most plausible interpretations, may itself lead us to suspect, that the predicted circumstances are still future, and consequently that all expository attempts are but so much lost labour. This is a very old objection: and it has been answered in so masterly a manner by Bp. Sherlock, that I cannot do better than avail myself of his acuteness. It will be asked: How comes it to pass, that many of the prophecies are still dark and obscure, and that it requires much learning and sagacity to shew even now the connection between some prophecies and the events? In answer to this question we must observe, that the obscurity of prophecy does not arise: from hence, that It is a relation or description of something future: for it is as easy to speak of things future plainly and intelligibly, as it is of things past or present. The same language serves in both cases with little variation. who says, The river will overflow its banks next year, speaks as plainly, as he who says, It did overflow its banks last year. It is not, therefore, He, of the nature of prophecy to be obscure: for it may easily be made, when he who gives it thinks fit, as plain as history. On the other side, a figurative and dark description of a future event will be figurative and dark still, even when the event happens; and, consequently, will have all the obscurity of a figurative dark description, as well after as before the event. You may observe, then, that the most literal prophecies have received the greatest confirmation and the most light from the event: for, the difficulty in this case not lying in the darkness or obscurity of the expression but in the seeming impossibility of the thing foretold, such seeming impossibility the event fully clears: but no event can make a figurative or metaphorical expression to be a plain or a literal one. I have said thus much to shew, what sort of clearness and evidence we ought to expect from prophecies after their accomplishment. It is a great prejudice against this argument, when men come to it, expecting more from it than it will yield. This they are led to by hearing it often said, that Prophecy, however dark and obscure at first, grows wonderfully plain upon the accomplishment: which, in some cases, is, in fact, true ; but is not, cannot be, so in all cases1. VI. It may not be improper to remark, that Mr. Mede's admirable principle of abstract synchronisation may be carried to a much greater extent than he has professedly carried it. In his Clavis Apocalyptica, that great expositor has altogether confined the principle to the independent harmonical sorting and arranging of the various chronologically connected predictions of the Revelation. It may, however, with equal advantage, be carried far beyond the prophecies of St. John: insomuch that the greater part of the several oracles, which respect the last ages, may, by the instrumentality of marks which in their own proper texture they themselves will be found to furnish, be mutually linked together in a perfectly abstract synchronical connection. 1 Bp. Sherlock on the Use and Intent of Proph. disc. ii. p. 36, 37, 41, 42. Thus, to illustrate my meaning by a special instance, one of the principal chains, which in such manner binds together the detached prophecies of numerous inspired writers, is the yet future predicted restoration of Judah. This palmary event is placed, by Daniel, at the close of his three times and a half; and it is described by him, as occurring synchronically with the final overthrow of the wilful king on the mountains of Palestine: while our Lord, in a similar manner, fixes it to the end of the period, which he denominates the times of the Gentiles; and represents it, as taking place in the midst of certain political convulsions typified (on the well-ascertained laws of symbolisation) by signs in the heavenly bodies'. Such being the case, whatever events are, by other prophets, said to occur at the time of the restoration of Judah; it is clear, that those events must synchronise, both with the expiration of the three times and a half, and with the contemporaneous expiration of the allotted times of the Gentiles: and, conversely, whatever events are placed, 1 Dan. xi. 40-45. xii. 1, 6, 7. Luke xxi. 24-26. either by Daniel or by our Lord or by St. John, at the close either of the three times and a half or at the contemporaneous close of the allotted times of the Gentiles; it is equally clear, that those events must synchronise with the predicted restoration of Judah, as announced by other prophets. This arrangement is a purely abstract arrangement, founded on the very nature and necessity of things themselves: it is obviously quite independent of any application or interpretation in the concrete. Let us err, as we may, in the latter: the former, resting upon an entirely independent principle, will remain altogether unaffected. LONG-NEWTON, |