DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TRUE AND FALSE PROPHETS
By M. E. Cornell
Interesting Extracts. No. 4.
THE following extracts are from Prof. Stuart on Prophecy, as published in the Biblical Repository in A. D. 1882. Some of his remarks appear to be interesting and according to truth. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TRUE AND FALSE PROPHETS.
"I agree as to the fact, that the heathen seers were rightly named manteis, from mainomai, to rave; as Cicero has declared in his first book De Divinatione. But what an immeasurable distance, now, between a raving man or woman, uttering incoherent sentences; or (which was more common) a dissimulating hypocrite, uttering cunningly and artfully and equivociously constructed sentences and poetic riddles; and a Hebrew prophet, animated by the strongest and deepest feelings of reverence for Jehovah, and a holy ardour in the cause of true piety! Is there ambiguity, flattery, self-seeking, enigmas, in the message of the latter? None. Are not all these stamped on more or less of the heathen oracles? They are. And such being the case, we would separate the Hebrew prophet from the heathen seer, not by discrepancies of a mere physiological or psychological nature, which lie beyond our ken in case they exist at all; or rather, which involve contradictions and impossibilities; but by a rational, enlightened, holy, excited, zealous state of mind, which raised the true seer unspeakably above all false ones, and did this by making him in a high degree like to the Author of his inspiration. Here is something palpable. The oracles speak for themselves. The ambiguities, enigmas, swelling words, polytheistic precepts, and other like things, contained in heathen oracles, are a palpable contrast to the Scriptures; but they are not more so, than the condition of their seers was discrepant from that of the Hebrew prophet." THE ALLEDGED OBSCURITY OF THE PROPHETS DISPROVED.
"What is prophecy? That part of it with which we are now concerned is prediction. And what is prediction? It is the foretelling of certain things which are to happen; it is a revelation made through men, to men, respecting future things; a declaration that certain events will take place. Now what is a declaration or revelation? If this be unintelligible, both to him who utters it, and to those who are addressed by him; if neither he, nor they, nor any one who comes after them, is able to explain the meaning of this revelation—and this because it is in itself obscure and unintelligible—in what tolerable sense can this be called a revelation? I admit that a multitude of causes might hinder wicked and carnal and ignorant men, from understanding what the prophets uttered. Prejudice, want of being conversant with spiritual things, passion, and many other causes might interpose, and effectually prevent the carnal Jews from rightly comprehending the oracles of their prophets. But to say that neither the prophets themselves, nor the intelligent and pious men of their times and of succeeding generations, were able to understand what God had given them for the very purpose of making a revelation to them—what is this but to say, that the purposes of the Divine Spirit had been frustrated, for want of perspicuity in the language which he employed? And can we soberly maintain this? Either God did design to reveal something to his people, when he inspired the prophets, or he did not. If he did; then his design is frustrated, just so far as the prophecy is in itself unintelligible; and how can we admit that the designs of the Holy Spirit should be frustrated? If he did not; then what is prophecy but illusion; a seeming to make a revelation, while in fact none is made, or even intended to be made?"63 "That those who live in the times when a prophecy is fulfilled, should have a more complete and satisfactory view of the things or objects treated of by such prophecy, than those who lived before its accomplishment, is, indeed, plain enough; just as plain, as that a man who has been at Constantinople will understand the topography of it better than a writer understood it, who has undertaken to describe that city and yet has never visited it. But how this will make the words of the writer in question to mean any more than the ideas which he himself attached to them, I do not see. I take the meaning of any language to be, the idea which the speaker or writer himself attached to it. Just this, and neither more nor less, all right interpretation will give as his meaning." "Whenever we are asked, then, whether any particular prophecy is obscure, the proper answer always is, to ask, whether it does not communicate, in an intelligible manner, just as much as the author of it designed it should communicate? And this, of course, is its meaning—its full meaning. The sense of any words, is the idea which the author of them intended to convey. How much then did the author of any prophecy intend to convey by it? This is the fair question; and one which should be always asked by an interpreter. And when this is rightly answered, the full meaning of the prophecy is unfolded. . . . They did what they intended to do, and were commissioned to do; and did it well; and then they ceased to do. Why should we imagine this to be otherwise?" "That is, in other words, men are better operated upon by what they do not understand, than by what they do understand. For my part, I know not how to believe this. If I worship God at all, it is on account of what I do know of him, and not on account of what I do not know. If I believe in the argument from prophecy, in order to prove the divine origin and authority of the Scriptures, it is on account of what I understand of it, and know has been fulfilled, and not on account of what I do not understand. The Samaritans were reproved by the Saviour, for worshipping 'they know not what;' it is desirable, then, for Christians to know what they are to expect and believe, in order that they may know what to do and how to worship. In fine, for myself I have believed, and must still continue to believe, that "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." I must believe that when he reveals any thing to men, he does not wrap it up in darkness. I must continue to cherish the belief, that when he undertakes to instruct them, he does not leave them ignorant. All which he intends to accomplish he does accomplish. His accredited messengers are not "blind leaders of the blind," but "clothed with light and salvation." They are not men bereaved of their understanding, their reason, their consciousness, their free-agency; but the most enlightened, the most rational, the most free, of all men on the face of the earth."