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ing confidence. His father had the same fondness for him as now he evinced for Benjamin. The partiality of the father had excited their jealousy. Some dreams of future greatness which the youth had related had irritated them. They conspired against him, and sold him to some wandering slavedealers who happened to be passing. It was their own brother that they had thus cruelly consigned to bondage, they knew not under whom or where: henceforward they were free from the annoyances which his presence had occasioned, but they could not banish him from their memory. When their father referred in conversation to his son whom the beasts of prey had torn in pieces, it always pierced their hearts. When they thought of the retributive providence of God, they feared that some day or other he would requite them for this wicked deed. Whenever they were in trouble, it seemed to them as though they were haunted by the shade of Joseph. On their former visit to Egypt, when placed in temporary confinement, they had said one to another, "We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us." Now, their sin comes again to their remembrance. It seems to be brought home to them. One brother, they had sold into slavery: another is to be taken as a slave against their will. The crime was committed against Joseph; the punishment is to fall on innocent Benjamin! How, after this, can they return to their father? How can they bear the increased intensity of their remorse? Beware, reader, of incurring guilt which may be a burden to you hereafter. It is awful to live under an apprehension that God is about to fight against you on account of the sins of your youth. How terrible it is to have

old offences brought to recollection by passing events, and to be compelled to trace a connexion or correspondence between them! How terrific is the threatening, "These things hast thou done and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself: but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes." The remembrance of past transactions might well fill us with dismay, were it not for the gospel revelation of an adequate propitiatory sacrifice: "Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world." "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

But there is one other individual whose share in this transaction demands our notice: the mysterious personagethe lord of the land of Egypt-the long lost Joseph who knew his brethren, though they knew not him. By his order the cup had been secreted in the sack of Benjamin; and by him the steward who had placed it there had been sent to find it. He was wisely ascertaining the present state of mind of the ten who had so cruelly sold him, in order to determine the course it would be proper to pursue. He was trying the sincerity of their attachment to Benjamin, the object of his special love, with a view to whose permanent welfare he brought about this temporary distress. He was making an experiment, painful during its operation, but gratifying and beneficial in its result. How affectionately did he address them, when he had obtained evidence of their improvement and preparedness to receive his friendship! How completely did he turn their sorrow into joy!

All this may pertinently remind us of the course pursued by him who is at the right hand of the Father towards

the objects of his tenderness and care upon the earth. The processes by which he prepares them for enjoyments he intends to bestow are often afflictive and humbling. He causes them to feel their guilt and helplessness, and often leaves them for a season to the endurance of anxiety and mental distress as preparatives for the enjoyment of his friendship. Severe convictions at the commencement of religious experience are often made to answer salutary purposes, by conducing to deep repentance, humility, and earnestness. Before Christ is known and trusted as the sinner's friend, painful exercises may conduce to a state of mind which will cause him to be received the more joyfully, and served the more gratefully, when his

character and offices are perceived. As however, it was the favour of Joseph, and not their previous distress, to which the brethren were indebted for their subsequent elevation, so it is in the grace of Christ, and in that alone, that we can find peace or safety.

Happy day, when the result of divine dispensations shall be apparent, and we shall dwell with our best Friend in undisturbed serenity! We shall not then regret any trials or perplexities experienced in the way thither, any more than Benjamin regretted in his later years that the cup was found in his sack, and that he had to walk back to the house of Joseph under the influence of those emotions which the unexpected discovery produced.

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IN offering some remarks on "pro | interpretation, they taught, was opposed phetical interpretation," we are naturally led first to consider the true import of the apostolic maxim on the subject. "No prophecy," says St. Peter (2nd Epist. i. 20), is of any private interpretation." The explanations which have been given of this sentence have been more than as numerous as the words which compose it; but of these it will be only worth our while to notice such as carry some degree of probability with them.

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to official interpretation—to interpretation emanating from the church's recognized guides. Now, while it may be allowed that the use of the word private in this passage makes it a convenient missile (to borrow Mr. Hall's image*) for Romish controversialists, no sericus argument of the kind, we need hardly say, is derivable from it. A glance at the context will show that it is anything but the apostle's aim to discourage the study of revealed truth in private Christians; nor will the word private, we may add, in its fair use bear the ecclesiastical application here sought to be forced upon it. Privacy, in the scriptural acceptation of the term, is seclusion from the multitude of whatever class, not exclusively from the class of the clergy. It is also used to

* See Hall's Works, (Ed. 1838.) Vol. vi. p. 119.

