I wish to say by way of introduction that many of the events in the history of ancient Israel are figures of and have their counterpart in things occurring in the Christian dispensation. And many of the utterances of the prophets, associated primarily with the events of those times, have their fulfilment as well in connection with the things foreshadowed. To regard these prophetic writings as referring only and finally to the literal affairs of the people of the Old Testament is to stop far short of their intention and use. The old dispensation was preparatory of the new. It was full of types and figures of things to be realized in the latter. Everything pointed forward in anticipation of the fulness of times when God should establish his new and better covenant with his people. Shall we say then that the prophecies did not share this anticipation; that they had to do only with the literal figures? Nay, it was the spirit of prophesy more than anything else that foretold of the times of the gospel dispensation, not only by direct reference, but also in many of those passages which touched first those immediate affairs in Israel's career and through them those greater things farther on. We note how the New Testament writers picked up the Old Testament prophecies and applied them, with such reference as "that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet," or, "as it is written," etc. But let us not suppose that the applications of prophecy were to be confined to the days of Christ and the apostles. Many things were said of David and other Old Testament objects that had their extended and more important fulfilment in Christ or in the establishment of the church, but there were other utterances that had their final import in the later affairs of the New Testament kingdom. Those that cluster about the captivity of Israel in Babylon and their reestablishment in their own land and the rebuilding of Jerusalem are especially rich in secondary application to the corresponding crises in the history of the church. It is thus that many of the prophecies have a two-fold application, not that they mean two different things, but that they apply to both the literal and spiritual phases of the same thing. A sufficient proof of this lies in the fact that in the Revelation, where their spiritual meaning is assumed, we find the same Old Testament figures. There is unity of purpose in God's system of types and figures and in his plan throughout, and hence many of the prophecies that pertained in the first place to events in the history of Israel are used by the Spirit today in connection with the antitypes of those events.