Volume 1 — SERMON II. THE TRUE IDEA OF PROPHECY. Rev. xix. 10.

The testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of Prophecy.

It is very clear in what manner common sense instructs us to prosecute all inquiries into the divine conduct. Wise men collect, from what they see done in the system of nature, so far as they are able to collect it, the intention of its author. They will conclude, in like manner, from what they find delivered in the system of revelation, what the views and purposes of the revealer were.

Prophecy, which makes so considerable a part of that system, must, therefore, be its own interpreter. My meaning is, that, setting aside all presumptuous imaginations of our own, we are to take our ideas of what prophecy should be, from what, in fact, we find it to have been. If it be true (as the Apostle says, and as the thing itself speaks) that the things of God knoweth no man but the spirit of God13, there cannot possibly be any way of acquiring right notions of prophecy, but by attending to what the spirit of prophecy hath revealed of itself. They, who admit the divine original of those scriptures, which attest the reality, and alone, as they suppose, contain the records, of this extraordinary dispensation, are more than absurd, are impious, if they desert this principle. And they, who reject or controvert their claim to such original, cannot, on any other principle, argue pertinently against that dispensation.

In short, believers and unbelievers, whether they would support, or overturn, the system of prophecy, must be equally governed by the representation given of it in scripture. The former must not presume, on any other grounds, to assert the wisdom and fitness of that system: and the latter will then take a reasonable method of discrediting, if by such means they can discredit, the pretensions of it. For, as to vindicate prophecy on any principles but its own, can do it no honour; so, to oppose it on any other, can neither prejudice the cause itself, nor serve any reasonable end of the opposer.

To scripture then we must go for all the information we would have concerning the use and intent of prophecy: and the text, to look no farther, will clearly reveal this great secret to us.

But, before we proceed to reason from the text, in which, as it is pretended, this discovery is made, it will be necessary to explain its true meaning.

St. John, in this chapter of the Revelations, from which the text is taken, had been shewn the downfall of Babylon, and the consequent exaltation of the church, in its closest union with Christ, prefigured under the Jewish idea of a marriage. To so delightful a vision, the Angel, in whose presence, and by whose ministry, this scene of glory had been disclosed, subjoins this triumphant admonition—Write, says he; Blessed are they which are called to the marriage of the Lamb. These are the true sayings of God.

The Apostle, struck with this emphatic address, and contemplating with grateful admiration so joyful a state of things, and the divinity of that fore-sight by which it was predicted, falls down at the angel’s feet to worship him. But he said into me, See, thou do it not; I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

The sense is plainly this: Direct thy acknowledgment for this important discovery, and that religious adoration, which it inspires, to God only who revealed it, and not to me, who am but thy fellow-servant in this office of bearing testimony to Jesus: I said in bearing testimony to Jesus; for know, that the spirit of prophecy, with which I am endowed, and by which I am enabled to foretell these great things, is but, in other words, the testimony of Jesus; it has no other use or end, but to do honour to him; the prophet, whether he be angel or man, is only the minister of God to bear witness to his Son; and his commission is ultimately directed to this one purpose of manifesting the glories of his kingdom. In discharging this prophetic office, which thou admirest so much, I am then but the witness of Jesus, and so to be considered by thee in no other light than that of thy fellow-servant.

It is evident from the expression, that the text was intended to give some special instruction to the Apostle, whose misguided worship afforded the occasion of it. For, if the design had merely been to enforce the general conclusion—worship God—the premises need only have been—I am the servant of God, as well as thou—for from these premises it had followed, that therefore God, and not the Angel, was to be worshiped. But the premises are not simply, I am thy fellow-servant, but I am the fellow-servant of those who have the testimony of Jesus: which clause indeed infers the same conclusion, as the former; but, as not being necessary to infer it (for the conclusion had been just and complete without it) was clearly added to convey a precise idea of prophecy itself, as being wholly subservient to Christ, and having no other use or destination, under its various forms and in all the diversities of its administration, but to bear testimony to him. Therefore the Angel says emphatically, in explanation of that latter clause,—For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy—or, as the sentence, in our translation, should have run14, the order of its parts being inverted, For the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus.

