it. And if, for the sake of parrying the conclusion that would follow in this case, any one should aver, that God is the real author of the Scriptures, still this will make no important difference. God cannot impart all his knowledge to his creatures, i. e. he cannot make them omniscient, because their imperfect natures render this impossible. Nor can we rationally conceive, that he, when intending to make a revelation to them through the medium of language, would employ language in any other way than in one intelligible to them. The design in question would be entirely defeated by such a process.

Is it not then a great mistake to suppose, after the Gospel has been in existence for eighteen centuries, and Christianity been developing itself during all that period, that the more definite and extensive knowledge which we now have, or which is now attainable, is to be attributed to the ancient prophets, or is to be regarded as being comprised in an occult way in their predictions? And yet this mistake is every day coming before us. We are constantly meeting with books and sermons and pamphlets, which are attributing to ancient prophecies a pregnant sense that has been occult for some three thousand years, and assigning to them all the knowledge that we may now acquire, or have acquired. And all this, because Scripture must be made to mean all that it can mean, and dark prophecy must be illuminated, and can be explained, only by the occurrence of events predicted.

In the hands of such interpreters, it is evident that the Bible becomes a mere mass of wax, to be moulded and impressed in any way which fancy may dictate. And are we indeed left thus at the mercy of every man's caprice, at the disposal of every enthusiast's imagination? If so, how can we hope for the suffrages of the sober and inquiring part of the community? Men of this cast will not lis

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ten to us, when we invite them to travel with us in the dark. We need somewhere, and we must have, some terra firma; and to get possession of this, reason, judgment, correct taste, sound discretion, and some good knowledge of the laws of language, are absolutely requisite.

What says the same Peter, (to whom appeal is so often made in order to show that the prophets uttered some things which they did not understand), respecting the obscurity of prophecy? He 66 that says, we have a sure word of prophecy, whereunto we do well to take heed, as unto a light shining in a dark place," 2 Pet. 1: 19. A light shining! But how prophecy is a light, or how it shines, or can shine, before the events predicted are fulfilled, is a problem that cannot be solved on the ground of those whom I am here opposing. Instead of being a light, much of prophecy is (or has been) mere darkness visible, one might almost say palpable, until some future sun shall shed its rays upon it. Is this the manner of that God, "the entrance of whose word" into the mind, as the Psalmist affirms, "gives light and imparts understanding?"

Many of the ancient Christian Fathers made it a prominent ground of distinction between heathen oracles and real prophecies, that the latter were uttered by men conscious and cognizant of what they were uttering, while the former were announced by μávτɛis, whose own declarations were often unintelligible to themselves. Is not this, now, a suggestion of good common sense? Why should we suppose, that the prophets were bereft of consciousness and reason, at the very time when they were the subjects of inspiration and possessed a knowledge elevated above all which they had known before? I cannot well conceive how any honour is to be done to revelation, by this way of explaining the inspiration of its authors. What can be the advantage which any one expects to be gained? Prediction

must be intelligible, or else it does not concern those to whom it is addressed. The alleged obscurity in prophecy never could have originally existed. It is then, and only then, that we can be led to suppose that it exists, viz., when we attribute to ancient times and disclosures all the views which the gospel-day has disclosed to us.

To the representations so often made, that the prophets were like to men not conscious either of their own appropriate existence or of their own thoughts, and therefore were mere automata by means of which prophecy was uttered, I never can subscribe. To represent the prophets as being out of themselves, or as the mere strings of a lute which must be struck by another in order to render a sound, and when it does render one is still not conscious of so doing, or of the quality of the sound—all this, although often said and repeated, is, in my apprehension at least, not only unscriptural but anti-scriptural. If the prophets were merely unconscious instruments; if, as Hengstenberg affirms, the spirit of man went out when the Spirit of God came in; then what was it which made or enabled Jeremiah to refuse to prophesy, even when under strong prophetic influence (Jer. 20: 9); and why should he need the most powerful constraint in order to lead him to perform this duty? If men, when inspired, are mere automata or involuntary instruments, why does Paul so strongly censure the Corinthians (chap. XIV.) for abusing their spiritual gifts? Above all, if they are mere unconscious instruments, how can that be true which the apostle says, when he declares, that "the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets?" 1 Cor. 14: 32. According to Paul, men are accountable for the manner in which they employ the gift of prophecy. He taxes such of the Corinthian prophets as spoke in an unknown tongue without interpreting it, with great impropriety of conduct, and absolutely for

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bids that they should do so any more. He enjoins that the unknown tongue should be interpreted; or if there should be no interpreter present, that silence should be preserved. He says "he would rather speak five words with the understanding, [i. e. which are intelligible], that by his voice he might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue;" 1 Cor. 14: 19. Why should this, the dictate both of common sense and of inspiration, be so entirely forgotten or neglected, in the theories of many interpreters of prophecies, and of many who have descanted on the inspiration of the prophets? is as applicable to the Old Testament as to the New. It was as unworthy of God under the Mosaic dispensation, as under the gospel, to speak unintelligibly; and it would seem as if nothing but the love of mystery, of something recondite and strange, or reluctance at the labour of acquiring sufficient knowledge to explain prophecies, could ever have led men to introduce such paradoxes as I have been controverting, into the interpretation of the Scriptures. To conclude this topic: How can we then subscribe to the sentiment, that prophecy, when originally uttered, was not only obscure but unintelligible? The men who uttered it were inspired; and if so, did they not understand what they meant to say? If they did, then have they not uttered their meaning in such a way that others can understand them? If all this be denied, then two conclusions inevitably follow; the first, that no revelation was made, so far as the passages in question are concerned, to the prophets themselves; for certain it is, that no revelation is made to any individual who can understand nothing of that which is communicated; the second, that others, who were addressed by the prophets, had in fact no revelation at all made to them; for if inspired men did not understand the things that were uttered, surely uninspired ones could

not understand them. Can any sober and reasonable man, now, bring himself to believe in such a state of things as this? Prophets speak in the name of God, and men are required to hear on penalty of death, and to give diligent heed to what is said. Yet, from the nature of the case, neither the prophet nor his hearers can obtain any correct view of what is said. The church is to wait for hundreds or thousands of years, before any true light dawns upon the darkness of the oracles. Fulfilment alone can diffuse this light. The treasure has been locked up, and withdrawn from the view of all; and yet men were bound to believe, that it was a precious treasure, and would at some period or other be available for use. But no; it never is truly available for any part of that purpose, in respect to which it professes to have been given. It was given as a prediction-given to foretell events that were to come. Yet it is no prediction; for it never is, or can be, understood, until that to which it relates has already taken place. Then, if at last it be understood at all, it has become history, and not prediction.

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Heathen gods and oracles, we might well suspect, would affect mystery and concealment in some such way. know that this has been often done. But how shall we defend the idea, that the God of truth, "the entrance of whose word giveth light and understanding to the simple;" who has made "all Scripture profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3: 16); who has, by his prophets, uttered predictions which he declares to be "a light shining in a dark place" (2 Pet. 1: 19); how shall we defend the notion, that he has uttered predictions to the ancient and to the later church, which neither patriarch, prophet, apostle, or martyr, could by any possibility understand? Must we not rather say, with the great apostle to the Gentiles: