CHAPTER II. ON PROPHECY. 335 Desire of men to know the future:-(1) Necromancy: (2) Ambiguous oracles:- (3) Periodical natural phenomena: (4) Human foresight:- (5) Evil spirits: -Criterion of prophecy.-Plan of the present chapter. A reflecting mind will at once perceive that the dispensation which veils the future from our eyes, is one of wisdom and of mercy; and were it possible to reverse the case, and let the knowledge of what is to happen, be as clear and certain as the knowledge of the past, there can be little doubt, that while the world continues the abode of misery and sin, mankind would cry aloud with one con→ sent for a return to the old established order of things, convinced that ignorance, in this respect, is bliss. And yet, perhaps, no passion is more widely diffused among mankind than an anxious craving to know the future. And nothing, certainly, has ever given a freer scope for imposture; for, that a man should penetrate the secrets of futurity, is so universally felt to be a violation of one of nature's sequences, that no one will venture to claim, and indeed could not secure credit for any extensive prescience, except on the ground of having been favoured with communications from some unseen and more gifted power. There is, indeed, a degree of penetration by which men of thought and observation are enabled, and sometimes with surprising accuracy, to foretell the course which incipient revolutions are likely to take; and in general, there are a few distinctions it is necessary to point out, analogous to those discussed in the case of miracles, whereby we may discriminate between genuine and supposititious prophecy; and to this important point I shall first devote a few short paragraphs. After what has been said, however, in the former chapter, I shall be brief in my remarks; and I may leave it to my reader to deduce from genuiue prophecy his own inferences as to the character of the deity whence it emanates, and the conclusiveness of its evidence in support of the reality of the revelation it authenticates, in precisely the same way in which we have already drawn our conclusions from the evidence of miracles. (1.) There is a deception by which the unthinking are sometimes imposed upon, somewhat analogous to those tricks of legerdemain, against which the less experienced reader was cautioned in the foregoing chapter. I mean that dishonest system of imposture with which every age and every country has been but too familiar; whether veiled under the pomp and dignity of the Grecian oracle; or descending somewhat lower to the laboratory of the private speculator in necromancy and astrology, or lower still to the houseless vagabond, who boasts no higher name than that of an ordinary fortune-teller. The tact of these wary adepts in imposition enables them, with a rapidity which almost exceeds belief, to string together the few scraps of information which, without seeming to seek it, they can pick up from the neighbours or attendants of those who consult them; or a well laid train of cautious questioning will often, even without much aid from information gleaned from others, elicit, from the very lips of there victim, so much of the history of the past, or of the plans and wishes of the future, as to give some colour to an assumption of the air of men well acquainted with every secret desire. Their trade is to deceive, and having possessed themselves thus wilily of a hold over the minds of the inconsiderate, they experience no difficulty in foreseeing the probable event of passing circumstances. They know that the mere fact that they have given such and such an intimation of the future, will often be sufficient of itself to secure its accomplishment. The extensive influence they can exercise over multitudes, whom superstition has brought within their power, gives them the means of verifying many of their own predictions; and thus they often seem to foretell events which, in truth, are either already in process of accomplishment, or are a direct consequence of the apparent prophecy. There is many a popular tale that may be resolved into something of this kind, and any one who would contrast such with our Scripture prophecies, will do well to look very closely into all the attendant circumstances, before he gives them a place in his catalogue of authenticated predictions. (2.) With all its dishonesty, and prolific as it is in evil, there is yet something of what man might be disposed to call merit in the system of which I have just been speaking; for great readiness, penetration, and self-command are essential to its success. A far more clumsy artifice was resorted to by the oracles of former days, and may be employed occasionally at present, in the expedient of an ambiguous answer, capable of any interpretation which the event may justify. Such was the response given to Croesus, that a mighty empire would be destroyed if he risked a war with Cyrus;—a response which might be applied with equal propriety to the empire of Cyrus or to his own. Such again was the answer said to have been given to Pyrrhus, prior to his disastrous invasion of Italy. A Latin version of the oracles runs thus: Aio te, Æacida, Romanos vincere posse. Ibis, redibis nunquam in bello peribis. The ambiguity of this, not very imaginative couplet, may perhaps be preserved in English rhyme, thus; Epirote, list Apollo's fixed decree; Low in the dust Rome's host thy host shall see; The defeat of either of the belligerents, and a victor's triumph, or a soldier's death upon the battle field; a