Fulfilled prophecy, in proof of the truth of Scripture

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Preface

Comparatively few persons are aware how clear and decisive is the evidence in support of the Truth of Revelation, as against the Rationalistic tendencies of the age. It is as Lord Chief Justice Coleridge recently remarked at the trial of a noted criminal, when he spoke of " the immense and enormous preponderance of evidence " against the prisoner ; just so is the strength of the testimony against the unbelieving school in the present day.

Prominent among the many proofs which are fast accumulating in confirmation of the truth of Scripture, especially those which belong to archaeology, as seen in the recently deciphered monuments of Egypt, Assyria and Babylon, the subject of ^^ Fulfilled Prophecy " is perhaps the most conspicuous and satisfactory of them all. Passing by the involuntary testimony which celebrated writers, such as Gibbon in his Decline and Fallj or Volney in his Ruins of Empires J have borne to Scripture Prophecy, I would adduce the testimony of one more recent traveller as to the present condition of Biblical lands in confirmation of the same.

" It is for the learned," says a distinguished officer of the United States' navy, **to comment upon the facts we have laboriously

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IV PREFACE.

collected. Upon ourselves the result is a decided one. "We entered upon this (the Dead) sea with conflicting opinions. One of the party was sceptical, and another, I think, a professed unbeliever in the Mosaic account. After twenty-two days' close investigation, if I am not mistaken, we were unanimous in the conviction of the truth of the Scriptural account of the destruction of the cities of the plain." ^

The subject of ^' Fulfilled Prophecy," as considered in the present work, may be divided into that tripartite division mentioned by St. Paul in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, as pertaining to ^^ the Jews, the Gentiles, and the Church of God.''

None but those whose consciences are what the apostle terms '^seared," can deny the well-known and patent facts, which come under the head of predictive prophecy, that the Jewish people are in the condition which Moses foretold they would be, if disobedient, upwards of 3500 years ago. Their history since the Roman conquest of Jerusalem, and their present condition, is one of the most instructive proofs of Fulfilled Prophecy.

In the Messianic prophecies, especially in the one relating to the death of the Messiah, which we find was accomplished at the very time U a day^ as Daniel had predicted upwards of five centuries before, we have a very striking lesson 'of Fulfilled Prophecy in the history of the four great Gentile Monarchies, the Babylonian, the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman, during the last 2500 years, as detailed by Daniel and St. John, since Jerusalem has been trodden down by the Gentiles ; and which, as the present ^^ Signs of the

^ Commander Lynches Narrative of the United States^ Expedition to the River Jordan^ chap, xvii., p. 253.

PREFACE.

Times " seem to indicate, appears now to be drawing to a close. Amongst these Signs which bear upon the question of Fulfilled Prophecy, the most prominent may be mentioned as follows : —

1 . The long-continued supremacy of Japheth amongst the nations of the earth, according to Jacob's prophecy when dying, compared with the supremacy in ancient times, as it rested first with the descendants of Ham, and subsequently with the race of Shem.

2. The altered condition of the Jews compared with what it was in the Middle Ages, and their present gathering to the land which God gave to Abraham and his seed for '^ an everlasting possession."

3. The overthrow of the temporal power of the Papacy in 1870, and the refusal of the kings of the earth to support it any longer, when the Vatican Council thought to perpetuate its power for ever. But God had willed it otherwise. And as one of the most distinguished interpreters of prophecy which the Church of England has produced justly remarks, on the subject of the Vatican Council of 1870 —

'* Thus it had been declared in the Divine prophecy, Apoc. xvii. 17, ' God hath put it into the hearts of the ten kings to fulfil His will, and to agree and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words

of God shall he fulfilled ' The omission to invito the kings of

the earth to the Vatican Council according to all former precedents, was too remarkable to escape notice. It was remarked on by M. Veuillot, editor of the well-known Popish journal at Paris, Z' Univers, in the passage following : — * The Bull does not invite sovereigns to sit in the council. The omission is remarkable. It implies that there are no longer (Roman) Catholic crowns — that is to say, that the order in which society has lived for the last thousand years no longer exists. What has been called the middle ago has come to an end. The date of the Bull is the date of its death, its last

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ngh. Another era begins. The (Eomish) Church and State (of Boman Catholic kingdoms) are separated.' "^

The above testimony of an ardent Roman Catholic is an instructive comment on the seventeenth chapter of Revelation, as showing how it has been literally fulfilled in the treatment of the Papacy by the kings of the earth.

4. The wasting away of the Turkish empire, which has been so visibly taking place during the present century, alid which is figuratively expressed in the Apocalypse as ^Hhe drying up of the waters of the great river Euphrates."

