was answered, proves that they did not owe their accomplishment to chance or to imposture. Further, when no means of evasion remained, the answers given by the heathen oracles were frequently delusive, and capable of quite contrary interpretations: and the most celebrated of them concealed their meaning in such ambiguous terms, that they required another oracle to explain them. Of this ambiguity several authentic instances are recorded. Thus, when Croesus consulted the oracle at Delphi relative to his intended war against the Persians, he was told that he would destroy a great empire. This he naturally interpreted of his overcoming the Persians, though the oracle was so framed as to admit of an opposite meaning. Croesus made war against the Persians, and was ruined; and the oracle continued to maintain its credit. The answer given to Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, many ages after, was of yet more doubtful interpretation, being conceived in terms so ambiguous, that it might either be interpreted thus:-I say that thou son of Eacus canst conquer the Romans. Thou shalt go, thou shalt return, never shalt thou perish in war;2 or thus, I say that the Romans can conquer thee, son of Eacus. Thou shalt go, thou shalt never return, thou shalt perish in war. Pyrrhus understood the oracle in the former sense; he waged an unsuccessful war with the Romans, and was overcome: yet, still the juggling oracle saved its credit. Another remarkable instance of the ambiguity of the pretended prophets occurs in 1 Kings xxii. 7. Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, and Ahab, king of Israel, having united their forces against the Syrians, in order to recover Ramoth-Gilead, the latter monarch gathered the false prophets together, about four hundred men, and said unto them, Shall I go against Ramoth-Gilead to battle, or shall I forbear? And they said, Go up, for the Lord shall deliver [it] into the hands of the king. It is to be observed, that the word [it] is not in the original, and that the reply of the pseudo-prophets is so artfully constructed, that it might be interpreted either for or against the expedition as thus, -the Lord will deliver (it) Ramoth-Gilead in the king's (Ahab's) hand; or, the Lord will deliver (Israel) into the king's hand, that is, into the hands of the king of Syria. Relying upon this ambiguous oracle, the monarchs of Judah and Israel engaged the Syrians and were utterly discomfited. Whenever the oracles failed, the priests, who officiated at them, were never at a loss for subterfuges for preserving their credit. If the event happened not to correspond with the prophecy, it was discovered, when too late, that some indispensable ceremony or observance had been omitted; that the gods were averse to the inquirer; or that he had not been in a proper state for consulting them. If an 1 Herodotus, lib. i. c. 53. Though the identical words of the oracle have been lost from the text of Herodotus, yet they have been preserved by various writers, and particularly by Suidas (Lexicon, voce Kpotros, tom. iii. p. 382. edit. Kuster.) according to whom they ran thus, Κροισος 'Αλυν διαβας μεγάλην αρχην καταλύσει. 2 The oracle in question has been thus translated: Aio te Eacida Romanos vincere posse. evil event took place, when a good one had been promised, it was the fault of the inquirer. If, on the contrary, the result was more favourable than the prediction, this was owing to the intercession of the priests, to the prayers they had offered, or to the rites they had performed for propitiating the offended powers. But notwithstanding all these and other precautions, the heathen priests succeeded very imperfectly in maintaining the credit of the oracles. The wiser and more sagacious heathens, especially in later times, held them in utter contempt. They were ridiculed by the comic poets; and the pretendedly inspired priestess was, in several instances, even popularly accused of being bribed to prophesy according to the interests of a particular party. Such was the success of false prophecy, even with all the aids of art, and a systematic plan of imposture to preserve it from detection.2 How widely different from these pretended predictions, are the prophecies contained in the Scriptures! They were delivered without solicitation, and pronounced openly before the people: and the prophet knew himself by law exposed to capital punishment, if any one of his predictions were to be overthrown. The events which were foretold, were often both complicated and remote, depending on the arbitrary will of many, and arising from a great variety of causes, which concurred to bring them to pass. Some of them were accomplished shortly after they were delivered; others had their accomplishment somewhat later, but the prophets who delivered them saw the event. Others again had a more distant object, which exceeded the prophet's life: but the different events which he foretold were so 1 Thus Aristotle observes with his usual accuracy and penetration, that " pretended prophets express themselves in general language. In a game at odd and even, a man may say, whether the number be odd or even, much sooner than what it is; and that such a thing will happen, than when. Therefore those who deliver oracles never define when." (Aristot. Rhet. lib. iii, c. 5. § 4. Op. tom. iv. edit. Bipont.)