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denote what is one's own, in distinction from what belongs to another, an antithesis which is clearly as little favourable to the papal claims and assumptions as the preceding. The Genevan commentator might accordingly well characterize a gloss of this description on the words by the epithet insulsa, i. e. flat and insipid.

An exposition of the passage which has of late years found much acceptance among thoughtful men, and which even now numbers a large proportion of suffrages in its favour, is that which makes the word private synonymous with separate or detached, and understands the apostle to say that every single prophecy is but part of a scheme or system. This is the celebrated exposition of Bishop Horsley, who renders "No prophecy of scripture is of self-solution." He represents the apostle as teaching that no prophecy is intelligible from a scrutiny of its own terms, but must either be elucidated from the general body of prophecies, or wait for light from the event which shall constitute its fulfilment. In order to understand any prophecy thoroughly, he insists, we must have the whole of prophecy before us, and accept no exposition which does not quadrate with the general scheme. The bishop has devoted no less than four sermons to the illustration and defence of this theory. His arguments seem to have wrought conviction on the mind of the late erudite Dr. Pye Smith, who more than once refers with approbation to the discourses.* Now even allowing that the canon thus advocated and adopted may be true, we cannot satisfy ourselves that it is the truth taught in this particular connection. Criticism of the text itself apart, we cannot see how such a view of the words fits in,

* See Smith's Scripture Testimony, Vol. i. p. 292; Vol. ii. p. 39. Ed. 1829.

which it ought to do, with the words which follow. The divine authorship of prophecy which is the thing asserted in ver. 21, is no argument against the intelligibility of detached predictions. No reference can be found in this verse either to a known body of prophecy, or to the facts which prophecy contemplates.

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Its two statements plainly regard the origin of the whole of the prophecies of scripture, not the relation of one prophecy to the rest. Besides, on what grounds can the necessary obscurity of every detached prophecy be asserted? Why must we have under our eyes a prophecy against Nineveh before we can understand a like one against Babylon? Why must the perspicuity of a "burden of Damascus depend on a knowledge of a "burden of Tyre?" Why must we compare together the prophecies respecting both the time and place of our Saviour's birth before we can interpret either? Why, in a word, must we pause till we can decipher the whole succession of Messianic prophecies before we can expound any? The ancient students of scripture do not appear to have been shackled or embarrassed in this manner. That Jeremiah's prephecy respecting the seventy years was rightly understood we have already seen, and so, we may believe, was Daniel's respecting the seventy weeks. The prophecy of Isaiah respecting Cyrus was scarcely susceptible of misapprehension. Isa. xliv. 28; xlv. 1.) Even the common people in our Lord's time had learned from their prophetical books that their Messiah was to be of the family and from the town of David. (See John vii. 42.) We see, in fact, no stronger reason against the separate study of insulated prophetical scriptures than we do against the separate study of insulated doctrinal scriptures. A comparison of one scripture with another will always be proper, but

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rather as a reserve aid to interpretation | doubtless the widest difference as to the than as a preliminary. It cannot be illuminations which they afford between intended to preclude investigation at the natural and the artificial light; but the outset, but may be a reason for sus- no one would despise the latter as pending judgment or decision at the valueless. No one would say that we close. It may be allowed the force of must forbear passing any opinion on a veto on conclusions we are coming objects by the inferior light till we can to, but can have no right to lay an have the benefit of the superior. For a embargo on deliberations we are con- multitude of uses and of judgments the ducting. inferior light is amply sufficient, and thus we believe that many prophecies of scripture are of self-solution, enriching us with glimpses, at least, into future times, if they do not preclude all uncertainty. We are content accordingly to be students of prophecy without expecting ourselves to become prophets; to catch the shadows of coming events as they approach us, without thinking that we can fill up the outline; to "give good heed" to the light which has been granted us, and yet wait till the fuller day " arise on our hearts."

