disappointed. The most superficial objections
have been considered sufficient by _Hofmann_, _Kurtz_, and others, to
induce them to disregard the consensus of the whole Christian Church.
We cannot, indeed, but be astonished at this.

_Kurtz_, following the example of _Hofmann_, says: "The organic
progress of prophecy, and its correlative connection with history,
which must be maintained in all its stages, forbid us, most decidedly,
to assign to the expectation of a personal Messiah, a period so early
as that of the Patriarchs. The clearly expressed aim of the whole
history of this period is the expansion into a great nation; its whole
tendency is directed towards the growth of the multiplicity of a people
from the unity of the Patriarchs. As long as the subject of the history
was the increase into a nation, the idea of a single personal Saviour
[Pg 79] could not, by any means, take root. Such could occur only after
they had actually expanded into a great nation in history, and the
necessity had been felt of concentrating the multiplicity of the
expanded, into the unity of a single, individual, _i.e._, after one had
appeared as the deliverer and saviour, as the leader and ruler of the
whole nation. It is therefore only after Moses, Joshua, and David, that
the expectation of a personal Messiah could arise."--Do you mean to
teach God wisdom? we might ask, in answer to such argumentation. To
chain prophecy to history in such a manner, is in reality nothing short
of destroying it. How much soever people may choose to varnish it, this
is but another form of Naturalism, against the influence of which no
one is secure, because it is in the atmosphere of our day. Men who
occupy a ground of argumentation so narrow-minded and trifling,--who
would rather shape history than heartily surrender themselves to it,
and find out, meditate upon, and follow the footsteps of God in
it,--will be compelled to erase even the promise in Gen. xii. 3, "In
thee all the families of the earth shall be blessed," yea, even the
words, "I will make of thee a great nation," with which the promise
begins; for even _that_ violates the natural order. But the historical
point of connection for the announcement of a personal Messiah, which
here at once, like a flash of lightning, illuminates the darkness, is
not at all wanting to such a degree as is commonly asserted. On the
contrary, if the blessing upon the heathen be allowed to stand, the
expectation of a pe