moral treatment. Hence, when the predictions took the form, as they very commonly did, of denunciations of coming evil, they are to be understood more especially of the people whose sins had provoked the threatened doom, and of the territories they occupied, only in so far as the external aspect of these might be made visibly to reflect the prostrate condition of their owners. To have respect to the territories, rather than to the people who inhabited them, were to look at the prophecies and their fulfilment in a simply natural light. It were to make account of the relation in which they stood to the omniscience and power of God, but to lose sight of their connection with His moral government. This, however, as we have stated, was invariably the point of highest moment. The primary question was, how the states referred to stood related, now, in guilt, and prospectively, in punishment, to the righteousness of heaven. "It is not, therefore," to use the words of Arnold, who correctly exhibits the general purport of this portion of the prophetical Scriptures, "it is not as if the places were accursed for ever; or as if the language of utter vengeance, which we find in prophecy, was applicable to the soil of Mesopotamia or Edom; but the people, the race, the language, the institutions, the religion, all that constitutes national personality, are passed away from the earth. And if Mesopotamia were to be civilized and fertilized to-morrow, and a city with the name of Babylon rebuilt, yet it could not be the old Babylon (of Scripture); for that has become extinct for ever." Viewed thus, in their predominantly moral bearing, such prophecies will be found to have met with the fullest verification; while, otherwise, as will afterwards appear, the verification is at best broken and incomplete.

Nor is this all. For, by keeping thus prominently in view the moral element in prophecy and its primary destination to subserve spiritual interests, we escape from what, more than any thing else, has impoverished much of our prophetical literature, and we may almost say, has stricken it with the curse of barrenness namely, the disposition to treat the subject of prophecy merely as a branch of the evidences, and make account of

nothing but what it contains of the miraculous. Somewhat of the miraculous, undoubtedly, belongs to every prophecy of Scripture; since it necessarily betokens a supernatural insight into the counsels of Heaven, and a power not granted to men in general, of penetrating through the veil of the future. This, however, is only a part, not the whole; it is not even the more essential and prominent part; and to isolate and magnify it, as if it were alone entitled to regard, is most unduly to contract the boundaries of the field, and leave unexplored its hidden riches. Even in the case of miracles themselves, the too exclusive regard to the miraculous element has proved a source of weakness and danger. It has presented them to men's view, merely on their natural side, apart from their moral use as manifestations of the character of God-has treated them, not as themselves integral parts of a revelation, but only as evidences of a revelation; and the natural result has been, that being under-estimated by the defenders of the faith, they have been all the more rudely disparaged and assailed by its opponents. It is, in truth, to use the words of Archdeacon Hare, "the theological parallel to the materialist hypothesis, that all our knowledge is derived from our senses."

The mistake is, if possible, still worse in regard to prophecy, which comes forth as a direct communication from the presence of God. When considered merely as a Divine act of foresight, it is but an evidence of his foreknowledge, which, even in its highest exercise, is still only a natural attribute, standing in no necessary connection with spiritual aims and purposes. But what, if not to exhibit these, is the great design of all the revelations of Scripture? They are given to tell, not that God is, but what he is what in the features of His character, in the principles of His government, in His purposes of mercy or of judgment toward men. So that to contemplate the revelations of prophecy in their relation merely to the Divine foresight, is to view them apart from what has ever been the higher aim of God's

1 "Mission of the Comforter," p. 354.

formal communications to men. And not only so, but the further error is naturally fallen into, of expecting prophecy to be more full and explicit in its announcements regarding future events, than from its inherent nature and immediate uses it could properly be. Valued only for the evidences it contains of Divine foresight, a mode of interpretation is in danger of being adopted, which, in its craving for specific predictions, would confound the characteristics of prophecy and history. How far this has actually been the case, will appear when we come to treat of the proper style and diction of prophecy.

CHAPTER IV.

THE RELATION OF PROPHECY TO MEN'S RESPONSIBILITIES, WITH A CONSIDERATION OF THE QUESTION, HOW FAR IT IS ABSOLUTE OR CONDITIONAL IN ITS ANNOUNCEMENTS.

FROM the proper sphere of prophecy, we pass to the consideration of its proper bearing on those whom it respects, as to their personal liberty of thought and action, their obligations and prospects. It indicates the future; is the future in every case absolutely determined by it? Or, is room still left after it has uttered its declarations for human freedom to work, and, according to the nature of the working, to give a corresponding turn to its prospective announcements? In a word, is it the characteristic of prophecy to make known certainly and conclusively what is to come to pass? Or, are its revelations to some extent conditional, depending on the line of conduct that may meanwhile be pursued by those to whom they are addressed?

This is a point of some moment for the right understanding of considerable portions of the prophetical Scriptures; and one that has called forth the most contradictory opinions. The diversity, however, has arisen more from the intermingling of philosophical and doctrinal elements with the discussion of the question, than from any darkness or uncertainty necessarily attaching to the grounds and principles on which the solution should be based. For the question here is not, as it has too often been considered, whether the definite prediction, and consequently clear foreknowledge, or certain determination of the future actions of men, be compatible with their moral freedom-which may be admitted without ever touching the more noticeable peculiarities belonging to the present subject; and must, indeed,

be admitted by all who receive in simplicity the statements of Scripture, however impossible they may find it to harmonise the respective spheres of the human and the divine in the matter, and adjust their concurrent agencies. Nor, again, is the proper question here, whether any fixed purpose and determination of God is liable to be changed by the contingent procedure of men; for, in that respect, the truth, founded in God's eternal nature, stands fast for ever: "He is not man, that he should lie; nor the Son of man, that he should repent." The question rather is, whether prophecy, viewed simply as a word spoken in behalf of God by one class of men to another, ought to be regarded as announcing what is fixed and conclusively determined by God -his irreversible decrees? Or, whether it should not to some extent and if in some, then to what extent-be viewed as the proclamation of God's mind respecting his future dealings, on the supposition of the parties interested standing in a certain relationship to his character and government. In this last case the word might assuredly be expected to take effect, in so far as the relations contemplated in the prophecy continued, but in the event of a change entering in the one respect, then a corresponding change in the other might reasonably be looked for. Such is the real question at issue among those who concur in holding the word of prophecy to be a supernatural disclosure of God's mind and will; and to diverge to other, however closely related points, is only to embarrass the discussion with what does not strictly belong to it.

Now, to say nothing for the present of the theologians of former times, there are two classes of writers on prophecy in the present day who assume nearly opposite positions on the point before us. On the one side may be named Küster and Olshausen, holding, that all prophecies are more or less conditional. Thus, on Matt. xxiv., we find Olshausen saying, “As every thing future, even that which proceeds from the freedom of the creature, when viewed in relation to the divine knowledge, can only be regarded as necessary; so every thing future, as far as it concerns man, can only be regarded as conditional upon the