5. Conjointly with the decay of the Turkish power, prophecy specially mentions the outcome of ^Hhree unclean spirits like frogs from the mouth of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet." Believing that this refers to the varied forms of infidelity and superstition which are now so vigorous in the present day, I have entered upon the consideration of this subject at much length in the present work ; mindful of the apostolic warnings —

''If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, whereunto thou hast attained. But

2 HortB ApocdlypticcBy by the Eev. E. B. Elliott, fifth edition, vol. i., Preface, pp. xxx. xxxi. I have given at length the evidence on which the Church of England in a threefold form, by her Homilies, by her Convocation, and in the Preface to the Authorized Version of the Bible, has authoritatively applied the menacing prophecies of Daniel, St. Paul, and St. John to the Church of Rome. The teaching of the Church of Scotland in her Confession "of Faith, and of the Church of Ireland by the Dublin Articles of 1615, is of similar character.

PREFACE. VU refuse profane and old wives' fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness."'

And again —

" Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called : which some professing have erred concerning the faith.' "*

Mindful of these apostolic exhortations, I have endeavoured to give a long and careful consideration, not only to the subjects of the apostasy from the truth on the part of multitudes who profess the Christian religion, and which may be regarded as the great evil within the professing Church, and likewise of the varied forms of infidelity, an equally grievous sore, though external to the same Church of God. For it is a painful but undeniable fact, that the tendencies of many of those who boast themselves as the teachers of science in the present day, though a great deal of what passes under that much-abused name might be more correctly termed in the language of St. Paul ^' science falsely so called," can only be described as more or less infidel, and in some instances atheistic, to an extreme degree.

In order to show the feeling which exists in the present day on the part of the Rationalistic school against Christianity in general, and the evidence of prophecy in particular, it is a melancholy fact that a clergyman, who has been expelled from the ministry of the Church of England on account of his daring unbelief, commends the Jews for rejecting Christ's religion, and extols their faith as being far superior to ours, notwithstanding that the voice of prophecy

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speaks in language of unmistakable clearness as to their sufferings during the last eighteen centuries in every part of the world, on account of their rejection of the religion of the Gospel, which is so much despised by scornful infidels and apostate Christians. Pronouncing Christianity, in defiance of all history as well as of common sense, to be ' ^ a bridge from Paganism to Judaism," and the worship of Christ as a system of ^^ half -pagan mysticism and meretricious idolatry," this degraded cleric throws down this defiant challenge —

'* To the Churcli of Christ we cry, * First convert the Jew%y and then only may you boast of your success as miraculous.' "

While blinding his eyes to that marvellous fulfilment of prophecy alluded to above, this poor wretched specimen of unbelief, who virtually represents the character which the inspired Psalmist drew three thousand years ago, when he wrote ^^ The fool hath said in his hearty There is no God^'^ has the effrontery to prophecy that the Jews will never be persuaded to accept Christianity, which he asserts ^^has had its day^ and is dying out " / / /

Such is the expectation of Rationalistic infidelity at the present time. Doubtless in this instance the wish is the father of the thought ; but it betrays lamentable ignorance both of history in the past, as well as of history anticipated in the future, i.e.^ ^^the more sure word of prophecy," which tells us that if at the rejection of the seed of Israel when three thousand souls won to Christ were the results of a single sermon preached by a converted Jew, far greater will be the amount of spiritual blessing to both Jew and Gentile on their restoration to the Divine favour. ^^ If the fall

PREFACE. IX of them," says St. Paul, ^'be the riches of the world,

how much more their fulness If the casting away

of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead ? " (Rom. xi. 12, 15.)

Rationalistic objectors have not the faintest conception of the amount of spiritual work done amongst the Jewish people during the last half century, which is greater in proportion as regards outward success, than that which is being so zealously done by the many excellent Missionary Societies at work in the vineyard of the Gentile world. Between one and two hundred converted Jews have become ordained clergymen of the Church of England, of a very different stamp from that poor fallen minister whose expulsion we have noticed above. A modem writer observes with much force —

*' How many of the 10,000,000 Jews scattered about the world are Ckristians we may not exactly . know, but we have certain knowledge that more than 100,000 have been converted since the commencement of the London Society for promoting Christianity amongst the Jews," i,e,, about sixty-five years ago.*

B. W. S.

P.S. I regret much, when writing the chapters on nationalism in the 19th Century^ and The Progress of Infidelity^ I had not then read the admirable papers by Professor Lionel Beale on the Dictatorial Scientific Utterances and the Decline of Modern Thought ^ and On the New Materialism ; which are to be seen in vol. xvi. of Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria InstitutCy pp. 201 — ^248. The first contains a very just exposure

* Jewish BitelUgencey March 1882, p. 56.

