on, passing over, it may be, many centuries in silence;
for it is the _salient points_ of the church's future history, the great
crises in the process of her development, that the spirit of inspiration
will naturally bring to view. Prophecy relating to the last times is not
a _map_, in which the distance from one point to another, with all the
intervening mountains, rivers, and towns, is accurately marked; but
rather a _prospective view_, which exhibits only the great features of
the region that lies before the traveller. He sees far off in the
horizon the goodly mountains rising one behind another, and bathed in
the pure light of heaven, with no ability to discern, much less to
measure, the intervening valleys and plains. Nay more, mountain ranges
that are widely separated may appear to his eye as one and indivisible.

(2.) The plan of redemption has not only complete unity, but _continual
progress towards a high end_. It may be compared to a majestic river,
fed by thousands of perennial springs, that cannot stay a moment in its
course towards the ocean. Its path is not always straight, but it is
always onward. Its current is not always rapid and broken, for it is not
always obstructed. Sometimes, like the Arar described by Caesar, it winds
through level plains with a current so gentle and noiseless, that the
eye cannot discern its direction. Then it plunges over some Niagara,
roaring, boiling, and foaming, and shaking the very earth with its
mighty cataracts. But it _has_ all the power in the level meadows that
it _manifests_ on the fearful brink of the precipice. To arrest its
current in one place is as impossible as in the other. Resistance cannot
overcome its strength, but only bring it to view. Let any number of
Titans build up ever so high a wall across the level meadow, and the
stream, every particle of which is pressed forward by an inward force,
will quietly rise above their vain rampart, and then it will begin to
thunder. Since then God's kingdom--this river of God that is full of
water--is continually tending towards a high end, and since every event
of his providence contributes something towards its progress, what
wonder if we find in prophecy events separated by many centuries of time
immediately connected as cause and effect? Does the prophet predict the
overthrow of Sennacherib's army, or the coming desolation of Jerusalem
by the Chaldean armies; he connects these calamities immediately with
the advent o