We have now examined seriatim every prediction classed by Dr. Kuenen among the "unfulfilled prophecies," whether relating to the Gentiles or to Israel. We believe that no objection, great or small, that he has brought against them has escaped attention. And we are willing to submit it to the candid reader whether he has made out a case in any one instance.

Upon this flimsy basis rests the entire argument contained in the volume which we are examining, every thing else being subsidiary and supplemental. The remainder, though offering abundant and very inviting matter for comment, must be despatched in a very few sentences. Dr. Kuenen seeks to rid himself of the prophecies which he confesses to have been fulfilled in three several ways.

Ist. By appealing to the non-fulfilment of others, which he claims to have established; with what justice we have already

seen.

2d. By the legerdemain of modern criticism, which peremptorily waives aside any witness that it is not convenient to hear, and which is ever ready to suspect the genuineness or the accuracy of the text upon grounds which, in their last analysis, cover an assumption of the very point to be proved— viz., that prophecy is impossible.

3d. By the gratuitous and unfounded allegation of bad faith on the part of the prophets themselves. He distinctly charges Jeremiah and Ezekiel in particular with having modified their predictions after the event, so as to make it appear that they had minutely and accurately foretold what they never had foretold at all. Thus he says, in regard to the latter prophet (pp. 328-330): "The passages of Ezekiel explained above contain no real predictions. Whatever he may have spoken to his fellow-exiles in the years preceding the destruction of Jerusalem, he has written the prophecies which we now possess after that catastrophe, without troubling himself in the least about literal reproduction of his oral preaching." "Though it may be impossible to reconcile such a method of procedure with our notions of literary good faith, yet it was not uncommon in ancient times, and specifically in Israel." "They are not real predictions, but historical reminiscences in a prophetical form, vaticinia post eventum." He would accordingly have us suppose

that these prophets falsely claim in their writings to have uttered time after time the most astonishing predictions, which met in every case a literal and precise fulfilment ; and yet their auditors, who must have known the falsity of this claim, at once accepted these writings and handed them down as true prophecies received by inspiration from the mouth of God. We confess that we are of Dr. Kuenen's own opinion with regard to this expedient of his (p. 328): "Many will at once be inclined to reject it as a subterfuge, by the help of which I try to escape from the dogmatical conclusions to which the literally-fulfilled prophecies of Ezekiel ought to have led." And how does this assertion, that Jeremiah and Ezekiel altered and retouched their predictions to make them correspond with the event, comport with what he maintains elsewhere, that both these prophets have included among their writings predictions (e.g., respecting Tyre and Egypt) which had been glaringly and notoriously falsified in their own day, and that Ezekiel admits it without being in the least disturbed thereby (p. 110)?

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The accounts given of the prophets in the historical books are swept away in the most summary and relentless manner. He admits (p. 401) that the predictions of " the prophets of the historical books extend far beyond their political horizon, are characterized by definiteness and accuracy, enter into the more minute particulars, and are all, without distinction, strictly fulBut the narratives containing them are in his esteem utterly untrustworthy. "They are, in the first place, a reflection and striking representation of the religious belief of their authors, and only in the second place are they testimonies regarding the historical reality. This reality is nowhere to be found perfectly pure and unmixed in these narratives, in so far as they are any thing more than dry chronicles; it is always, though in a greater or less degree, colored by the subjective conviction of the narrator." "The representation given of the prophets and prophecy in the historical narratives of the Old Testament is no testimony regarding, but is itself one of the fruits of the real Israelitish prophecy" (p. 436). "While the prophetical historians sketched the past of Israel, they not only felt themselves compelled to labor for the religious education of Israel, but they thought themselves also justified in making their description of

Israel's fortunes subordinate and subservient to that object. The considerations which would restrain us from treating history in such a manner, or would impede us in doing so, had for them no existence" (p. 443). In other words, Israelitish history is a pious fraud, concocted by the prophets from first to last, and this in spite of the exalted respect which he professes for their character and work!—and nothing whatever in it is to be credited but just what the critics tell us may be credited. Here is in a nutshell the principle and the method of all Dr. Kuenen's critical processes and results. He blows his subjective soap-bubble to whatever size he may fancy, and dances it before his readers in its variegated beauty and apparent solidity and readiness to burst.

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It does not embarrass Dr. Kuenen in the slightest degree that the New Testament throughout "ascribes divine foreknowledge to the Israelitish prophets.' He very naïvely says (p. 448): "Its judgment concerning the origin and nature of the prophetical expectations, and concerning their relation to the historical reality, may be regarded as diametrically opposed to ours." His elaborate attempt to show that the New Testament writers are guilty of inaccuracies and mistakes in quoting from the Old Testament, and that they misunderstand and misinterpret it, merely proves what was superfluously clear beforehand, that their conception of its meaning and spirit is radically different from his. Its chief value consists in the practical demonstration which it affords, that they who reject the inspiration and authority of the Old Testament, or any part of it, must by inevitable logical necessity reject likewise that of the New.

Dr. Kuenen sees in prophecy simply a deduction from the prophets' own religious convictions. Jehovah's purposes are inferred by them from their thorough persuasion of his inflexible righteousness and his sovereign choice of Israel to be his people on the one hand, and the judgment which they entertain of Israel's existing moral state or the character and conduct of Gentile nations on the other. Hence "the prophetical prediction of the future" is, as he states it (p. 359), the necessarily incorrect conclusion drawn from premises which themselves were only half correct. This naturalistic hypothesis falls with

the failure to prove the non-accomplishment of the predictions of the prophets. If, as is really the case, what they have foretold has unerringly come to pass, prophecy is thereby shown to be the word, not of him who knows not what a day may bring forth, but of Him who "declareth the end from the beginning." It is the word, not of man, but of God. And it is plainly futile to attempt to account for it on natural principles-as, for example, that Jeremiah's strong faith wrought upon the exiles, and their faith wrought upon Cyrus, who by a lucky chance appeared just at the right time and became the conqueror of Babylon (p. 315), and thus brought about the return from captivity after seventy years; or Isaiah by his faith persuaded Hezekiah and his people to persevere in their resistance to Sennacherib until fortunately the plague swept off his army (p. 298). On this principle such a chapter of accidents would be required to save the credit of the prophets as would involve that very supernatural intervention which the hypothesis was invented to escape; and that, too, in a form far more incredible than the simple faith of ages, that "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."

WM, HENRY GREEN.

THE PROBLEM CONCERNING THE HUMAN WILL,

AS RELATED TO SCIENTIFIC AND PHILOSOPHIC THEORIES.

'HE study of man has become a pressing demand in our

the

of

times. Whether we turn to the circle of physical sciences on the one hand, or to schemes of mental philosophy on the other, it is obvious that a full and systematized knowledge of human nature has become a first requisite for physicists and philosophers alike. Science, with its observational and inductive methods, claims to encompass the universe of known existence. Philosophy, with these same methods, and the use of speculative reason besides, claims to reach unity beyond and above the multiplicity everywhere apparent. The observation of which science boasts may be a narrower thing than the observation which philosophy declares to be essential for a true knowledge of the universe as such, if we are to seek a scientific knowledge in any strict and thorough sense. Consequently, the universe of science may be a narrower thing than the universe of philosophy. But it is to be constantly kept in view -and specially by those who look at the products of human inquiry from a philosophic standpoint-that the facts on which physical science rests are patent to all, that her methods are recognized by all, and that results are most unhesitatingly received by all as soon as it is made clear that they are direct results from rigid use of scientific methods applied to ascertained facts. I have said that these things should be specially kept in view by those who are watching the progress of human thought from the standpoint of mental philosophy. It were earnestly