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BONAR'S PROPHETICAL LANDMARKS.

No. II.

THE prophetic style is a subject of no common importance, and one concerning which a right judgment must be formed, before we can hope to interpret rightly the scripture prophecies. Are we, with German neologians, to regard the prophecies merely as a series of myths, expressing in poetic language some abstract truth already deeply engraven on man's consciousness? Are we even, with some truly holy men, to consider them as figurative descriptions of the future glory of the redeemed church? If we are obliged by the very nature of some of these prophecies to regard them as symbolical, from what source are the symbols derived ?—Are they intended to obscure, or to explain the subject ?—These, and some other questions of equal interest, are answered in Mr. Bonar's admirable chapter on the prophetic style, of which we will now attempt to give some analysis, and such extracts as our space will allow.

The first question proposed is,-What subjects may we reasonably expect to find in prophecy? If we were left to answer the question ourselves, each one would form a different opinion, in the same way as each person would write a different history of the world, according to his own view of the relative importance of events. Our only sure guide as to the probable subjects of prophecy, God's history of the future, is God's history of

the past. Here we find the main subject to be the corporate history of the church of Christ :—

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This is the main stream of scripture history, but not the only one. We have likewise the history of the church's enemies; or rather, in conformity with Scripture language, we should say, enemy, as the seed of the serpent, however numerous, is generally personified, and alluded to under the name of that nation or king, who, at any particular period, happened to be the head of the enemies of the Lord.'

The same course, Mr. Bonar shows, is pursued in the prophetic writings: any other would be like an attempt to write the story of a battle, by relating the actions and achievements of one side alone. He then shows that, out of the parallel events in the past history of the two parties referred to, is constructed the language in which their future history is written ; and many of the peculiarities of prophecy can only be fully explained, by a minute reference to, and comparison of, these parallel events. Assyria, Edom, Bosrah, Babylon, are all used, not merely in their geographical sense, or by any means indiscriminately, but as representing different characters assumed by the church's enemy, corresponding to the features of these ancient idolatrous kingdoms. Here then is a wide field for careful research. We will extract Mr. Bonar's description of Babylon, as a specimen of this peculiarity of Scripture language :—

'Take, again, Babylon, the name most frequently used in Scripture for the enemy of the Church in each successive age, the fullest, largest, most significant type of this, which Scripture affords us, round the very name of which are gathered images of gloom and grandeur, of glory and desolation, such as her imperial successor in the West has never yet paralleled. Babylon, the

city of confusion, the seat of universal monarchy, the citadel of superstition and tyranny, the capital of Nimrod and Nebuchadnezzar, enemy of Jehovah, persecutor of his Church, razer of his temple, destroyer of his city, enslaver of his people! It was pitched as Satan's metropolis and temple, right against the city and temple of Jehovah ; and for centuries God permitted it to stand as a type of his Church's future enemies, and to furnish out of its name and history, a name and language for them all. Then it was swept with the besom of destruction,-tower and battlement, even to the foundation, leaving no fragment of its existence behind it, but the memory and name, that its desolation might furnish out language to the prophets, in picturing the ruin of a still mightier enemy to come. When God reared for himself again a people and a city in other lands, Satan again upreared his city in defiance, exchanging the Euphrates for the Tiber, the plains of Shinar for the seven hills of Latium. But to show that this new enemy was one and the same with the ancient enemy of the East, He sent forth his prophets and apostles to inscribe upon the gates and walls of the new city, 'Babylon the Great,' thereby not merely identifying her with Babylon of old, but proclaiming how much she was to outdo her model, in all for which she had been infamous. And now she stands before us at this day, true representative of her eastern progenitor, the mother of harlots, counterpart to the city of Semiramis, but a more relentless oppressor of the saints; darker prison-house of the church, truer personification of the evil one, seat of fouler superstition than the Chaldean astrology, of more hateful idolatry than the worship of Bel and Nebo, city of more daring pride, saying not merely, "I will ascend above the stars of God," but I will be above all that is

called God, or that is worshipped; I will sit in the temple of God, shewing myself that I am God; assuming all power above and below, changing times and laws, speaking great swelling words against the Most High, unpeopling earth of God's chosen Israel, and peopling heaven with the sainted pandemonium of Rome.'

The use of figurative language is one of the next subjects introduced.

'I may allow (says Mr. Bonar) that figures can be employed for the purpose of obscuring a subject; but that this is their usual object, I deny. Their common use is to give force and beauty to the style. The chief difference between literal and figurative language, may perhaps be said to be, the indefiniteness of the latter; such an indefiniteness, I mean, as does not at once, and by the very name of the word, suggest the one precise idea or object intended, as in such Hebraisms as the following:-cedars of God, i.e. mighty cedarsson of the burning coal, i. e. a spark-eyelids of the morning. i. e. dawn. Such figures, or paraphrastic expressions, of which all language originally consisted, may, to a certain extent, be charged with ambiguity, till, by familiar usage, or by the substitution of one word to express them, they have established themselves in the language and ideas of a nation. They may be called indefinite, till common use has stripped them of all but the precise idea intended, has sunk them to the level, and stiffened them into the cold precision of ordinary diction. But, then, such an indefiniteness can only be called obscurity, when there is no key to the exact meaning; for, wherever by the hints of the author, or by the position in which the words occur, their significance becomes plain; then their very indefiniteness ennobles and adorns the composition, fitting them

especially for embodying the sublimity and splendour of prophetic visions, which language less elastic and expansible could not have grasped.'

Having thus vindicated figurative language from the charge of being in its own nature obscure, Mr. Bonar goes on to show how the real obscurity has been, in great part, occasioned by those who have neglected, with regard to prophecy, the plain rule they would adopt for the other inspired books, 'literal if possible.' Taking, for instance, the beautifully plain and simple description in Isa. xi. 6-9 of the blessed condition of the renovated earth, and the share which even the lower creation is to have in this glad event, they say it signifies the harmony, which will one day subsist between men of the most turbulent passions and discordant dispositions. When we ask with astonishment if words so definite and simple can have such a meaning, we are told that it is a far more noble and sublime idea, that men of evil passions should be softened, than that the beasts of the field should become harmonious

in their natures. It may be so. It may be a sublime meaning, but it will be difficult to prove it to be the meaning of the passage.'

To spiritualize prophecy is lawful in the same way as to spiritualize history, provided you have first interpreted it; but to spiritualize is not to interpret. The true contrast is not between the spiritual and literal, but between the figurative and literal, the spiritual being superadded to both.

Mr. Bonar next answers those, who would describe the prophecies as written in the highest style of poetry with the boldest figures, and therefore incapable of exact interpretation.

The rich language and the exuberant imagery of

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