le all his life long, but to the end he was their
lawgiver and judge. Samuel, too, even though rejected, was still held in
reverence; and when he died, "all the Israelites were gathered together
and lamented him, and buried him in his house at Ramah[1]." David died
on a royal throne. But in the latter times, the prophets were not only
feared and hated by the enemies of God, but cast out of the vineyard. As
the time approached for the coming of the true Prophet of the Church, the
Son of God, they resembled Him in their earthly fortunes more and more;
and as He was to suffer, so did they. Moses was a ruler, Jeremiah was an
outcast: Samuel was buried in peace, John the Baptist was beheaded. In
St. Paul's words, they "had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea,
moreover, of bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned; they were sawn
asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword; they wandered about in
sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented; of whom
the world was not worthy; they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and
in dens and caves of the earth[2]."

Of these, Elijah, who lived in the wilderness, and the hundred prophets
whom Obadiah fed by fifty in a cave, are examples of the wanderers. And
Micaiah, who was appointed the bread of affliction and the water of
affliction by an idolatrous king, is the specimen of those who "had trial
of bonds and imprisonment." Of those who were sawn asunder and slain
with the sword, Isaiah is the chief, who, as tradition goes, was by order
of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, sawn asunder with a wooden saw. And of
those who were stoned, none is more famous than Zechariah, the son of
Jehoiada, "who was slain between the temple and the altar[3]." But of
all the persecuted prophets Jeremiah is the most eminent; i. e. we know
more of his history, of his imprisonments, his wanderings, and his
afflictions. He may be taken as a representative of the Prophets; and
hence it is that he is an especial type of our Lord and Saviour. All the
Prophets were types of the Great Prophet whose way they were preparing;
they tended towards and spoke of Christ. In their sufferings they
foreshadowed His priesthood, and in their teaching His prophetical
office, and in their miracles His royal power. The history of Jeremiah,
then, as being drawn out in Scripture more circumstantially than that of
the other Prophets, is the most exact type of Christ among them; that is,