It may not be pretended that no more was meant by the text, than that the particular prophecy, here delivered, was in attestation of Jesus: for then it would have been expressed with that limitation. The terms, on the other hand, are absolute and indefinite—the spirit of prophecy—whence we cannot but conclude that prophecy, in general, is the subject of the proposition.

We have here, then, a remarkable piece of intelligence conveyed to us (incidentally indeed conveyed, but not therefore the less remarkable) concerning the nature and genius of prophecy. The text is properly a key put into our hands, to open to us the mysteries of that dispensation; which had in view ultimately the person of Christ and the various revolutions of his kingdom—The spirit of prophecy is, universally, the testimony of Jesus15.

The expression, as I have shewn, is so precise as to leave no reasonable doubt of its meaning. Yet it may further serve to justify this interpretation, if we reflect, how exactly it agrees with all that the Jewish prophets were understood to intend, and what Jesus himself and his apostles assert was intended, by their predictions.

It were endless to enumerate all the Prophecies of the Old Testament which have been supposed to point at Jesus: and the controversy concerning the application of some prophecies to him may be thought difficult. But it is very certain that the Jews, before the coming of Christ, gave this construction to their scriptures: they even looked beyond the letter of their sacred books, and conceived the testimony of the Messiah to be the soul and end of the commandment. The spirit of prophecy was firmly believed to intend that testimony, that the expectation was general of some such person, as Jesus, to appear among them, and at the very time in which he made his appearance. This, I say, is an undoubted fact, what account soever may be given of it; and so far evinces that the principle, delivered in the text, corresponds entirely to the idea which the fathers entertained of the prophetic spirit.

Next, Jesus himself appeals to the spirit of prophecy, as bearing witness to his person and dispensation. Search the Scriptures, says he to the Jews, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of ME16. Two things are observable in these words. 1. If the Jews thought they had eternal life in their scriptures, they must needs have understood them in a spiritual sense; for the letter of them taught no such thing: and I know not what other spiritual sense, that should lead them to the expectation of eternal life, they could put on their scriptures, but that prophetic, or typical sense, which respected the Messiah. 2. Jesus here expressly asserts, that their scriptures testified of him. How generally they did so, he explained at large in that remarkable conversation with two of his disciples, after his resurrection, when, beginning at Moses and ALL the prophets, he expounded unto them in ALL the scriptures the things concerning himself17.

The Apostles of Jesus are frequent and large in the same appeal to the spirit of prophecy. Those things, says St. Peter to the Jews, which God had shewed by the mouth of ALL his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled18. And, again, after quoting the authority of Moses, Yea, and ALL the prophets from Samuel, and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days19.

St. Paul seems to have composed some entire epistles20, with a view of shewing that Christ was prefigured in the Law itself, and that He was, in truth, the substance of the whole Jewish dispensation. So thoroughly, according to him, did the spirit of prophecy pervade that system, and so clearly did it bear testimony to Jesus! Whence, in his apology before Agrippa, we find him asserting of the whole Christian doctrine, that he said none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come21.

More citations cannot be necessary on so plain a point. And I bring these to shew, not the truth of the principle itself (which is not now under consideration) but the certainty of the interpretation, here given to the text. For I make it say no more (though it says it indeed more precisely) than the scriptures themselves were understood by the Jews to say, and are represented by Jesus and his Apostles, as actually saying, when I affirm its sense to be, “That the scope and end of prophecy was the testimony of Jesus.”

On this principle, then, we are to regulate all our reasonings on the subject of prophecy. They who maintain, and they who would confute, its pretensions, must equally go on this supposition. If the system of prophecy can be justified, or so far as it can be justified, on these grounds, the defence must be thought solid and satisfactory; because those grounds are not arbitrarily assumed, but are such as that system itself acknowledges. On the contrary, whatever advantage may be fairly taken of those grounds to discredit prophecy, must needs be allowed, for the same reason.

Again: On the believer’s scheme, that prophecy is of divine inspiration, there can be no presumption in arguing from the grounds, here supposed, in favour of prophecy. Because, though all conclusions from a principle of human invention, must be hazardous and rash, yet from a principle of divine authority, many sober and just inferences may be drawn. For it is one thing, to discover a principle, and another, to argue justly and cogently from it.

