porary, and was during the same period uttering his inspired denunciations at the court of Judah. It was thought that this accorded peculiarly well with the circumstances under which Amos wrote: that while Isaiah addressed the court and the educated among his nation, the herdman of Tekoa roused the minds of the uncultivated and the ignorant, by his ruder and less polished language. But this criticism has been much modified by modern commentators: plainness and simplicity are not incompatible with sublimity, and we have the high authority and well-considered opinion of Bishop Lowth in favour of a different estimate of this prophet's style. He says,* 'Many have followed the authority of Jerome in speaking of this prophet, as if he were indeed quite rude, inelegant, and destitute of all the embellishments of composition. The matter is however far otherwise. Let any person who has candour and perspicuity enough to judge, not from the man, but from his writings, open the volume of his predictions, and he will, I think, agree with me, that our shepherd "is not a whit behind the very chief of the prophets. He will agree that in sublimity and magnificence he is almost equal to the greatest, so in splendour of diction and eloquence of expression he is scarcely inferior to any."

Amos lived and prophesied during the reigns of Uzziah king of Judah, and Jeroboam the * See Lowth on Hebrew Poetry, page 234.

Second, king of Israel.Tradition relates that he was often ill treated by Amaziah the priest of Bethel, and that at length he was struck in the temples with a stake by the priest's son, Uzziah, and was carried from Bethel to Tekoa, where he expired and was there buried in the tomb of his fathers.

B. C.

HOSEA.

HOSEA is placed the first in the order 810. of the twelve minor prophets, and was one of the most ancient: he lived and prophesied during full sixty years, through many successive reigns, from Jeroboam the Second, king of Israel, to the first year of Hoshea; or reckoning by the kings of Judah, from Uzziah to the beginning of the reign of Hezekiah. The place of his birth is unknown; by some he is supposed to have been of the tribe of Issachar, and by others of Judah, but he resided chiefly at Samaria, the destruction of which city by the Assyrians and the captivity of the people of Israel, he foretold. The object of his prophecies is confined to his own nation, and more especially to the kingdom of Israel, called in his writings Ephraim, from that being the principal tribe; he has no prophecies relating to heathen nations.

*Hosea is considered the most obscure and difficult of all the prophets, partly on account of * For the authorities on the style of Hosea, see Bishop Lowth, and Bishop Gray, on this prophet.

his style, which is concise, abrupt, and of extreme terseness and brevity, the sentences being detached without any connective particle: this was energetic and beautiful at the time when the language in which he wrote was spoken, but is the cause of much obscurity and perplexity in the present state of Hebrew literature: we must add to this, that Hosea wrote through a period of sixty years, during the reigns of four successive kings of Judah, in which time he gave a series of distinct prophecies, which have come down to us with no marks for distinguishing the times when they were delivered, all which is more than sufcient to account for their obscurity.

Like many of the prophets, Hoses used figurative language, and persenizes the sins and idolatry of the Israelites: also he describes some transactions as taking place, which it is dealt to suppose real, and which are thought to have been merely seen in vision, as the expressionthe word of the LORD, that came to the prophet, might seem to intimate: others consider the relations as fetitious representations imparted by way of parable. We quote the waris of Bishop Gray, who adds, Without presuming to determine on either side on a subject so f cuit, it may be observed, that it was not inectsistent with the character of a vision, or of a parabolical fetion to specify minute particulars with narrative exactness.”

We have no account of the leath of Ese: he witnessed the conquest of Isnei v Tiga

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pileser, and the final captivity of the Ten Tribes. and taking of Samaria by Shalmaneser king of Nineveh. His death took place after these events; but the exact time and place are no where recorded, nor has tradition handed down anything concerning the end of this prophet's life.

B. C.

CHAPTER XXI.

ISAIAH.

ISAIAH has always been considered the 810. greatest of the prophets, and is placed first in order in the canon of the Old Testament scriptures. He is not only the most copious, (his writings as arranged in our English Bibles occupy sixty-six chapters,) but he treats of more important events, and in particular foretells minutely and emphatically the coming of the Messiah. He details every circumstance attending the advent of Our Lord with striking minuteness, and so exact are his descriptions, that he seems rather to relate events that are passed, than to speak in vision of the future. Now full of sorrow and indignation at his countrymen's rejection of their long-predicted Messiah, and then such divine joy, such fervent gratulation at the consummation of all things in the final reign of Christ, that he has been

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justly characterized as preeminently the Evangelical prophet, -that prophet who announced most clearly the coming, life, death, and resurrection of the world's Redeemer. Thus the writings of Isaiah contain the fullest and most incontestible evidence of the Christian dispensation, and were as such peculiarly the study of the first disciples, and of all devout Jews in the time of Christ. Except the Psalms, Isaiah is more frequently quoted than any of the sacred books it is the prophecy contained in the fiftythird chapter that Philip the deacon explained to the Ethiopian, who was reading it in his chariot, and which the Evangelist showed him to have been so accurately fulfilled in every circumstance by the sufferings and death of Christ, that he converted his devout listener, who desired earnestly, and was thereupon baptized.* This prophecy is so clear, so beautiful in itself, and so important as a proof of the obduracy of that unbelief which could resist its evidence, that we shall subjoin a part of it.

ISAIAH liii. "Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief: and we

*Acts viii.-26th verse to the end.