out separation, events which the intellect of man can only contemplate in succession; and which, if presented to his mind simultaneously, must, from his very nature, become undistinguishable the one from the other. Before the gaze of the Omniscient is unfolded the entire course of future history,--its various agencies defined, its epochs distinguished, its relations fixed. From before certain portions of such a scene the veil is withdrawn at God's pleasure, when He discloses the future in prophetic Vision, and opens to the eye of man the vista of events yet to come. The human understanding, however, fettered by its natural laws, can no more discriminate, when thus presented simultaneously, events separated by time, than the eye could originally form any judgment, before experience, respecting the distance or relative position of objects separated by space. In both cases the mind must necessarily regard the objects presented to it as projected the one upon the other: and thus it came to pass, that the prophet beheld future events in his Visions, unconnected by the relations of time." From this result of the laws of the human mind it follows, that all disclosures which God has vouchsafed of occurrences yet to come must have been expressed (wherever no overruling power had otherwise directed the pen of the sacred writers), with that degree and kind of obscurity, which ensures that the free course of history shall be preserved, notwithstanding such predictions of the future. Hence the very limitations of man's intellectual capacity have become the means-it may, perhaps, without presumption be alleged-whereby His ends have been attained by the Almighty: and thus we are supplied with another striking example of how the peculiar characteristics of humanity have been incorporated in the organism of Inspiration. 1 Hengstenberg observes, with reference to this 'perspective' character of Prophecy, that its consideration is particularly important in removing objections against the Divine origin of the prophetic statements, founded on their not being fulfilled at the time when the objector fancies that they ought: no period having been in reality marked by the prophet. When, in accordance with the nature of prophetic intuition, the prophet refrains from all determination of time, and makes no claim to fix its limits, we can as little take exception, on such grounds, to the Divine source of what he has announced, as object that every prophet has not foreseen every event of futurity. This mode of regarding the nature of Prophecy obviates, moreover, the necessity of the forced interpretations, to which those who maintain its Divine origin have sometimes recourse, when they set out from the principle that each prophetic description must relate to one and the same time, as well as object.—Christologie, i. 1, s. 308. Αλλὰ καὶ τὸ εἰς ἔκστασιν καὶ μανικὴν ἄγειν κατάστασιν τήν δῆθεν προφητεύουσαν, ὡς μηδαμῶς αὐτὴν ἑαυτῇ παρακολουθεῖν, οὐ Θείου Πνεύματος ἔργον ἐστίν * * * El δὲ ἐξίσταται, καὶ οὐκ ἐν ἑαυτῇ ἐστιν ἡ Πυθία, ὅτε μαντεύεται, ποδαπὸν νομιστέον πνεῦμα, τὸν σκότον κατεχεύαν τοῦ νοῦ καὶ τῶν λογισμῶν, ἢ τοιοῦτον ὁποῖον ἐστι καὶ τὸ τῶν δαιμό ων γένος ; * * * ORIGENES, Contra Celsum, lib. vii. 3, 4. 'Aut igitur, juxta Montanum, Patriarchas et Prophetas in ecstasi locutos accipiena. n, et nescisse quæ dixerint: aut si hoc impium est (spiritus quippe Prophetarum Prophetis subjectus est), intellexerunt utique quæ locuti sunt. Et si intellexerunt, quæritur quomodo nunc Paulus dicat, quod aliis generationibus non fuit notum, fuisse Christi Apostolis revelatum. Aut ille igitur, de quo jam supra disseruimus, tenendus est sensus, ita Patriarchas et Prophetas, ut nunc Apostolis revelatum est, Christi ignorasse mysterium, quia aliud sit tenere quid manibus, aliud futurum in Spiritu prævidere." S. HIERON. Comm. in Epist. ad Eph. lib. ii. cap. 3. Ζητήσεως ἄξιόν ἐστι τὸ περὶ τοῦ ̔Αγίου Πνεύματος εἰ δύναται εἶναι καὶ ἐν ἁμαρτωλῷ ψυχῇ. ORIGENES, Comm. in Joann. tom. xxviii. 13. Ἐκεῖνο δὲ προστίθεμεν τῷ λόγῳ, ὅτι οὔτε πᾶς ὁ προφητεύων ὅσιος· οὔτε πᾶς ὁ δαίμο νας ἐλαύνων ἅγιος. καὶ γὰρ καὶ Βαλαὰμ ὁ τοῦ Βεὰρ ὁ μάντις προεφήτευσεν, δυσεβὴς ὤν, καὶ Καϊάφας ὁ ψευδώνυμος Αρχιερεύς. S. HIPPOLYTUS, De Charismatibus. LECTURE V. REVELATION AND INSPIRATION. 66 OF WHICH SALVATION THE PROPHETS HAVE ENQUIRED AND SEARCHED DILIGENTLY, WHO PROPHESIED OF THE GRACE THAT SHOULD COME UNTO YOU: SEARCHING WHAT, NIFY.”—1 S. Peter, i. 10, 11. THE last Discourse was mainly occupied with one only of the two elements which co-exist in the composition of the Holy Scriptures. In it attention was chiefly directed to the phenomena which exhibit the active co-operation of the human agents who have been chosen to convey to us the history of God's Providence, and God's Revelation. It was there shown how the intellectual emancipation of the state of sleep, and the intellectual intensity of the state of ecstasy, have been made use of as the natural means by which was effected the concourse of the spirit of man with the Spirit of God.' And although what was said upon this branch of the subject was, I trust, sufficiently guarded, so as to preclude any misconception of the reasons advanced, and to avoid even the semblance of lending support to the error against which these Discourses are principally addressed, an error of which the source consists in giving undue prominence to the human element of the Bible,-still this department of our inquiry is too important, and too vitally connected with the whole question of Inspiration, to be dismissed by a simple reference to those illustrations of the constant exercise of the 1 See M. Athanase Coquerel's "Christianity," p. 205; who observes--"The more the means of Inspiration [meaning Revelation-see supra, Lecture iv. p. 146, note 2] are independent of time, space, matter, and death, the more conformable they are to the nature of God. But there are to be met with in our present human existence, our actual phase of progress, momentary conditions of being, which disengage our minds from the bondage of time, space, matter, and death. These accidents of our present state of being are especially sleep and ecstasy." |