crown of laurel or of cypress, would alike have saved the credit of the oracle:-and yet one wonders wherein its credit lay; for what is the worth of answers so little capable of giving the direction required? (3.) It is scarcely necessary to mention the accuracy with which natural, and more especially astronomical, phenomena are predicted by those who have given their attention to philosophy. The recurrence of some of these phenomena, though apparently irregular, is, in fact, no less regular than that of the most familiar of recurring changes. Their periodic returns are longer, and therefore escape the notice of the casual observer. But the same invariable laws which govern the course of all the heavenly bodies, are demon strated to regulate theirs, and there are, in fact, the same constant causes continually at work, and issuing, in due course, in the same necessary results. The return of eclipses, for example, may be determined with the same accuracy as the monthly changes of the moon. The period, however, of these latter is but one short month. The former do not recur in the same order for a space of about nineteen years. Hence while the meanest and most ignorant are familiar enough with the ordinary lunar phases; many an intelligent observer of the heavens may have failed to notice the regularity of their obscurations, simply from want of time in one short life; or want of records or of memory to recall with accuracy the order of phenomena separated by so wide an interval. Yet such an one would be over hasty were he to ascribe any thing more than superior information to a friend, who foretold an eclipse, or the apparently still more fortuitous return of a comet; or any other natural event, which may be brought within the range of ordinary calculation. (4.) A higher grade of human foresight is exemplified in that moral penetration by which eminent statesmen, and close observers of mankind, are enabled to anticipate the result of passing events with much confidence and precision. But after all, their view is limited in time, and in comprehensiveness. It extends only to the issue of causes already in operation, and cannot develop a single incident contingent upon causes as yet unknown; nor can it venture to expatiate in the regions of a distant futurity. A few short years shuts in its prospect. Even within this circumscribed limit much is conjecture; many an expectation is belied by the event; and pressing emergencies and important changes arise wholly unexpected and unprovided for. All human foresight, moreover, is compelled to deal much in generals, and cannot descend to details: and it must leave many an IF to be decided by a power no human authority can control. Its prognostications may, for instance, hang on the life of an individual; or be frustrated by some disastrous storm, or pestilence, or famine; or by the mere freak of an influential, but capricious coadjutor, of whose changing mood it can form no certain estimate. Let the wisest and most far-sighted of men commit to paper their anticipations of a coming year; and let the guarded language and conditional cautions, of this document, and, when its period has run out, its deficiences, and the measure of its agreement with current events be closely scanned, and diligently contrasted with the authoritative completeness and decision of genuine prophecy, (if such can be found, as I hope to show that it can,) and no one can for a moment fail to discriminate between what is of man, and what is of God, or mistake mere human penetration, for a communication from above. (5) Lastly, I am not disposed to deny that false prophets may have been permitted, nay, I would not venture with over-peremptory confidence to deny that they may still be permitted, occasionally, to speak of signs or wonders which have come to pass. (Deut. xiii. 1, 2.) Let the question be left an open one. For if it be so that such power has been conceded to any evil being, the same limitations must apply to it, which have been pointed out in the case of miracles of a similar kind; and the same arguments will hold with reference to the dependence which can, or rather which cannot, be placed on a revelation polluted with the slightest admixture of falsehood and delusion. In enumerating, then, the criteria of prophecy, beside that which constitutes its very essence, and therefore naturally stands first upon the list, I mean the necessity that it should have preceded the event; a second condition of unequivocal genuineness will be, that it relate to events which, at the time the prophecy was delivered, could not have been foreseen by man. This condition, it may be worth observing, though most obviously secured by some considerable length of time between the prediction and the event, is nevertheless obtainable without such interval. For the nature of the circumstances may be só contrary to all rational expectation, and so diverse from the manifest tendency of existing causes, that even an immediate fulfilment will be as full and unequivocal a mark of superhuman prescience as if a thousand years had intervened. Thirdly, there ought to be no equivocation in the terms in which the prediction is enunciated. But equivocation, by which I understand the applicability of the terms to contrary and conflicting events, must not be confounded with some degree of ambiguity, in the sense of indeterminateness of meaning; or with obscurity. For a genuine prophecy, may be intentionally disguised in language, of which the interpretation, antecedently to its |