Quotable

Kitto's Popular Encyclopedia is unique because it is the first to try to get experts in each field to write about the topics in each entry. Unfortunately, some unbeliever commentary got included. However, there are also some very excellent conservative experts that left a real helpful legacy. The following is under the entry "Isaiah," and demonstrates some clever writing! Notice the way liberal ideals are described!

The Jewish synagogue, and the Christian church during all ages, have considered it as an undoubted fact that the prophecies which bear the name of Isaiah really originated from that prophet. But in the last quarter of the eighteenth century this prevailing conviction appeared to some divines to be inconvenient. In the theology of the natural man it passed as certain, that nature was complete in itself, and that prophecies, as well as miracles, never had occurred, and were even impossible. The assumption of the impossibility of miracles necessarily demanded that the genuineness of the Pentateuch should be rejected; and, in a similar manner, the assumption of the impossibility of prophecy demanded that a great portion of the prophecies of Isaiah should be rejected likewise. Here also the wish was father to the thought, and interest led to the decision of critical questions, the arguments for which were subsequently discovered.