-Cicero, likewise has the following remark: "If this be foretold, Who is the PERSON meant and what is the TIME? The writer has conducted himself so dexterously, that any event whatever will suit his prophecy, since there is No specification of men and times." (De Divinat. lib. ii. c. 54. Op. tom. xi. p. 287. edit. Bipont.) Horace also ridicules with great humour the pompous nothingness of the heathen oracles, in the following verses: O Laërtiade, quicquid dicam, aut erit, aut non; Divinare etenim magnus mihi donat Apollo. Sat. lib. ii. sat. 6. v. 59, 60. O Son of Laertes, what I now foretel, will either come to pass or it will not ; For the great Apollo gives me to divine. Lastly, Lucian, in his history of Alexander, after relating in what manner that impostor pretended to answer the sealed questions delivered to him, without opening the seal, adds : · "Thus he delivered oracles, and gave divine responses, but with great prudence, and giving perplexed, doubtful, or obscure answers, according to the custom of oracles. Some he encouraged; others he dissuaded, replying as he thought proper. To some he prescribed plain remedies and diets, for he knew many useful medicines. But, with respect to the hopes (of advancement) the increase of property, and successions to inheritances, he always deferred giving an answer, adding "All things shall be done when I am willing, and when my prophet Alexander shall entreat me, and shall offer prayers in your behalf." — It is to be observed that this impostor spoke in the name of the god Esculapius; and that he did not give his responses for nothing, his stated price being one drachma and two oboli (about 104d. sterling) for each answer. Luciani Alexander seu Pseudomantis. Op. tom. v. pp. 85, 86. edit. Bipont. 2 Nares on Prophecy, p. 16. connected together, that the most distant bordered pretty nearly upon some others, the accomplishment of which was preparatory to the last. The fulfilment of the first prophecies served to raise an expectation of those which were distant; and the accomplishment of the last confirmed the first. The predictions of Isaiah will furnish an illustration of the correctness of these remarks; and whoever reads the prophets with attention will readily find many more instances. The kings of Syria and Israel,' who separately had done great damage to the kingdom of Judah, united together absolutely to destroy it, and came to lay siege to Jerusalem. Ahaz, king of Judah, and all his subjects, being seized with terror, the prophet Isaiah came to him, and publicly assured him that the enterprise of the two kings should be frustrated: that in a short time they would both die; and that, before a child, that was to be born in about ten months, could say, 'My father and my mother,' Damascus, the capital of Syria, and Samaria, the capital of the kingdom of Israel, should be subject to the king of Assyria. Within three short years, the event justified the prophecy in all its parts, though it was without any natural probability. The destruction of Sennacherib's army, together with all the minute circumstances of his previous advance, was announced by Isaiah a long time before it happened, with this additional circumstance, that such destruction should take place in the night; and that the noise of the thunder that should roll over the Assyrians, should be to Jerusalem an harmonious sound, and like a melodious concert, because it would be followed with public thanksgivings. It was these precise and circumstantial predictions that supported the hopes of Hezekiah, notwithstanding every thing that seemed to 'oppose it. Nor can it excite our astonishment that, after its accomplishment the pious monarch and his people were persuaded that Isaiah was a prophet, to whom the Almighty revealed his designs, and that he spoke by his command.—In like manner, after the departure of the ambassadors, whom Merodach-Baladan, king of Babylon, had sent to congratulate Hezekiah on his recovery from sickness, the same prophet was commissioned to tell the Jewish sovereign that all his treasures (which in the secret pride of his heart he had shown to his ambassadors,) should be conveyed to Babylon; that princes descended from him should be made captives; and that they should be employed by the conqueror in menial offices. This prediction was apparently contrary to all probability: the kings of Babylon and Judah were then allies and united in interest. The former seemed in no respect formidable, when compared with the kings of Assyria, whose yoke he had but just shaken off, and to whom he was, perhaps, still tributary: and yet the prophecy is positive, and Hezekiah entertained no doubt of it. It was literally accomplished, and then the Jews hoped for their return from captivity, which Isaiah had not only foretold many 1 Isa. vii. 1. 9-16. 2 Isa. viii. 2-4. 2 Kings xv. 29, 30. xvi. 29. Isa. viii. 7, 8. 4 Compare Isa. xxxix. 5—7. and 2 Kings xx. times, and in the most magnificent terms, but also marked out the conqueror of Babylon, and the deliverer of the Jews by name,2 considerably more than one hundred years before Cyrus became king of Persia, and liberated the captive Jews. Lastly, Isaiah clearly declared the ruin of Babylon, after he had seen, in prophetic spirit, all its splendour and glory under Nebuchadnezzar ;3 and it is astonishing with what exactness all the parts of his predictions were accomplished; so that the precise site of Babylon cannot now be ascertained. -- Once more, a large proportion of the Scripture prophecies was committed to writing, and preserved in books which were always left open to public examination, and all persons were enjoined to peruse them. This is a test from which the spurious predictions of the heathens always shrunk. Their oracles were never collected in any authentic