i8 74 ] THE FULFILMENT OF PROPHECY 257 



tions and the transcendence of the Old Testament religion. 

 (If we set these extreme views on one side, there still 

 remains a wide range of view as to the fulfilment of 

 prophecy among theologians, not of sects, but of the 

 Church.) At the other extreme from this view stands the 

 so-called purely historical or historico-psychological inter 

 pretation of prophecy, which finds the explanation of 

 every oracle solely in the historical position and natural 

 mental experience of the prophet, and which, agreeing 

 with the opposite extreme school in rejecting all fulfilments 

 not strictly literal, maintains that many prophecies have 

 never in any sense been, and never will be, fulfilled, 

 inasmuch as prophecy on the whole does not rest on 

 God-given revelation, but is solely the fruit of natural 

 hopes and desires. 



These extreme views I only mention to set them on one 

 side. As theories neither of them can satisfy the theo 

 logian who desires to reach a view with regard to prophecy 

 which shall form an organic member in the system of the 

 theology of the Church. On some points of detail, indeed, 

 he may approach either the one or the other view. We 

 may expect, as some do, a literal fulfilment of many 

 prophecies which have already received what is called a 

 partial fulfilment in the New Testament dispensation. 

 Yet in principle we differ from the extreme literalists 

 so long as we do admit a distinction between the spirit 

 and the outer form and limitations of prophecy as of every 

 other feature of an imperfect dispensation. Or, again, 

 we may hold (e.g. Fairbairn) that there is in certain 

 prophecies a conditional element, so that for certain 

 reasons they are not to be fulfilled. Yet in this position 

 we do not join hands with the negative school so long as 

 we recognise the difference in kind between God-given 

 revelation and human hopes, and, if we say that such a 

 prophecy is not to be fulfilled, do so on grounds based on 

 the recognition of the Divine economy in the Old Covenant. 

 Well, setting aside these extreme views (our coincidences 



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