It is said that the intention of prophecy was not to enable us to pry into the future, but to discern the hand of Providence through the medium of the past. But if prophecies awaken no expectation, what is to engage the attention to their fulfilments in Providence, or who shall fix the limits to the future and the past? To pry is to search curiously into forbidden secrets; it is not easy to see why those portions of the future should be so branded respecting which God has vouchsafed us information. Such outlying tracts of time are rather among the "revealed things" (see Deut. xxix. 29) which reverence and gratitude bid us to explore. It does not appear why these, more than other revelations, should be given either to moulder in neglect for ages, or to baffle all attempts at research. The presumption is rather that they were meant as landmarks for our faith; to preserve to our hearts some degree of composure while other men's are fail-passage in Philo,* where a very similar ing them through fear." (Luke xxi. 26.) The presumption is that they would so temper obscurity with clearness as amply to reward patient inquiry without superseding it. It seems to us that this is the view given of ancient prophecy in the context of our passage. The apostle compares it (ver. 19) to a light shining in a dark place; not, that is to say, to the light of the sun, but (for such is the force of the term λύχνος) to the light of a candle. There is

* See Horsley's Sermons, (Dove's Ed.) p. 185.

A remaining explanation of the apostle's words, and the only further one which we shall notice, is that which treats the epithet private as little differing from human, and understands the writer to say that the prophets did not propound their own views or conclusions. This is substantially the view taken by Dr. Henderson, in his Lectures on Inspiration, who appeals with great felicity to a

expression occurs. Philo says that a prophet declares nothing private, i. e. nothing whatever of his own, but is [simply] an interpreter, another suggesting to him all that he brings forward. Henderson would make the parallelism of the two passages so complete as to explain the apostle's interpretation by the Jewish author's

* Προφήτης γὰρ οὐδὲν ἰδιον ἀποφαίνεται τὸ παράπαν, ἀλλ ̓ ἔστιν ἐρμηνεὺς, ὑποβάλλοντος ἑτέρου πάνθ' όσα προφέρει. κ.τ.λ. See the whole passage in Henderson's Lectures, (2nd Ed. 1847, p. 37.

interpreter-that is to say, he refers the
interpretation to the prophet, not to the
reader of prophecy. His paraphrase is,
"No prophecy of scripture is [the result]
of private [or uninspired] disclosure,"
,"*
i. e. of the divine purposes. But it is
an objection to this that the term
interpretation is nowhere else employed
in Scripture in this sense, which
Henderson himself admits, and we
think further that had the apostle
designed such a statement, he would
have used the past tense instead of the
present one-No prophecy of scripture
was of private or uninspired disclosure-
interpretation. We hold it therefore which should apparently guide

whether it does not, in some measure,
diminish the credibility of the existence
of such predictions.

Our former paper will sufficiently show that we are no advocates of such double sense in any portion of scripture as should imply aught that would be ambiguous or equivocal. We utterly repudiate everything like a duplicity which should tamper with the anxieties and expectations of mankind—which should, e. g. :

more safe to adhere to the ordinary sense of the latter word, and to explain, "No prophecy of scripture is to be interpreted as if the prophet's own," or, more generally, "No prophecy is to be interpreted as if of human authorship." We are to attribute to every single prophecy and to the whole body of prophecies a direct divine origin, thankfully discerning in the whole the communications of divine knowledge, wisdom and benignity. This sentiment, it will be instantaneously perceived, is in the fullest accordance with what follows, "Prophecy came not in old time by the will of man;" it was not at any time of the prophet's own origination; it did not flow from ideas of his own; he was not its author but its organ; he neither spoke nor wrote except as he was moved by the informing Spirit.

Let us now try to what practical conclusions in interpretation the above canon of the apostle's may guide us; for although it is of a negative character, it may contribute, at least, to some positive results. We propose in the following remarks, to notice the aspect it may have on the much contested theory of a double sense in predictions

* See Lectures, p. 486.

"Keep a word of promise to the ear
And break it to the hope :"

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earnest inquirer in one direction, when his true course would be in another. All equivocation of this sort we should hold to be equally derogatory to the Most High's natural and to his moral attributes. It would impeach his sincerity and be a confession of his ignorance. It would show him reduced from the enviable supremacy he might occupy to the miserable case of one who has to prop up his credit by paltry shifts and subterfuges. Such subterfuges and shifts the Author of Scripture prophecy solemnly disclaims, "I have not spoken in secret, or in a dark place of the earth; I said not to the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain: I the Lord speak righteousness; I declare things that are right," i. e., upright, straightforward. (Isaiah xlv. 19.) We understand by double predictions, or predictions which are susceptible of a double sense, those which, in the language of the illustrious Bacon, receive "a springing and germinant accomplishment;"* those which have a primary reference to a proximate and a secondary reference to a remote event; those which expect one fulfilment under the Old dispensation, and another under the New; those consequently in

* See Bacon on Advancement of Learning. (Montagu's Ed. 1838,) p. 124.

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