vain, and on which they were ground to powder. This element of the Prophetical Office deserves special consideration, because it pervades their whole teaching, and because it is in its lower manifestations within the reach of all. What is it that is thus recommended to us? Not eccentricity, not singularity, not useless opposition to the existing framework of the world, or the Church in which we find ourselves. Not this which is of no use to any one - but this which is needed by every one of us, a fixed resolution to hold our own against chance and accident, against popular clamor and popular favor, against the opinions, the conversation, of the circle in which we live; a silent look of disapproval, a single word of cheering approval an even course, which turns not to the right hand or to the left, unless with our own full conviction - a calm, cheerful, hopeful endeavor to do the work that has been given us to do, whether we succeed or whether we fail.

And for this Prophetic independence, what is, what was, the Prophetic ground and guaranty? There were two. One was that of which I will proceed to speak presently, that which has almost changed the meaning of the name of the Prophets, — their constant looking forward to the Future. The other was that they felt themselves standing on a rock that was higher and stronger than they, the support and the presence of God. It was this which made their independent elevation itself a Prophecy, because it spoke of a Power behind them, unseen, yet manifesting itself through them in that one quality which even the world cannot fail at last to recognize. Give us a man, young or old, high or low, on whom we know that we can thoroughly depend, who will stand

firm when others fail, the friend faithful and true, the adviser honest and fearless, the adversary just and chivalrous; in such an one there is a fragment of the Rock of Ages - a sign that there has been a Prophet amongst us.

The consciousness of the presence of God. In the Mussulman or the Hindoo this makes itself felt in the entire abstraction of the mind from all outward things. In the fanatic, of whatever religion, it makes itself felt in the disregard of all the common rules of human morality. In the Hebrew Prophet it makes itself felt in the indifference to human praise or blame, in the unswerving fidelity to the voice of duty and of conscience, in the courage to say what he knew to be true, and do what he knew to be right. This in the Hebrew Prophet-this in the Christian man-is the best sign of the near vision of Almighty God; it is the best sign of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ, the Faithful and True, the Holy and the Just, the Power of God, and the Wisdom of God.

teaching of

III. This brings us to the Prophetic teaching of the Future. It is well known that in the popular The and modern use of the word since the seven- the Future. teenth century, by a "Prophet" is meant almost exclusively one who predicts or foretells; and to have asserted the contrary has even been thought heretical. We have already seen that this assumption is itself a grave error.1 It is wholly unauthorized, either by the Bible or by our own Church. It has drawn off

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1 See Lecture XIX. "It is sim"ply a mistake to regard prediction as synonymous with prophecy, or even as the chief portion of a prophet's "duties. Whether the language be 'Hebrew, Greek, or Latin, the an

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"cient words for prophecy all refer to "a state of the mind, an emotion, an "influence, and not to prescience." (Mr. Payne Smith's Messianic Inter pretation of Isaiah, Introd. p. xxx.)

the attention from the fundamental idea of the Prophetical office to a subordinate part. It has caused us to seek the evidence of Prophecy in those portions of it which are least convincing, rather than in those which are most convincing-in those parts which it has most in common with other systems, rather than in these parts which distinguish it from all other systems.

But this error, resting as it does on an etymological mistake, could never have obtained so wide a diffusion, without some ground in fact; and this ground is to be found in the vast relation of the Prophetic office to the Future, which I shall now attempt to draw forth- dwelling, as before, on the general spirit of the institution. It is, then, undoubtedly true that the Prophets of the Old Dispensation did in a marked and especial 'manner look forward to the Future.

Prospective and predictive

It was tendencies. this which gave to the whole Jewish nation an upward, forward, progressive character, such as no Asiatic, no ancient, I may almost say, no other nation has ever had in the same degree. Representing as they did the whole people, they shared and they personated the general spirit of tenacious trust and hope that distinguishes the people itself. Their warnings, their consolations, their precepts, when relating to the past and the present, are clothed in imagery drawn from the future. The very form of the Hebrew verb, in which one tense is used both for the past and the future, lends itself to this mode of speech. They were conceived as shepherds seated on the top of one of the hills of Judæa, seeing far over the heads of their flocks, and guiding them accordingly; or as watchmen standing on some lofty tower, with a wider horizon within their view than that of ordinary men.1 66 Watchman,

1 Isa. lvi. 10, 11.

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what of the night? Watchman, what of the night? was the question addressed to Isaiah by an anxious world below. "I will stand upon my watch," is the expression of Habakkuk, "and set me upon the tower, "and will watch to see what He will say unto me. Though the vision tarry, wait for it: it will surely come; it will not tarry." Their practical and religious exhortations were, it is true, conveyed with a force which needed no further attestation. Of all of them, in a certain sense, it might be said as of the Greatest of all, that they spoke "as one having authority and not as the scribes." Still there are special signs of authority besides, and of these, one of the chief, from first to last, was their "speaking things to come."3 And this token of Divinity extends (and here again I speak quite irrespectively of any special fulfilments of special predictions) to the whole Prophetic order, in Old and New Testament alike. There is nothing which to any reflecting mind is more signal a proof of the Bible being really the guiding book of the world's history, than its anticipations, predictions, insight, into the wants of men far beyond the age in which it was written. That modern element which we find in it, so like our own times, so unlike the ancient framework of its natural form; that Gentile, European, turn of thought, so unlike the Asiatic language and scenery which was its cradle; that enforcement of principles and duties, which for years and centuries lay almost unperceived, because

1 Isa. xxi. 11.

Hab. ii. 1, 3.

3 It is observable that although the power of prediction is never made the test of a true prophet (some of the greatest of them, Samuel, for exam

ple, Elijah, and John the Baptist, having uttered either no prediction or only such as were very subordinate), the failure of a prediction is in one remarkable passage made the test of a false prophet (Deut. xviii. 22).

hardly ever understood in its sacred pages; but which we now see to be in accordance with the utmost requirements of philosophy and civilization; those principles of toleration, chivalry, discrimination, proportion, which even now are not appreciated as they ought to be, and which only can be fully realized in ages yet to come; these are the unmistakable predictions of the Prophetic spirit of the Bible, the pledges of its inexhaustible resources.

Political

predictions.

Thus much for the general aspect of the Prophetical office as it looked to the Future. Its more special aspects may be considered under three heads. (1.) First, their contemplation and prediction of the political events of their own and the surrounding nations. It is this which brings them most nearly into comparison with the seers of other ages and other races. Every one knows instances, both in ancient and modern times, of predictions which have been uttered and fulfilled in regard to events of this kind. Sometimes such predictions have been the result of political foresight. "To have made predictions which "have been often verified by the event, seldom or "never falsified by it," has been suggested by one well competent to judge,' as an ordinary sign of statesmanship in modern times. "To see events in their begin

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nings, to discern their purport and tendencies from "the first, to forewarn his countrymen accordingly," was the foremost duty of an ancient orator, as described by Demosthenes.2 Many instances will occur to stu dents of history. Even within our own memory the great catastrophe of the disruption of the United States

1 Mill's Representative Government, Strachey on the Prophets of the Old Testament, pp. 2, 29.

224.

2 De Corona, 73. See Sir E.