for my previous silence. I have had the honour of an introduction to Mrs. Jeffreys, whose accurate knowledge of Hebrew is vouched. for by authorities so competent as Professor Margoliouth of Oxford and my late valued friend, the Rev. Dr. Sinker, Librarian of Trinity College, Cambridge. I had the opportunity of discovering that Mrs. Jeffreys was as careful and accurate in her knowledge of New Testament Greek as of Hebrew. Her book on Isaiah should be in the hands of every one who wishes to do justice to the subject. As is usual with the Germanizing critics, no reply has been made to her arguments. Their own arguments, which largely consist of mere assumptions and assertions, are simply repeated. Such methods are not only unfair to their antagonists, but to the general public; and especially to the young, who are led to believe that no reply has been attempted.

3. I am deeply concerned at the curtailment of the activities of the Victoria Institute which the War imposes. I trust that every one who values the work which it has done, and is still doing, will exert themselves to bring visitors to its debates and subscribers to its funds. Years ago the assaults of sceptics were chiefly directed against the possibility of the existence of supernatural, or perhaps we had better say spiritual, forces. These attacks have now largely ceased. They never were raised by our greatest scientific discoverers, who were mostly reverent and humble, but came rather from those who were endeavouring to popularize the study of physical sciences. The present generation has been brought face to face with indirect attacks, endeavouring to undermine the authority of the records, which are based on the existence of such forces. The ground of these attacks is therefore not scientific, but literary; and the methods of defence must consequently take a different form. The existence of such a society as the Victoria Institute is therefore as necessary as ever, and no effort should be esteemed too great to ensure its continued activity.

576TH ORDINARY GENERAL MEETING,

HELD IN COMMITTEE ROOM B, THE CENTRAL HALL, WESTMINSTER, ON MONDAY, FEBRUARY 21ST, 1916, AT 4.30 P.M.

THE VENERABLE ARCHDEACON BERESFORD POTTER, M.A., TOOK THE CHAIR.

The Minutes of the preceding Meeting were read and confirmed.

The SECRETARY announced the election of Sir Charles Thomas Dyke Acland, Bart., M.A., M.P., and Mrs. Adelaide E. Piesse as Associates of the Institute.

The CHAIRMAN introduced the Rev. A. H. T. Clarke, M.A., and invited him to address the Meeting on The Fulfilment of Prophecy."

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THE FULFILMENT OF PROPHECY.

W

A. H. T. CLARKE, M.A.
(Abstract.)

HAT is PROPHECY? How is it FULFILLED?

By the Rev.

1. It is essentially insight into God's dealings with mankind and therefore issues in foresight as to their natural outcome. God is always the same: I am, Who am"; I am the Lord, I change not." And man is always the same. His "history," therefore, "is ever repeating itself." The first Man was a type and prophecy of all men. The Jewish Church was a type (TUTTOS, I Cor. x, 11) and prophecy of the Christian Church of all time (" the Israel of God," Gal. vi, 16). And the special gift of prophecy lies in declaring the issues of God's eternal counsels as they appear in the midst of time. It is the result of the illumination of the spirit of man by the Spirit of God (I Cor. ii, 9-12; II Pet. i, 20, 21). "He spake by the Prophets." When He is come He will shew you things to come," cp. Rev. i, 1-3.

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2. As every nation has its special gift of law, science, art, rulership, poetry or philosophy, held in trust for the world, so God chose the Jews for the special gift of Revelation. "Salvation is of the Jews." "Unto them were committed the oracles of God." Their whole race and fortunes were a prophecy of

"To Him bore

Messiah to come (Hos. xi, 1, with Matt. ii, 15). all their Prophets witness." "The testimony to Jesus is the spirit of Prophecy." The Desire of Nations was specially and exclusively revealed to them in any distinctness. It was "of them Christ came, Who is God," "It is evident that our Lord sprang out of Judah." The temporal promises to Abraham, to Solomon, to Hezekiah, even to Cyrus, were only to be revealed through them. They alone were God's elect vessels and chosen channels, the sole organs of His revealed will (Isa. xlix, 6, cp. Acts xiii, 47, and Rom. ii, 17, 18). They alone supplied the "men of revelation" (Dillmann). Hence, also, all Prophecy becomes essentially Messianic (Augustine). Christ is its goal (Téλos, Rom. x, 4) both in His first coming and His second (Eph. i, 10). 3. Hence Prophecy, expanding with the growing experience of the Jewish nation, never exhausts itself in a single fulfilment (idias éπixúσews où yiveтaι, II Pet. i, 20). Prophecy, like ἐπιλύσεως γίνεται, history, repeats itself in cycles of analogous experiences, e.g., Ahitophel's treachery to the Messianic King David (Pss. lxix and cix) repeats itself in principle in the treachery of Judas to Christ (Acts i, 16-20); later, in the treachery of the Jewish Church to the Christian Church (Acts v, 17; vi, 9; xv, 1; Gal. ii, 11; iv, 17); last of all, in the treachery of the apostate Christian Church to the Truth itself (1 John ii, 18, 19). This is the ANTICHRIST foreshadowed in all St. John's writings. "The day of the Lord," always at hand in the rise and fall of nations, will culminate in one final great "DAY" of Judgment.