PREFACE.

of the fallacious theories and untenable assumptions of Professor Huxley, and is deserving the most attentive study of every one vrho has been misled by the daring propositions of that materialistic teacher. The second is a brief explanation of the differences between '^ the new Materialism" of Huxley and others, and the theories propounded by the Rationalists, Materialists, and Agnostics, as hitherto understood. This new Materialism appears to' be very similar to the theories put forth by the Positivists of New York ; which are noticed at p. 272 of this work.

B. W. S.

SnniLiNaFORD Rectory,

Chapter I. The Evidential Value Of Prophecy

If Lord Bolingbroke's axiom be correct that " history is philosophy teaching us by example/' with no less truth may it be said that prophecy is forestalled history, with the impress of the authority of Almighty God. To word it still more tersely: Prophecy may be regarded as history anticipated, and history as prophecy fulfilled; or, as Bishop Butler long since defined it, " Prophecy is the history of events before they come to pass."

When we remember our Master's command to "Search the Scriptures,'' and see what a large portion of those Scriptures are predicative and prophetic — when to this is added the special blessing promised to the most obscurely prophetical book in the canon of Holy Scripture, "Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein : for the time ia at hand " ^ — we are surely in the pathway of duty, when we endeavour to see how wonderfully the prediction and its accomplishment agree ; since, as St. Peter teaches us, " we have a more sure word of prophecy ; whereunto ye do well that ye tako heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts." Hence the apostle adds, " Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the

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Scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man ; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." ^

The true Catholic, who believes in the infallibility of God's word in preference to the faith of the Roman Catholic, who believes in the infalKbility of a poor fellow-sinner residing at Eome, remembers that it is better for us to study prophecy, even though we make mistakes in the interpretation, than to neglect the study of prophecy for fear of making mistakes. Josephus records a remarkable instance of the danger of neglecting prophecy, or of treating it with Contempt, as multitudes of professing Christians appear to do in the present day. When Jeremiah, he says, was commanded to warn Zedekiah King of Judah of the danger he was in from his misgovernment, that Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon would take and destroy Jerusalem, and adding, " Thine eyes shall behold the eyes of the King of Babylon, and he shall speak with thee mouth to mouth, and thou shalt go to Babylon,"^ Josephus relates that Zedekiah was at first disposed to believe him, until Ezekiel, who was then a captive in Mesopotamia, sent his prophecies to Jerusalem in order to confirm the testimony of Jeremiah ; but Zedekiah refused to believe them both, because Ezekiel had said that God would bring the prince in Jerusalem (Zedekiah) " to Babylon, to the land of the Chaldeans ; yet shall he not see it ; though he shall die there." ^ Zedekiah drew the inference that the statement of Ezekiel contradicted that of Jeremiah, and consequently rejected both as false. As we further learn from Scripture that Nebuchadnezzar " slew the sons of Zedekiah before his (the wretched father's) eyes, and put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him with fetters of brass, and carried him to Babylon," ^ we see how literally the combined statements of the prophets Jeremiah and. Ezekiel were fulfilled. Hence Josephus points out the absence of all disagreement between the sacred writers in general and the prophets in particular, as, he says, " they being only prophets, have written the original

and earliest accounts of things as they learnt them by inspiration direct from God Himself/' ^

Predictive prophecy should ever be considered as both a part and an evidence of revelation — a part when first delivered and until its fulfilment ; and an evidence after its accomplishment. It was essential to the character of Scripture prophecy that the prediction should not be such as befitted the employment of supernatural agency, as the sound rule of Horace well expresses it —

** Neo Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus Incident." ** Let not God interfere, unless the unravelling be such as to require the interposition of the Divine mind."

The value of the predictive element in Scripture is seen in this, that it affords a conclusive proof of the Divine Authorship of Scripture. And since the coming of the promised Messiah is the one great object of prophecy, it becomes a strong argument in support of the claims of Christianity and of its Author, which cannot be gainsaid. Hence the Dean of Chichester forcibly remarks — " Unbelief never grapples fairly with hostile evidence of any sort. It can disallow the supernatural, though it Qannot disprove it. And prophecy, because it draws so largely on a belief in the Divine, must accordingly at all hazards be disallowed. But how shall this be effected? Your attention is invited to the last invented method of dealing with this department of sacred evidence ; the newest device for unfaithfully handling this portion of the Deposit. It consists in resolving 'prophecy ' into forecast. By proposing to substitute the word ' forecast * for the word ' prophecy,' modern imbelief ignores the predictive element ; tacitly assumes that what God and man have in every age called * prophecy * is nothing else but a shrewd guess. In this way, what has hitherto claimed to be divine is declared to be human. It lies in the term — which is a convenient one, doubtless, for the achieving of a wicked purpose ; seeing that, besides forethought and deliberation, it connotes judicial gravity, and as much of scientific skill as the subject-matter will admit. If astrology ' Josephus, Antij, x. 7, § 2 ; Contr, Apion, i. § 7.

