I been in effect answered by Hengstenberg : I. That God never forces men to believe, but that there is such a union of definiteness and vagueness in the prophecies as to enable those who are willing to discover the truth. while th.' wilfully blind are not forcibly constrained to see it. ■_'. That, had the prophecies be n couched in
\ the form of direct declarations, their fulfilment would have thereby been rendered impossible, or. at least, ca-
' pable of frustration. 8. That the effect of prophecy (e. g. with reference to the time of the Messiah's com- ing) would have been far less beneficial i" believers, as being less adapted to keep them in a stair of constant expectation. 4. That the Messiah of Revelation could
' not be so clearly portrayed in his varied character as God and Man. as Prophet, Priest, and King, if he had been the mere •■teacher" which is all that Amnion ac- knowledges him to be. 5. That th.- Mate of i he proph- ets, at tin- time .if receiving the divine revelation, was
' (as we shall presently show) such as necessarily to make their predictions fragmentary, figurative, and ab- stracted from the relations of time. 6. That some por- tions Of I he prophecies were intended to be of double
application, ami some portions to be understood only on their fulfilment (comp. John xiv,29; Ezek. xxxvi, 88). (6.) Obscurity of a Pari <>r Parts of a Prophecy oth- erwise Clear. The objection drawn from "the unintel- ligibleness of one part of a prophecy, a- invalidating the proof of foresight arising from the evident comple- tion of those parts which an- understood" i- akin to that drawn from the vagueness of the whole of it. Ii may
be answered with the same arguments, t" which WC
may add the consideration urged by Butler that it is,
for the argument in hand, the same as if the parts not
uiidi r-i I were written in cipher, or not writ ten at all:
- Suppose a w riling, partly in cipher and partly in plain words at length; and that in the part one understood
PROPHECY
035
PROPHECY
there appeared mention of several known facts — it would never come into any man's thought to imagine that, if he understood the whole, perhaps he might rind that these facts were not in reality known by the writer" {Analogy, pt. ii, ch. vii). Furthermore, if it be true that prophecies relating to the first coming of the Mes- siah refer also to his second coming, some part of those prophecies must necessarily be as yet not fully under- stood.
It would appear from these considerations that Da- vison's second "condition," above quoted, "the clear and palpable fulfilment of the prophecy," should be so far modified as to take into account the necessary diffi- culty, more or less great, in recognising the fulfilment of a prophecy which results from the necessary vague- ness and obscurity of the prophecy itself.
(c.) Application of the Several Prophecies to a more Immediate Subject. — It has been the task of many Bibli- cal critics to examine the different passages which are alleged to be predictions of Christ, and to show that they were delivered in reference to some person or thing contemporary with, or shortly subsequent to, the time of the writer. The conclusion is then drawn, sometimes scornfully, sometimes as an inference not to be resisted. that the passages in question have nothing to do with the Messiah. We have here to distinguish carefully between the conclusion proved and the corollary drawn from it. Let it be granted that it may be proved of all the predictions of the Messiah (it certainly may be proved of many) that they primarily apply to some his- torical and present fact : in that case a certain law, un- der which God vouchsafes his prophetical revelations, is discovered; but there is no semblance of disproof of the further Messianic interpretation of the passages un- der consideration. That some such law does exist has been argued at length by Mr. Davison. He believes, however, that " it obtains only in some of the more dis- tinguished monuments of prophecy," such as the proph- ecies founded on, and having primary reference to, the kingdom of David, the restoration of the Jews, the destruction of Jerusalem (On Prophecy, disc. v). Dr. Lee thinks that Davison "exhibits too great reserve in the application of this important principle" (On Inspira- tion, lect. iv). He considers it to be of universal ap- plication; and upon it he founds the doctrine of the "double sense of prophecy," according to which a pre- diction is fulfilled in two or even more distinct but analogous subjects : first in type, then in antitype ; and after that, perhaps awaits a still further and more com- plete fulfilment. This view of the fulfilment of prophecy seems necessary for the explanation of our Lord's pre- diction on the Mount, relating at once to the fall of Je- rusalem and to the end of the Christian dispensation. It is on this principle that Pearson writes: "Many are the prophecies which concern him, many the promises which are made of him ; but yet some of them very ob- scure. . . . Wheresoever he is spoken of as the anointed, it may well he. first understood of some other person; except one place in Daniel, where Messiah is foretold ' to be cut off' " (On the Creed, art. ii).