fame of Solomon's wisdom, is taken as evidencing a deeper and unconscious faith in the righteous God who was judging the ini(|uity of the great city, and in the all-wise God whose inspiration was the source of the king's wonderful ability. And this unconscious faith of heathens is deemed worthy to shame and condemn the faithlessness of the generation which demurred to Christ's claims, and demanded signs.
2. There were times when the Lord Jesus put this point of view into express teaching with more of generality. Perhaps the words, ' If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed . . .' (Mt 17"^', Lk 17®), were not intended solely to suggest the diminutive size of the seed, but also the inert grain in which the life lies latent for the present, though hereafter it will become active and develop. At all events when ' he called to him a little child and set him in the midst' (Mt 18'-), bidding His disciples ' become as little children,' no characteristic of childhood can have counted for so much in His mind as the spontaneous readiness to trust without limit where love is, which at the same time makes a child so wonderfully teachable, and gives it charm too apt to be robbed by increasing years. A child is the very personification of eager instinc- tive faith unconscious of itself. There were times too when Christ's gaze ranged wider, and He welcomed the unconscious faith in Himself of those who had never known an opportunity of trusting Him. Such was the case when the Greeks who were introduced by Andrew and Pliili]) seemed to Him the first-fruits only of a far greater harvest, and He looked on to the time when, ' being lifted up,' He 'would draw all men unto himself (Jn 12^^). It is impossible to limit this forecast to cover those only who in time to come should con- sciously become His disciples. He has drawn, and is now drawing, many to Himself who are uncon- scious of the power which is attracting them. And there seems to be a similar recognition of a wide- sjjread unconscious faith which needs to be made conscious that it may be perfect, in the saying, ' Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold ; them also I must lead, and they shall hear my voice' (Jn 10'®). A still more remarkable recogni- tion of an unconscious faith in Himself, in days long anterior to His manifestation in the world, is to be found in the saying, ' Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it, and was glad ' ( Jn 8«6).
The instance last cited opens out a view of the propaedeutic character of the whole life history of Israel, as it has been well called. Not Abraham alone, but all the prophets in Israel, and even all 'they that feared the Lord, and thought upon his name,' rejoiced to see Christ's day, and saw it with joy ; for all of them are included in the Divine saying, ' They shall be mine in the day which I do make, even a peculiar treasure ' (JIal S'^. n). For whatever of Divine truth, of spiritual life, was discerned in those earlier ages, was just so much of the revelation of (iod made in .Jesus Christ His Son. He 'was the light of men,' and those who saw His light saw Him, and rejoiced to see Him. This, of course, was the real nature of prophecy. It was not its function to be predictive of historical detail before the event, but to discern and disclose the unseen and eternal in the things that were seen and temporal. Inasmuch as the eternal belongs to no one epoch more than another, the teaching of the prophets was bound to find its realization in after times so far as it concerned itself with the real principles and laws of ■ spiritual life ; and to this extent it was predictive in what con- cerned 'the deep things of God.' But the special power of prophecy was insight, not foresight. This, however, was of necessity both preparatory' and anticipatory, since the revelation of God was an evolution in time. So the prophets are accur- ately described by St. Peter as 'searching for what, or what manner of season, the spirit of Christ which was in them was disclosing, protesting beforehand of the sufferings destined for Christ (to. ii; Xpurrov) and the glories that should follow them ' (1 P 111). The faith of the prophets was thus an unconscious faith in Christ no less truly than it was a conscious faith in God. And this view is explicitly taught both in His own words and in the NT Epistles. To the jirofessed students of Scripture round Him He said: 'Ye search the Scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life: and these are they which bear witness of me ; and ye will not come to me that
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ye may have life ' (Jn 539- -lO). And among His own disciples, ' beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he inter- preted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning him- self ' (Lk 242?, cf. 24-l^-«).