records; never brought into one view, with even a pretence to prove the prescience of their deities. Certain officers only were allowed to superintend them. In Egypt, the oracular books were kept by the priests exclusively, and written in a peculiar character: and at Rome, the Sibylline books were allowed to be consulted only by the quindecemviri, and not even by these privileged few without an order from the senate. And when at length a compilation was offered to the world, professing to contain the Sibylline oracles, it was so gross and clumsy a forgery as never to impose on any man of sense, who exerted even the smallest skill in bringing it to the test of criticism.4 It is a remark, which holds alike in every circumstance of divine revelation, that impostors never did attempt to produce their credentials in such a manner as the real messengers of God. Yet does the malice or the blindness of its opposers continually endeavour to confound them. Because there have been lying prophets, the true must be suspected; because there have been false prophets-pretenders to inspiration, therefore they to whom the Spirit of God has truly spoken, cannot obtain a candid hearing. Yet, if the things considered differ most essentially in the mode, in the circumstances, in the proof, -in all respects, indeed, except the name, where is the candour, or even the common sense, of involving them in one sentence of rejection ?5 The false pretensions to prophecy that have appeared in the world, are no more a proof that there never were true predictions, than the circulation of base coins proves that there is no pure gold or silver employed in commerce and manufactures. III. The use and intent of prophecy may be considered in various lights. Some have represented it as designed to meet and accommodate the natural anxiety and impatience of men to know futurity to relieve and sooth the troubled mind -to repress the vain and forward to discourage schemes of vice-to support desponding - 1 See particularly Isa. lii. 2. and xlii. 4. 2 Isa. xliv. and xlv. 3 Isa. xlvii. 1. 7, 8, 9. 12, 13. xiii. 4. 19, 20, 21, et seq. xiv. 22-24. 4 Dr. Jortin has examined the pretended Sibylline oracles, and has shown that they are to be rejected as forgeries and impostures. Remarks on Eccl. Hist. vol. i. PP: 188-217. Nares on Prophecy, p. 22. virtue. Some have argued, that prophecy was designed to cherish and promote a religious spirit-to confirm the faith of God's sovereignty and particular providence. Some men, measuring the thoughts and ways of God by those of men, have fancied, that an obscure people, a carpenter's son, his birth, and acts, and ignominious death, were subjects beneath the attention of the supreme Ruler; and have substituted, as more becoming objects of prophecy, the splendid events, as they supposed, of the rise and fall of kingdoms, and the revolutions of mighty states and empires. But the ways of God are not as our ways, nor his thoughts as our thoughts. The events which to us appear magnificent and interesting are trivial in his sight, and those which we might overlook or despise, form the principal figures in the plan of his infinite wisdom and goodness. There were intermediate events predicted, as subordinate ends of prophecy, as the state and history of Abraham's, and Jacob's, and David's family; but the great use and intent of prophecy, to which all others were subservient, was to maintain the faith of the Messiah, and to prepare the world for his appearance and mediation. At the same time, it was calculated to serve as an evidence of the divine origin of Scripture. Considering it in this light, we should first satisfy ourselves that it was given, not after, but long before the events took place; and then carefully compare the facts and circumstances predicted with the events accomplished. If they correspond, the conclusion is unavoidable, that the prophet was commissioned by Omniscience to utter the prophecy, and that it has been fulfilled by sovereign and almighty power. Have Jacob and Moses, David and Isaiah, Daniel and the other prophets, many hundreds of years before, accurately described times, places, characters, and ends, with their relative circumstances and contingencies? And have these descriptions been verified in subsequent and exactly corresponding events?-then they must have been divinely inspired, and their record and testimony must be true and divine. By these prophecies, interspersed with the greater part of the Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament the sacred writers have established their claim to inspiration, that they have not followed cunningly devised fables, but that they spoke and wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. The use and intent of prophecy, then, was to raise expectation, and to sooth the mind with hope, -to maintain the faith of a particular providence, and the assurance of the Redeemer promised, and particularly to attest the divine inspiration of the Scriptures.1 IV. The prophecies recorded in the Scriptures, respect contingencies too wonderful for the powers of man to conjecture or to effect. Many of those, which are found in the Old Testament, foretold unexpected changes in the distribution of earthly power; and, whether they announced the fall of flourishing cities, or the ruin of mighty empires, the event has minutely corresponded with the prediction. This chain of prophecy is so evident in the Scriptures, that we are 1 Dr. Ranken's Institutes of Theology, p. 346, 347. See also Bp. Sherlock's Discourses on the Use and Intent of Prophecy. 41 VOL. I. |