4. But are there to be no final fulfilments before the end? Is there no open vision of the whole without this complicated cross-reference to all time? Are there no definite steppingstones in time to ease us in this march of God across history? Yes, there are, it is true, certain historical fulfilments of doom upon ancient nations like Tyre, Babylon, Egypt, Edom, Nineveh, fulfilled to the very letter. But that letter is to be reinterpreted by analogy so as to apply to all nations who shall take up the same standpoint and represent the same principles. These nations were picked out by the bold hand of prophecy that they might be a warning to future nations whose principles they represented.

5. The application of this to modern Europe, e.g. :(a) Business fraud. See Hos. xii, 7-8; Amos viii, 4–10. (b) Treachery. See Amos v, 3, 4, and 10-13 (repeated by our Lord over Jerusalem in His day and by St. John over the Church of the future).

(c) Over Prosperity requiring the surgeon's knife of War. See Amos vi, 1–11, 13–14.

(d) Worship of Wealth. Zeph. i, 4-12, 17-19.

(e) Spiritual indifference among the Clergy for their duties. See Mal. i, 6-ii, 9; iii, 7--10.

(f) Picture of the modern Prussian character in the ancient Chaldeans. See Hab. i, 2-17 and ii, 4-17.

6. We are witnessing now the break-up of old Europe—the Europe of Cæsar, of Charlemagne, of the Papacy and old Feudalism. The German nation is once more employed in the process, as it was in the days before Cæsar's Empire fell. May we not see in these things the exhaustion of the Gentile power "in order that the way of the Kings of the East"—that is, the empires of China and Japan, of India and Africa-" may be prepared," and that the Jews may return to their own land once more as the head of the nations before the end come?

DISCUSSION.

The CHAIRMAN said that he thought the Lecturer had rendered them a service by pointing out the constantly recurring fulfilments of prophecy. Past writers on prophecy had spoken of the "double sense," but there was more than a "double sense." The Hebrew words used to denote a prophet indicated the real meaning of prophecy, just as the Greek words used in the New Testament for miracle made clear the true meaning to be attached to that word. One Hebrew word used meant " a seer," and was translated in the Septuagint by a Greek word derived from the verb which means "to see." Consequently a prophet was a man inspired above his fellows to see the laws regulating God's control of the universe. Another Hebrew word translated prophet signified "to proclaim," and was translated in the Septuagint by a word which means "to speak forth" or "proclaim." So the prophet proclaimed to the world what he was inspired to see, viz., the great principles of God's governance of man and the world. These were constantly being fulfilled in the past, the present, and the future. For God never changes. He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. prophets still exist-men who see deep spiritual realities and laws, and consequently can foretell what will inevitably happen if certain courses are pursued. God speaks through them now as in the olden time.

And

Mr. ROUSE agreed with the Lecturer that some prophecies of the Old Testament had, and were intended to have, two fulfilments, the more distant one being the more important. This was the case with the fate of Ahitophel, foretold in Psalm lxix and elsewhere, and of Judas Iscariot, for like treachery. But the Lecturer further claimed that prophecies were usually of a comprehensive character, with many possible fulfilments. In his survey of the subject, however, he had passed without notice numerous examples of prophecy which had a specific and individual reference only, such as the information which Samuel gave to Saul about the discovery of his father's asses, and the prophecy of Elisha that food should be plentiful in Samaria the next day. The Lecturer further made unnecessary difficulty in finding the fulfilment of the Lord's prophecies recorded in Matthew xxiv, Mark xiii, and Luke xxi. A careful perusal of the passages would show that our Lord was replying to three questions which His disciples had asked him, and that Luke recorded the answer to one question and described the siege of Jerusalem under Titus, while Matthew and Mark recorded His prophecy of the final siege of Jerusalem and the tribulation which had been foretold in Zechariah xii and xiv.

Mr. MAUNDER differed from Mr. Rouse in his criticism of the Lecturer for omitting all allusion to unimportant details of prophecy. The subject before them that afternoon was a very wide one, and the Lecturer had been wise in seeking to avoid minor details and confining himself to broad principles.

There were two elements in prophecy, the Divine and the human. God Himself was the Origin and Fount of prophecy, but He used men to speak it forth, and men were able to lend themselves to this Divine usage.

He would invite the Meeting to consider how the three subjects which they had discussed at this and the two previous Meetings illustrated each other. Philosophers had told us that one man, speaking to another and using certain words, had no security that those words had the same meaning to his hearer that they had to himself. As a matter of logic this might be true; as a matter of practice, we do unquestionably have intercourse and communion with each other. So the miracle is continually being repeated that a little child, with its budding intelligence, learns to understand and to speak a language no word of which it understands by nature, and