On the other hand, the unbeliever, who regards the whole system of prophecy as of human invention, must yet be allowed to argue pertinently from the same grounds, because they are the proper grounds of that system: his arguments may be rightly formed, though the principle, from which he argues, appear to him of no authority. The rules of logic will indeed oblige him to argue on that principle; for, otherwise, he combats, not his adversary’s position, but a phantom of his own raising.

Having premised thus much concerning the right interpretation of the text, and the important relation it bears to the present subject, I should now proceed to inquire what conclusions naturally and fairly result from it. For from this assumption, that Jesus is the end of prophecy, it will, I think, follow very evidently, that the greater part of those objections which make so much noise, and are so confidently urged, on the subject of prophecy, have no force at all in them.

But, before we enter on that task, it may be useful to consider more particularly what the ASSUMED PRINCIPLE itself is, and to pause a while in contemplation of this idea.

The text, as here interpreted, and in full consonance with the tenor of the sacred writings, implies this fact—that Prophecy in general (that is, all the prophecies of the Old and New Testament) hath its ultimate accomplishment in the history and dispensation of Jesus.

But now, if we look into those writings, we find, 1. That prophecy is of a prodigious extent; that it commenced from the fall of man, and reaches to the consummation of all things: that, for many ages, it was delivered darkly, to few persons, and with large intervals from the date of one prophecy to that of another; but, at length, became more clear, more frequent, and was uniformly carried on in the line of one people, separated from the rest of the world, among other reasons assigned, for this principally, to be the repository of the divine oracles: that, with some intermission, the spirit of prophecy subsisted among that people, to the coming of Christ: that He himself and his Apostles exercised this power in the most conspicuous manner; and left behind them many predictions, recorded in the books of the New Testament, which profess to respect very distant events, and even run out to the end of time, or, in St. John’s expression, to that period, when the mystery of God shall be perfected22.

2. Further, besides the extent of this prophetic scheme, the dignity of the Person, whom it concerns, deserves our consideration. He is described in terms, which excite the most august and magnificent ideas. He is spoken of, indeed, sometimes as being the seed of the woman, and as the son of man; yet so as being at the same time of more than mortal extraction. He is even represented to us, as being superior to men and angels; as far above all principality and power, above all that is accounted great, whether in heaven or in earth; as the word and wisdom of God; as the eternal Son of the Father; as the heir of all things, by whom he made the worlds; as the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person.

We have no words to denote greater ideas, than these: the mind of man cannot elevate itself to nobler conceptions. Of such transcendent worth and excellence is that Jesus said to be, to whom all the prophets bear witness!

3. Lastly, the declared purpose, for which the Messiah, prefigured by so long a train of prophecy, came into the world, corresponds to all the rest of the representation. It was not to deliver an oppressed nation from civil tyranny, or to erect a great civil empire, that is, to atchieve one of those acts, which history accounts most heroic. No: it was not a mighty state, a victor people—

that was worthy to enter into the contemplation of this divine person. It was another and far sublimer purpose, which He came to accomplish; a purpose, in comparison of which, all our policies are poor and little, and all the performances of man as nothing. It was to deliver a world from ruin; to abolish sin and death; to purify and immortalize human nature; and thus, in the most exalted sense of the words, to be the Saviour of all men, and the blessing of all nations.

There is no exaggeration in this account. I deliver the undoubted sense, if not always the very words of scripture.

Consider then to what this representation amounts. Let us unite the several parts of it, and bring them to a point. A spirit of prophecy pervading all time—characterizing one person, of the highest dignity—and proclaiming the accomplishment of one purpose, the most beneficent, the most divine, that imagination itself can project—Such is the scriptural delineation, whether we will receive it or no, of that œconomy, which we call Prophetic!

And now then (if we must be reasoning from our ideas of fit and right, to the rectitude of the divine conduct) let me ask, in one word, whether, on the supposition that it should ever please the moral Governor of the world to reveal himself by prophecy at all, we can conceive him to do it, in a manner, or for ends more worthy of him? Does not the extent of the scheme correspond to our best ideas of that infinite Being, to whom all duration is but a point, and to whose view all time is equally present? Is not the object of this scheme, the Lamb of God that was slain from the foundation of the world, worthy, in our conceptions, of all the honour that can be reflected upon him by so vast and splendid an œconomy? Is not the end of this scheme such as we should think most fit for such a scheme of prophecy to predict, and for so divine a person to accomplish?