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4 THE eVidbnIial Value ot^ prophecy*

were still believed in, the learned in such lore would, I suppose, be declared to forecast a man's future from the aspect of his stars. 'Forecast' implies, in fact^ no more than the lawful exercise of the reasoning faculty on matters which are confessedly within its ken — as when a man undertakes to forecast the consequences of his own actions. And so the expression is a more convenient one by far than ' anticipation,' which is vague, and as often as not is doomed to disappointment: and * augury,' which smacks too strongly of heathendom and foolishness : and * presentiment,' which belongs to the emotions and to superstition : and * conjecture,' which, in its simplicity, throws off the mask and says what it means ; which is just what unbelief never does, because it never dares to do it." "^

Scripture prophecy, then, not the lucky guesses of men, whether believers or sceptics, discloses the fundamental truth and principles of the Almighty's righteous government, as the moral hinge on which the historic events of time and the solemn issues of eternity are ever turning. In this respect it essentially differs from Pythonic divination, which attempted to pry into the future without any moral influence, as it could only offer an ambiguous reply to the questioner of the oracle who had paid best for the information he wished to receive. What can afford a more striking confirmation of the truth of Scripture prophecy than the prediction concerning the supremacy of the Japhetic race, as witnessed by the existence of Christianity at the present time, on the condition of the Jewish race during the last eighteen centuries ? And then compare them with the pretended predictions of heathen divination — such, for example, as the response which Pyrrhus King of Epirus received when consulting the oracle at Delphi. The intentionally de* ceptive answer he received in reply to his enquiry ran thus : —

Aio te, JEacide, JRomanos vincere posse ; which, from the peculiarity of the Latin construction, might be

'Dean Burgon's Sermon preached before the University of Oxford, iu reply to the Rev. Brownlow Maitland's Argummt from Prophecy^ pp. 30, 31.

THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF PllOPHEOY.

read in two ways, — either that Pjrrrhus would conquer the Bomans, or be conquered by them. Of course, he interpreted the response of the oracle in his own favour, and thus hurried to his ruin.

The whole burden of prophecy may be said to be comprised in its earliest utterances, and subsequently expanded as the phases of the world's history and the development of the divine scheme rendered necessary.

" The word of God," wrote the late Edward Irving, ** is as a seed, in which the whole majestic form or various parts of the future oak or plant lie undisclosed, ready to reveal themselves according to their times, seasons, or circumstances. There is no hreak, leap, or start ; its course proceeds by a slow and sweet and beautiful progression. The first great promise contains the whole of the revelation and prophecy of God in an embryo state. The lapse of ages is a soft, sweet, silent development of the one seed sown in paradise, which in its growth changes the earth into paradise, and reproduces that kind of blessedness the world was then deprived of, in the restitution, regeneration and complete blessedness of man and his habitation. Like the stately branches of an oak, which begins in an acorn, the end and the purpose being to generate an acorn, while during the progress of its growth it covers every beast of the earth with its kindly shade, and nestles every bird of heaven in its ample branches ; so this promise was sown in the soil of a perfect and perfectly blessed state, while men still dwelt in paradise, and its end is to produce perfectly blessed men, dwelling in paradise again ; while during all the ages of its growth, it blesses the immortal spirits of men with salvation, and its leaves are for the healing of the nations."

The several books of Scripture prophecy speak the same grand old story of the coming Deliverer from first to last, from Moses to Malachi ; and the story finds its complete interpretation in the person and work of our Saviour Jesus Christ, as revealed in the New Testament. It would have been a miracle of the highest order in the history of literature to suppose it possible that a series of separate treatises, bearing ever and anon on the subject of events of the most intense interest to the human race, and spread over nearly twelve centuries,®

8 The Exodus occurred probably circa B.C. 1580; and the prophecy of Malachi, when the Canon of Old Testament Scripture was completed, may be dated B.C. 400.

