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p326 [To the same.] Mrs. Lancy, There is a principle which we must keep in mind in reading prophecy; that is, that the prophet takes up circumstances near his eye, and in which the faith of God's people were then concerned, going on to ulterior and final events in which the government of God should be displayed and closed. The transition from one to another is not always at once perceptible: still, once the principle is recognised, it is generally easy to see where it passes from one to the other. A notable instance is in Joel, when a plague of caterpillars and other destructive insects prefigures the northern army at the end of the age, to which the prophet then turns, yet not losing sight of the question of earthly plenty, as you may see. Yet the language changes in chapter 1:15. It is abhorred before it was there. Yet in chapter 2 the images are kept up, and, chapter 3:24-25, distinctly alluded to. In Isaiah 19 it begins with the present things: in verse 16 it begins to pass on to the ultimate events, taking present judgments as the image. The inroads of Nebuchadnezzar are the prefigurement and partially the commencement of final judgments, because all are part of the government of God. Chapter 20 is a special prophecy as to an earlier attack by Assyria on Egypt. Tartan, it appears, was a title, general, or some such thing. Sargon was, it seems, founder of a new dynasty just before Sennacherib. . . .

Ever affectionately in the Lord.

July, 1862.

[51192E]

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