "Under the reigns of David and Solomon the Israelitish nation had become acquainted with the blessings of common life, and simply desired that they should continue. But in order to continue, it was necessary that they should be differently constituted; and the pious especially perceived that, without a thorough conversion on the part of the whole community to the law of Jehovah, it would enjoy no true and lasting peace, to say nothing of the extension of peace over the whole world. The hope, that this would eventually be the case, continued to be entertained in connexion with the family of David, upon whom in fact the promise rested. A descendant of this hero of God (Is. ix. 5) will ultimately secure the complete enjoyment of the prosperity which has been destroyed, having first removed, not merely all the disturbing elements, but also all that brought them into existence."

We are unable to detect any essential difference between such

views as these and the early rationalistic hypothesis. The difference between De Wette' and Hofmann appears to consist in the mode of expression alone. With both of them the Messianic idea is a patriotic hope, the natural product of certain circumstances connected with the nation. The prophecy is nothing more than a wish in disguise. It did not enter the minds of the people from above, but sprang from the soil of the nation itself, which looked forward to the future, for the perfect satisfaction that the present denied.

If this be the genesis of the Messianic hopes, then so far as the prophecies are concerned, in which Hofmann admits that these hopes are expressed, it is absolutely necessary to remove every feature, which cannot be explained from the stand-point of ordinary historical observation. Hofmann is particularly careful, therefore, to eliminate everything relating to the divinity and sufferings of Christ. In his opinion, it was "the declaration of Christ himself, and the confirmation it received from his life, which first gave rise to the doctrine, that there is an internal, divine connexion between God, the Father of Jesus Christ, and Jesus the Son of God."2 "In the Old Testament Scriptures, there is no mention made of any such distinction in the Godhead, as corresponds to the distinction between the Father and the Son." "In the Old Testament predictions there is no intimation, that the coming Saviour is already in existence, and is simply not yet manifested, or that he will even be in existence previous to his appearing" (p. 9).-To arrive at this result, not only are all the passages, which clearly attest the pre-existence of Christ and his divinity (such, for example, as Micah v. 1 and Is. ix. 5), robbed of their meaning, but every effort is made so to distort the Old Testament doctrine of the angel of the Lord, which forms the basis of the doctrine of the divinity of Christ, as to destroy the connexion between the angel of the Lord and Christ. It cannot be denied, that by such a procedure as this, if not intentionally, yet actually, the truth of the doctrine of the divinity of Christ is endangered. If there be any reality in this, it must be attested by the revelation of the Old Testament.Again the passages, which contain the clearest announcements

1 P. 129. 2 Schriftbeweis i. p. 154.

3 Schriftbeweis ii. 1, p. 1.

of the sufferings of Christ, are also put aside (e.g., Zech. ix. 9, xii. 10, xiii. 7). In his earlier work " In his earlier work "Weissagung und Erfüllung," it is expressly denied that there is any allusion in the Old Testament to the sufferings of Christ. The "Schriftbeweis," however, makes some concessions. Isaiah is allowed to have foretold the sufferings of Christ, so far as the prophetic institution, with which he had primarily to do, culminated in Christ. "In these sufferings, incident to the vocation of prophet, he will also share, through whom it receives its ultimate fulfilment. In the opposition, to which he is subjected, he exhausts the whole mass of sufferings which a prophet can possibly endure on account of his vocation" (Schriftbeweis ii. 1, p. 126). This reminds us of Grolius, and does not go a step beyond him. Every sacrifice is made, for the purpose of robbing the prophecies of Isaiah, concerning the suffering servant of God, of their specific Messianic contents, so as to make them applicable to an ordinary prophet. According to Hofmann it is not the death of the servant of God, considered in itself, which is represented in Is. liii. as a blessing to Israel, but his fidelity to his vocation. Such sufferings ast hese the prophets might undoubtedly attribute to the Messiah, on the ground of merely human conjectures.

But Hofmann is not consistent with himself. Whilst, on the one hand, he agrees with the rationalists in seeking to eliminate the supernatural element, altogether, from that portion of prophecy, which has respect to the Messianic predictions; on the other hand, in direct opposition to the rationalists, he maintains that prophecies in the ordinary sense are to be found in other parts of the Scriptures. Thus, for example, he retains the prophecy in the book of Genesis respecting the 400 years, during which the posterity of the patriarch was to sojourn in a land that was not its own (Weissagung und Erfüllung), and also Jeremiah's prophecy, that Israel was to be restored to its own land, after enduring the tyranny of the Chaldeans for seventy years (Schriftbeweis ii. 2, p. 542). Again, he maintains the genuineness of the book of Daniel, and is therefore obliged to admit that actual predictions are to be found in all the details which are contained in chap. xi. And the question naturally arises here, if prophecy enters into such details as these in con

nection with lower objects, why should it not rise above the circumstances of the times, when the highest of all was concerned. Through this inconsistency on the part of Hofmann, he is placed at a scientific disadvantage in relation to rationalism, which denies that the supernatural element is to be found anywhere in prophecy, and as far as possible sets it aside. We may see very clearly from Dan. ix. how Hofmann connects discordant things together in a thoroughly inadmissible manner. The Messianic features are all removed, evidently to serve a purpose, and give place to predictions of events in the period of the Maccabees.

The present Christology is based upon the heartfelt conviction, that we have a sure word of prophecy, that holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, and that in the Spirit they testified beforehand of the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. May this revised edition help to strengthen a conviction, of such importance to the Church!