6 THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF PROPHECY.

•Bhould have told the same story with undeviating uniformity, amidst every variety of circumstances, and in the teeth of bitter adversaries and perpetual antagonisms, except upon the supposition that the impress of one great Master-mind teas stamped upon them all. The differences between the Bible on the subject of prophecy and every other uninspired prediction, is the difference between the coarse effects of a painting and in the perfect finish of a natural landscape. If we apply the microscope to the most delicate work of art we see the beauty, which we admire so much with the natural eye, becomes uncomely. If we apply the same to a blade of grass or the petal of a beautiful flower, its grace is considerably magnified by the beauty of the closer inspection. There are effects in art, but there are depths in nature, just as there are depths in the infallible word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

All the manifestations of God, whether to persons or by prophecy, from the time when our first parents transgressed to the close of the Apocalypse, point to the Advent of the Messiah, and of His being slain, a sacrifice for sin, as the culminating point of the predictions contained in the Old Testament ; just as the prophecy of the Saviour's return, no longer as the Man of sorrows, but as King of saints, is the chief object of the New. The glory of God is declared by every prophecy. His foreknowledge appears to such finite creatures as ourselves to be one of His highest attributes. Believers in the integrity and infallibility of His word are comforted, and their faith is strengthened, when they find that the experiences through which they are passing, the troubles that are befalling them, or the difficulties that they encounter, have been foreseen and foretold by their God. And the testimony of God's only begotten Son as the Author of prophecy, and the testimony borne to Him as the promised Deliverer and Messiah, is the spirit of prophecy. Hence we learn from Scripture that the promised seed of Abraham, the chosen people of God, in their history, their doctrine and ritual, as well as in their government, all present one grand prophecy of the future Redeemer.

THE BVIDENTIAL VALUE OF FBOPHEOt. 7

In gtudjring the prophetic Scriptures, it may be well to bear in mind the wise words of St. Augustine, when he thus speaks in his Commentary on the 119th Psalm : " The more open it seemeth, the deeper it seemeth to me ; so that I cannot even show how deep it is/* Maimonides, one of the most learned of the Jewish Rabbies of the Middle Ages, has a very pertinent remark on the subject, which it may be profitable to remember, as an encouragement to " search diligently ** concerning " the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow."^ Hence, remarks the Hebrew doctor, " Prophecy resideth with them who are great in wisdom and virtue, whose affections are set, not on earthly things, but on heavenly. To such the Holy Spirit giveth light and understanding, that man's soul is associated with the angels, and he is changed into another man."

On the question of evidence in relation to one very important factor in prophecy concerning the resurrection of Christ from the grave, which may be said to be the cardinal truth of the Christian religion, the late Dr. Arnold of Rugby has justly observed, "I have been used for many years to study the history of other times, and to examine and weigh the evidences of those who have written about them, and I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better or fuller evidence of every sort to the mind of a fair enquirer, than the great sign that God has given us, that Christ died and rose again from the dead.'* And although our Lord's prediction, " If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead," has received ample fulfilment in the present day by the mode with which Scripture is treated by Rationalists, Sceptics, and avowed Infidels, the evidence is so overwhelmingly strong in our favour, that the Christian may witness the ceaseless attacks of those who ignore or oppose revelation without the slightest fear.

The arguments to meet the denial of our Lord's resurrection, on which the truth of Christianity mny be said to hin go,

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consist of two kinds— the conduct of its early adherents, and the testimonies of its determined foes. As regards the former, this fact is undeniable, that in the course of a few years a small band of uneducated men, chiefly fishermen, were so fully persuaded of the reality of Christ's resurrection, and succeeded in persuading so many others, as Tertullian says, of every rank in life, and in every part of the Boman Empire, which then embraced the whole of the civilized world, to believe the same, that the mighty system of Paganism, the growth of a thousand years, sank to nothing in the conflict with its more powerful rival; and for the last sixteen centuries it may be asserted without fear of contradiction, that Christianity has swayed the destinies of mankind ; not as some erroneously suppose by the conversion of the world, but in accordance with both the letter and the spirit of the Master's prophecy, " This Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations : and then shall the end come." ^

The testimony of the adversaries of Christianity is equally decisive as to the spread of that " new superstition," as they were wont to characterize the only religion which enjoyed a revelation from on high. From Tacitus to Marcus Aurelius, through the first two centuries of the Christian era, we have a long catena of heathen authorities who bear testimony to the existence as well as to the marvellous spread of this new religion. If we quote one of them, the earliest in point of time, and the most celebrated as an historian in point of reputation, it will be amply sufficient for our purpose. Tacitus, who was born within little more than twenty years after the crucifixion, and is admitted to be the most distinguished heathen historian of the age, thus describes the rise and origin of the Christian religion. After recording Nero's act of setting fire to Eome, and his endeavour to lay the guilt " upon a set of people who were holden in abhorrence for their crimes, and called by the vulgar. Christians/^ Tacitus continues as follows —