II 



ON PROPHECY 

 I. INTRODUCTORY 



GENTLEMEN, The subject which I propose to take up 

 in the course of lectures which we enter upon to-day is 

 Old Testament prophecy. I will not trouble you with 

 any lengthened exposition of the plan upon which I design 

 to treat the subject ; but it may be well to point out at 

 once what the main interests are by which our discussion 

 must be guided. In the first place, it must be our concern 

 to comprehend prophecy as &fact of history, as an element 

 which for many centuries was inwoven in the living 

 tissue of the life of the Old Testament people. In every 

 great crisis of Israel s history the prophets bore a part. 

 Their influence was always great, and often decisive 

 even, in shaping the external course of the history, while 

 no force of nearly equal importance operated on the 

 internal development of the people. And by this last 

 expression I do not wish merely to imply that prophecy 

 took a chief part in the development of the Old Testament 

 religion. That, indeed, is true, but it is not the whole 

 truth and not, to the historian, even the most striking 

 part of the truth. The remarkable thing about the 

 influence of the prophets on the inner life of Israel is that 

 they ultimately succeeded in moulding the whole national 

 life to a shape directly dependent on the religious ideas 

 of which they were the representatives. I say &quot; ulti- 



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