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In the very vain and abortive efforts of M. Renan to strip from our Lord the prophetic character which attaches to Him, he is thus beset with difficulties on every hand. There were also other prophecies given by our Lord, besides those to which we have just referred, which, had we noticed them, might have occasioned him quite as much embarrassment as the one relative to the siege and destruction of Jerusalem-the prediction in reference to Himself, for instance, as recorded in Matthew xx. 18, 19: Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of Man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn Him to death, and shall deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify Him: and the third day He shall rise again." The prediction is here very circumstantial, and the events corresponded with it in every particular. But here, again, we might expect to be met with his specious argument, "It is a fraud "—his usual method of disposing of all historical testimony that does not subserve his purpose in the attempted establishment of his infidel creed. His favourite principles of historical criticism are thus brought into very frequent requisition, because they stand him in admirable stead of reasonable argument. Defeated by equal numbers in open manly engagement, and retreating for shelter to this imagined stronghold, which he had taken the precaution to make ready before he could dare to venture an attack upon the Holy One and the Just-weak and baseless subterfuge though it be, it doubtless answers well his purpose in serving him as a retreat in every emergency.

But with a man of this description, it is difficult indeed to deal; because all argument, however rational and conclusive, is instantly set aside by the one ever-recurring ob

jection, "It is a fraud; I will not believe." Well, whether such men will or will not believe, Christ's further prediction will still hold good" He that believeth shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned."

CHAPTER XII.

PROPHECY.

HE prophecies of Holy Scripture are generally of so marked and distinct a character as to be clearly

inapplicable to any other than the times, persons, and places to which they are uniformly applied by the Christian world. But while this fact must be acknowledged by all who have sufficiently studied the subject—and while, also, all the prophecies, both Jewish and Christian, carry with them intrinsic and evident marks as to their validity and holy origin, it is not in every case equally easy to determine what is the exact subject of a particular prophecy, or precisely what the prophet speaks of, and what the characters or events which may with certainty be applied to it in conformity with its terms and true bearing or design. And that some of the prophecies of Scripture, therefore, from such comparative obscurity, as well as, in some instances, from the eccentricities of interpreters, have been misinterpreted and misapplied, is no more than might have been reasonably expected. Obscurity, and singularity or absurdity of interpretation, however, are not confined to the subject of prophecy. They are found in connection with every branch of literature and science, and, more or less, with every subject that engages our attention.

A certain degree of obscurity in some instances, doubtless arises from what is called the double sense of prophecy-as,

e. g., prophecies which refer in their primary sense to events of the Old Testament, and have a manifest prophetic and typical relation to events of the New. Or, where they are expressed in terms which may be understood either in a literal or a figurative sense, as in Isa. xxv. 5, where the terms of the prophecy may be interpreted to represent either the spiritual healing of the soul, or literally, to express the healing of the body—either the one or the other, or both. The latter, no doubt, in this case, as it, doubtless, refers both to the spiritual liberty, enjoyments, and blessedness of those who were to become the subjects of the Messiah's kingdom, and also to the miracles of healing which were to be performed by Christ and His Apostles. Referring to the time of our Lord's advent, the prophet says: "Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing." Or, as already remarked, a certain degree of obscurity may be judged to arise from passages where the event predicted is combined with and made to prefigure another which was to be fulfilled at a subsequent period-as, for example, where Christ couples in one prediction the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the Jewish polity with the end and general judgment of the world.1 In this twofold prediction, as it may be called, comprising as it does two separate events, the language and images relating to each are applicable to the other in a typical relation The prediction seems to have been purposely framed so as to include the destruction of Jerusalem, and the coming of Christ "in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory" to judge the world; the accomplishment of the former being designed as a pledge and an assurance that the latter judgment,

1 Matt. xxiv.

which is of a more universal character, will also in its time be literally fulfilled.

But Scripture prophecy, it should be observed, has nothing in this respect in common with the "oracles," so called, of ancient heathen nations; for while the leading feature of the latter is manifest equivocation, there is nothing of this nature observable in the former. The double sense in which certain Scripture prophecies may be viewed evidently arises, as we have seen, from their being so constructed by an all-seeing Power as to include both events in a typical relation; whereas the heathen oracles, being counterfeit or a parody of the Divine oracles, were so framed as to include two or more events which were diametrically opposite to each other, insomuch that if the event predicted happened according to one interpretation of the wording of the prediction, it could not possibly happen according to any other. And as it was known at the time the oracle was given that the event predicted must happen in one or another of the forms artfully couched under the wording of the oracle, they were thus enabled to maintain their reputation as heathen seers or predicters; for no sooner did the event happen, whether A shot B, or B shot A, than they claimed it as a fulfilment of their prophecy.

By way of illustration, allow a quotation from the American Religious Encyclopædia: "Most of the pagan deities had their appropriate oracles. Apollo had the greatest number. . . . The responses of oracles were delivered in a variety of ways at Delphi, they interpreted and put into verse what the priestess pronounced in the time of her furor. Mr. Bayle observes that at first this oracle gave its answers in verse; and that it fell at length to prose, upon people's beginning to laugh at the poorness of its versification. The