of accomplishing this great end. These constituted the motives by which they hoped to stir up kings and people to a right course, or to deter them from a wrong one; to humble them when elated with a false confidence, or to comfort them when discouraged under overwhelming national calamity.

These predictions consist of representations of the future, having reference partly to the people of God, that is, the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and partly to foreign nations, which, in the way of interest, friendship, or enmity, &c., had some connection with the people of God. We never find the Hebrew prophets uttering predictions respecting countries unknown to the Hebrews, such as Japan, or America, or India, but only respecting those nations from which at the time of the prediction they had something to hope or to fear, or which they had cause to love or to hate, such as successively the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Syrians, the Phoenicians, the Philistines, the Egyptians, the Edomites, the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Arabians. Sometimes the prediction relates to an individual who was concerned in the business of the state.

The predictions of the prophets are always presented as motives of conduct to their contemporaries. They are never made as independent truths, without reference to the circumstances of the times. They are not merely apocalyptic, or for the mere gratification of curiosity. They always have a practical relation to the people in the time of the prophet. They are always presented as promises of happiness, or threatenings of distress, and this generally as the fruit of the conduct of the people, and thus as a revelation of the righteousness of God, or of the retribution of which God is the author.

Here we have one principal source of the Hebrew predictions, namely, the laws of Divine retribution. It was a fundamental doctrine of Judaism that the future condition of a nation, as well as of an individual, would be so ordered by the Almighty as to constitute the reward or punishment of present conduct. For this reason it was, that the prophets were led to cast their eyes into the future, in order to find motives to urge kings and people to the course which they recommended. In order to make these motives more distinct, vivid, and impressive, they did not deal in

general and abstract denunciations of woe, but with piercing sagacity, derived from natural genius, from the assiduous contemplation of the future, and from the influence of the Divine spirit on their minds, they undertook to point out the particular events which would happen in the future; that is, they not merely promised or threatened, but predicted. More or less of the same practice has prevailed among political and religious reformers from that time to this. But it prevailed in a remarkable degree among the Hebrew prophets, so that their writings constitute a distinct and peculiar class. They believed that they had an insight into the future, which the human understanding, without the aid of the Divine spirit, would not have afforded them. The popular faith supported them in their general claims, though their particular messages were often rejected with incredulity, contempt, or persecution.

This I regard as a very important view of the nature of the predictions of the prophets. They belong to the category of motives with which the prophets urged upon their contemporaries the great objects of their mission, namely, that of keeping the people in a right political, moral, and religious condition. They are the application of the doctrine of an earthly retribution to the particular condition and circumstances of the community in the time of the prophet. See Is. i. 19, &c.; Jer. vii. 3, &c., xxi.

1-9.

The practical character and aim of the predictions in relation to the contemporaries of the prophet are also seen in those cases in which evil is threatened Israel from foreign nations, with which they were, or wished to be, in alliance. The design was to withdraw or deter Israel from impolitic alliances, dangerous to religion, by threatening evil or destruction from the nation from which the rulers were seeking aid, or the advantages of an alliance.

The same practical character and aim are evident in predictions of prosperity. The design was to keep the people in grateful dependence upon Jehovah; to inspire patient submission under the temporary chastisement or trials which were to end in good; to comfort and encourage them, so that, though humbled, they should never waver or doubt in regard to the benevolent designs of God toward the posterity of Abraham.

So in those predictions in which calamity or destruction is threatened to foreign nations, such as Egypt, Babylon, Tyre, &c., there is in general a practical object in reference to the people of God. It is to encourage them when foreign nations assume a threatening aspect; see Is. x. 5, &c., xxx. 27, &c. xxxi. 1, &c. Hab. ii.; partly to deter them from untheocratic alliances, Is xx. 5, &c., xxx. 3, &c.; partly to console them under the injustice and oppression which they have suffered, Is. xxi. 1, &c. xlvii.; Ezek. xxv. - xxxv.; Jer. 1., li.; and partly to make the people feel their dependence on Jehovah by exhibiting his righteous judgments.

From the nature of the case, the prophets could not be guided by the principle of retribution in predictions of prosperity and blessedness, so much as in predictions of woe. It is only in a very qualified sense that any people, much less so perverse a people as the Jewish is represented to have been, can be said to merit blessings from Jehovah. Still there is some regard to this principle, inasmuch as the prophets scarcely ever predict prosperity, unless it is preceded by righteousness. See Is. xliii. 25; Ezek. xxxvi. 25, &c. Sometimes the piety of the fathers, or proinises made to the fathers, seem to be the grounds of predictions of prosperity. Is. xxxvii. 35; Mic. vii. 20. Hence it is that denunciations of woe are generally, and sometimes by a very rapid transition, followed by promises of peace, favor, and glory. See Amos ix. 11; Mic. iv. 1-10, and very numerous passages of the same kind elsewhere.

