PROPHECY AND PROPHETS
PROPHECY AND PROPHETS 121
complex process. There would be, first, a peculiar temperament, suggesting events sad or juyous ; then certain facts presented to tlie mind, and tlien the unconscious operation of the mind on these facts, the whole resulting in the presentiment or vaticination. There may be obscure capacities in the iiiiud not j'et explored ; and there may be sympathetic rapports of human nature with the greater nature around, and of mans mind with the moral mind of the universe, which give results by unconscious processes ; and if there be such faculties and relations, then we may assume that they would also enter into prophecy, for there is nothing common or unclean in the nature of man. In point of fact such presentiments as we can observe to be authentic are chielly products of the conscience or moral reason ; and Jer., as has been said, insists that true prophecy- in general is based on moral grounds and consists of moral judgments. And certainly all the prophets, in analyzing their intuitions of the future and laying them before the people, usually present them in the form of a moral syllogism. Thus Mic S'"-, after enumerating tlie misdeeds and oppressions of the heads of the house of Israel says, ' Therefore on your account shall Zion be plowed like a held.' And Is S""-, liaving described the luxuriousness and ungodly levity of his day, says, ' Therefore hath hell en- larged her maw.' Everywhere the menacing future is connected with the evil past by there- fore.' Cf. Am 1. 2.
The other question. How is it that the prophets brin" in the consummation and final perfection of the kingdom of God immediately on the back of the great events in the history of the people and the nations taking place in their own day ? may not be susceptible of a single answer. (1) An explanation has been sought in what is called the perspective of prophecy. Just as one looking on a mountainous region sees a hill which appears to ruse up close behind anotlier, but when he approaches nearer he finds the second to have receded a great way from it ; so tlie prophet sees great events close behind one another, though in history and time they are far apart. This is an illustration, but no explanation. The explanation is usually found in the theory of prophetic vision, liut in the literary prophets, vision in any strict seuse has little place. The prophetic perception, however, was of the nature of intuition, and some- thing of the peculiarity referred to may be due to this. (2) In the period of the canonical prophets it is less events that suggest religious ideas and 1m)]ic8 than idea^ already won that explain events. The prophets are not now learning principles, but ajiplying them. Their minds are full of religious beliefs and certainties, such as the certainty of a reign of righteousness upon the earth ; and Riehm has suggested that it is their eager expectations and earnest longings that make them feel the consummation to be at hand. (3) Another point may be suggested. It is only in general amidst convulsions that rend society that the prophets come forward. These convulsions and revolutions were the operatiiin of J", and His operations had all one end in view, the bringing in of His king- dom, and thus to the prophets these great move- ments seemed the heralds of the full manifestation
• The albumen t« by which Giosebrecht, Bfn^fHhffjabuiig, 13 ff. , tupi^ortjt the theory of ft 'faculty of presentiment' have little OOKency. This (acuity is iiuppotied to reveal it«elf particularly on the approa<--h of death (tin 'il. 40). The contemporarie:* of most preat religious pervonofces have attributed to them a prophetic (fifl. The anBwcrof John Knox to those who credited nini with Huch a gift is worth reading : ' My assurances are not uiurvoUi of Merlin, nor yet the dark sentences of profane pro-
fthecy. But, Jirat, the plain truth of Ood's word. Hfcond, the nvinclble Justice of the everlastiiiK t!od. and third, the ordinary course of His punishments and nluKues from the be^'innin^, are my ossuruices aud grounda.' liinlory, p. '^7 (Uuthrie't eu.).
of J". For the movements had all moral signi- ficance : they were a judgment on His people, which would so change them as to lead into the final salvation {Is oy^"- '"• SU""'- SP"-), or they were the judgment of the world, removing the obstacle to the coming of His kingdom (Is 40 ft'.) ; and thus the present and the final were organically connected, the chain was formed of moral links. Further, the prophets appear to entertain and operate with general conceptions. Israel is not merely a people, it is the people of God. Babylon is not only a hostile nation, it is the idolatrous world. The conflict between them in the age of Cj'rus is a conflict of principles, of Jehovism and idolatry, of truth and falsehood, of good and evil. It is not a conflict having great moral significance, it has absolute significance, and is linal : ' Ashamed, confounded, are all of them that are makers of graven images : Israel is saved w ith an everlasting salvation ' (Is -l.')"').
2. Messianic Prophecy. — The term Messianic is used in a wider and a narrower sense. In the wider sense the term is virtually equivalent to Eschatological, and comprehends all that relates to the consummation and perfection of the kingdom and people of God. In the narrower sense it refers to a personage, the Messiah, who is, not always, but often, a commanding figure in this perfect con- dition of the kingdom. The conception of a final condition of mankind could hardly have arisen before a general idea of the nature of the human economy had been reai lied. Insight into the meaning of human history, however, was not attained in Israel by reflection on the life of mankind, but by revelation of the nature of God. God was the real maker of human history. Hence, when so broad a view as that of human life or history as a whole is taken, it is, so to speak, secondary : it is a reflection of the view taken ol God, of His Being, and therefore of wliat the issue will be when He realizes Himself in the history and life of mankind. So soon as the conception of the perfect ethical Being of J " Was reachcil, there could nut but immediately follow the idea also that liunian history, which was not so much under His providence as His direct opera- tion, would eventuate in a kingdom of righteous- ness which would embrace all mankind. The way, no doubt, in which this is conceived is that this kingdom of righteousness is first realized in Isniel, and that through Israel it extends to all mankind — for the nations come to Israel's light (Is (iu). But it is the unity of God that su"gests to men's minds the unity of mankind ; and tlie moral being of God that suggests the moral perflation of man- kind. And such ideas hardly prevailed before the prophetic age.