i8 7 o] PROPHECY IN CRITICAL SCHOOLS 191 



to it depends the whole conception of Divine grace. The 

 historian is not bound to give the answer, but he ought to 

 see that such a question does exist. 



There is, however, another class of critics, of which 

 Kuenen is our chosen representative, who with no small 

 gain in clearness do face this question. They say dis 

 tinctly that no discriminating Divine grace exists. God 

 works everywhere, and everywhere in the same sense. 

 All religion is true, and no religion is perfect. All men are 

 in true communion with God, but no man is in full com 

 munion with Him. Thus to Kuenen &quot; the prophecy of 

 Israel is a product of the religious disposition of the nation 

 as it developed itself under the guidance of its fortunes 

 and the continuous influence of God s Spirit. The prophets 

 are geniuses or heroes in the ethico-religious field, produced 

 by Israel in the same sense as every nation produces its 

 great men. They differ from other Semitic prophets in 

 degree, not in kind. The difference corresponds to the 

 high superiority of the Israelitish religion, and like the 

 latter must be explained by the providential co-operation 

 of national spirit and national history.&quot; l The mention 

 of Providence and of the Spirit of God must not mislead 

 us, and has not misled Kuenen as to the true nature of 

 the problem which Hebrew history on such a view presents. 

 The influence of God s Spirit is not on this theory some 

 thing over and above national disposition and history. 

 These alone must give the full explanation of the pheno 

 mena of prophecy, though we must at the same time 

 believe that God s hand was in all. Ewald could appeal 

 to a new life which marked off the prophets, and enabled 

 them to see truths which no heathen saw ; but the 

 elements of religious life which are postulated in Kuenen s 

 construction must be simply those which are common to 

 all men. Everything over and above this is the product 

 of natural development, and hence the question between 

 the positive and negative criticism resolves itself into a 



1 Onderzoek, ii. 27. 