You see, every thing here is of a piece: all the parts of this dispensation are astonishingly great, and perfectly harmonize with each other.

We, who admit the divinity of those records, which represent to us this state of things, cannot but be infinitely affected with it: since, in that case, we only contemplate an undoubted fact, in this representation. And it should further seem that even those, who question that authority of scripture, must, if they be ingenuous, confess themselves struck by a representation at once so sublime and consistent. They require, on all occasions, to have reasons of what they call fitness, in the divine conduct, pointed out to them: Can they overlook them here, where they are so obvious and so convincing? At least, the credibility of such a scheme, as that of prophecy is in Scripture represented to be, appears not, so far as we have hitherto considered it, to be opposed or lessened in any degree by our natural prejudices; by the best notions, I mean, which we can frame on this subject; but is, indeed, much strengthened and confirmed by them.

On the idea of such a scheme, as is here presented to us, I enlarge no farther, at present, than just to make ONE general observation. It is this: That the argument from prophecy is not to be formed from the consideration of single prophecies, but from all the prophecies taken together, and considered as making one system; in which, from the mutual dependance and connection of its parts, preceding prophecies prepare and illustrate those which follow, and these, again, reflect light on the foregoing: just as, in any philosophical system, that which shews the solidity of it, is the harmony and correspondence of the whole, not the application of it, in particular instances.

Hence, though the evidence be but small, from the completion of any one prophecy, taken separately, yet, that evidence being always something, the amount of the whole evidence, resulting from a great number of prophecies, all relative to the same design, may be considerable; like many scattered rays, which, though each be weak in itself, yet, concentred into one point, shall form a strong light, and strike the sense very powerfully. Still more: this evidence is not simply a growing evidence, but is indeed multiplied upon us, from the number of reflected lights, which the several component parts of such a system reciprocally throw upon each: till, at length, the conviction rise into a high degree of moral certainty.

It hath been said indeed, of this scheme, or way of considering prophecy, that it is an imaginary scheme, of which there is not the least trace in any of the four Gospels; and that it even contradicts the whole evidence of prophecy, as it was understood and applied by the Apostles and evangelists23.

But what, is there no trace of this scheme in the Gospel, when Jesus himself began at Moses and the prophets, and expounded [to his disciples] in ALL the scriptures the things concerning himself? Is this scheme contradictory to the evidence of prophecy, as understood by the Apostles, when St. Peter argued with the Jews from what God had spoken by the mouth of ALL his prophets, since the world began?

Is not here a series of prophecies, expressly referred to, as running up not only to the times of Moses24, but to the beginning of the world? And is not this series argued from, as constituting one entire system of prophecy, and as affording an evidence distinct from that which arises from the consideration of each prophecy, taken singly and by itself?

But Jesus and his Apostles, usually, applied the prophecies singly and independently on each other, as so many different arguments for the general truth of the Gospel25.

Could they do otherwise, when the occasions offered, in the course of their ministry, to which those prophecies were to be applied? Or, could they do better, in their discourses to the people, to whom the argument from single prophecies would be more familiar, than that complicated one, arising from a whole system? Does it follow, because the prophecies were applied singly, that therefore they might not with good reason be applied systematically; or that they may not now be so applied, when we have to do with those, who are capable of entering into this sort of argumentation? Will it be said that, because the moral precepts of the Gospel are delivered singly, there is therefore no such thing as a system of morality, or that the subject may not be treated with propriety, and with advantage too, in that form?

On the whole, the prophecies of the Old and New Testament, having clearly all the qualities of what we call a system, that is, consisting of many particulars, dependent on each other, and intimately connected by their reference to a common end, there is no reason why they may not be considered in this light; and there is great reason why they should be so considered, since otherwise, on many occasions, we shall not do justice to the argument itself.

To return then to the text (which implies the existence and use of such a system) and to conclude with it. The spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus. This angelic information presents, at first sight, an idea stupendous indeed, but, on such a subject, suitable enough to our expectations. It offers no violence to the natural sense of the human mind; but, on the contrary, hath every thing in it to engage our belief and veneration.

Such is the idea of Prophecy, contemplated in itself. What conclusions (of importance, as we suppose, to the right apprehension and further vindication of prophecy) may be drawn from that idea, will be next considered.