Since the revival of prophetic truth in the early part of this century the question has made some progress, though it has never become a subject of general interest. Large sections of the professing church still reject it as speculative and unprofitable. This is deeply to be regretted though not surprising. Various schools of prophecy have sprung up and have sought to publish their views, but they all lack the one thing needful to give them consistency, and make them interesting and profitable to a spiritual mind. Christ is not the center of their systems as He always is of God's-the center in which all things in heaven and earth are to be united. Not seeing the mind of God as to the judgment of the nations, the restoration of Israel, and the establishment of Christ's kingdom on the earth in power and glory, they have not known what to make of the prophetic scriptures. Many have taken refuge in the principle of interpreting prophecy by history, alleging that it can only be understood when fulfilled. Take one example of this school as judged by the word of God.
"The ten horns. What is the providential history of these horns, taken as usually applied by commentators? Scourges, which continued some one hundred and fifty years, from first to last, working the overthrow of the Roman Empire, as previously settled, and establishing themselves as conquerors in all its western territory. Take the prophetic account. A beast rises out of the sea with ten horns, all full-grown, after which a little horn rises up; and the beast, horns and all, are the subjects of God's judgments, not the executors of it. This is prophecy; that was providence."
This mode of interpretation, it will be seen, leads the mind away from Christ, to search for persons and events in history that will in some way answer to the features of the prophecy. But if it is necessary for Christians to study Roman and other histories in order to understand prophecy, how few of them have the means of doing so 1 Surely this principle condemns itself as not of God. Many prophecies, we doubt not,
have had a partial, but not a complete, fulfillment in the providence of God. " For," as the apostle says, " no prophecy of scripture is of any private interpretation.... but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." " The meaning is, that no prophecy of scripture is of its own insulated interpretation. Limit a prophecy to the particular event that is supposed to be intended by that scripture, and you make it of private interpretation. For instance, if you regarded the prophecy of Babylon's fall in Isa. 13; 14, you make this prophecy of private interpretation. How? Because you make the event to cover the prophecy-you interpret the prophecy by the event. But this is precisely what scripture prophecy is made not to be; and it is to hinder the reader from this error that the apostle writes as he does here. The truth, on the contrary, is that all prophecy has for its object the establishment of the kingdom of Christ; and if you sever the lines of prophecy from the grand central point on which they all converge, you destroy the ultimate connection of these prophetic lines with the center. All prophecy runs on to the kingdom of Christ, because it comes from the Holy Ghost."
In the same connection the apostle speaks of the bright scene on "the holy mount," in a remarkable way as to prophecy. "We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts." (2 Peter 1:1919We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: (2 Peter 1:19).) It is a most blessed foreshadowing of the coming,
• Lectures Introductory to the Catholic Epistles, p. 281, by W. K.
and kingdom of the Lord Jesus, according to that which the prophets had given the people of God to expect-a beautiful picture of millennial glory and blessedness, confirming as with the divine seal its certainty, though the time had not yet come for its manifestation. The dead saints were represented as risen in Moses; the changed living-who had not passed through death-were seen in the person of Elias; besides, there were saints in their natural bodies represented by Peter, James, and John; and there was the blessed Lord, the Head and Center of all glory, familiarly conversing about the decease which was to be accomplished at Jerusalem.
Good heed is to be given to the prophetic word, as unto a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawn; but the Christian has something better than the lamp of prophecy. He belongs to Christ, who is to dwell in his heart by faith, as the bright and morning star-the proper object of all his hopes until He come.