Thus it appears that the principle of an earthly retribution lies at the foundation of most of the predictions, but with some qualifications and limitations.

Another important remark is, that the prophets whose genuineness is undoubted, when they make definite predictions, introducing the names of persons, nations, cities, &c., keep within the sphere of human vision, and direct attention to those nations to which the vision of a Hebrew politician would naturally be directed. Their predictions are conformed to the political horizon of their time, and are definite and explicit in the same degree in which the circumstances of the time afford clear indications of coming events. Thus Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah bring chiefly to view the Assyrians. Isaiah mentions the Babylonians also, who

were in his day meditating a separation from the Assyrians. Later prophets, as Habakkuk, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, utter predictions relating to the Chaldeans who destroyed the Assyrian monarchy. Ezekiel even mentions the Scythians, under the names of Gog and Magog.

It is evident, not only that the preceding propositions are true, but also that in this way alone their predictions would be of any value, or have any influence with their contemporaries, the readers or hearers to whom they were addressed. Had the prophets predicted calamity as coming from a monarch of whose name they had never heard, or from nations beyond the sphere of Jewish knowledge or interest, or from nations which had little or no power to inflict injury upon them, it is plain that their predictions would have been disregarded and have been followed by no practical effects. They never predict calamity from very small or very remote nations, from which nothing was to be feared. Such predictions could have no more been expected to influence the Jews, than the prediction of destruction to our country at the present day from India or Japan could be expected to influence us. In order that their predictions might excite any interest, or produce any effect, it was necessary that they should have a cer'tain degree of probability in the minds of the people.

I now come to the question how far the predictions of the prophets were verified by events, or fulfilled; and if fulfilled, whether in such a manner as to afford evidence of miraculous foreknowledge in the prophets.

Before the examination of particular cases, one or two preliminary observations are to be made. The prophets expressly state many of their predictions to be conditional, suspended on the conduct of those whom they addressed. This is implied in the principle on which most of them are founded, namely, the principle of Divine retribution. See Jer. xviii. 7-10; Jer. xxvi. 16-19. It follows, then, that every case of the non-fulfilment of a prediction is not a proof of error on the part of the prophet; because the prediction was conditional, and there may have been a reformation in the people which averted the predicted calamity.

On the other hand, every fulfilment of a prediction is not a proof of infallibility or miraculous foreknowledge Many events

may be predicted by human sagacity, meditating on the causes of events, and on the circumstances in which nations are placed. Such men as Edmund Burke, John Adams, and others, men of genius and sagacity, having their patriotic minds continually intent upon all the political signs in their horizon, have made very remarkable predictions. In order to prove miraculous foreknowledge, the event predicted must be clearly beyond the limits of human sagacity and calculation. In order to prove such foreknowledge, the event must also be fulfilled in the way and manner expected by the writer. For instance, if it should be now predicted that London is, at a future day, to be destroyed by the French, it would not be a miraculous fulfilment of the prediction, if, some centuries hence, that city should be destroyed by the Russians, or by the gradual operation of natural causes. It would be safe to predict of many cities that they would come to an end in some way, and some time or other.

How then was it with the predictions of the Hebrew prophets? Were they fulfilled in such a manner as to imply miraculous foreknowledge? The only way to arrive at a correct answer is to examine every particular prediction, and the circumstances under which it was made, in order to perceive what indications of the event might have been present to the mind of the writer, and, secondly, to examine history, to see how far events correspond to his language. Our limits will not allow us to examine all the predictions of the prophets. I will take two or three of the most remarkable, and endeavor to proceed without perverting the meaning of the prophetic writers, or falsifying the facts of history. Rationalistic interpretation, when employed in the interest of apologetic theology, ought to be at least as odious as when employed in the interest of physical or metaphysical philosophy.

A prediction which will at once occur to the reader of the Scriptures is that against Babylon. It is found in Is. xiii., xiv., xxi. 1-10, xl. - lxvi., and in Jer. 1., li. In Is. xiii. 17-22, we read:

:

"Behold I stir up against them the Medes,

Who make no account of silver,

And as to gold, they do not regard it.

Their bows shall strike down the young men,

And on the fruit of the womb they shall have no compassion;