356 LECTURES AND ESSAYS L l8 74- 



the renewed man, even when they refer to his bodily and 

 temporal needs, and they are understood only by the 

 interpretation of His own spirit in our hearts. 



The case of prophecy is quite of the same kind. The 

 fulfilment of prophecy means that the actual history of 

 God s redeeming work has corresponded with the spirit 

 of prophecy that by His revealing word God really 

 taught His people what to look for and what to pray for. 

 That the hopes and prayers of the Old Testament Church 

 have in Christianity often been fulfilled in a form and in 

 concrete details which the prophets never thought of, and 

 could not even have conceived under the limitations of 

 the Old Testament standpoint, is a matter of no moment 

 if the fulfilment is spiritually adequate. But spiritual 

 adequacy is not to be measured by an empirical analysis, 

 in the manner of Kuenen, of all fulfilled and unfulfilled 

 prophecy. 



I cannot at this stage of our inquiries go more fully 

 into the question of the principle on which prophecy is 

 fulfilled. But it may be well to come to close quarters 

 with Kuenen s method on one or two special features 

 which it contains. 



In the first place, I have to dispose of an objection. 

 It will be argued that the Old Testament itself accepts 

 Kuenen s test of the reality of supernatural prophecy. 

 In Deut. xviii. 21 we read: &quot; If thou say in thy heart, How 

 can we know the word which Jahveh hath not spoken ? 

 When a prophet speaks in Jahveh s name, if the thing 

 follow not, nor come to pass, that is the word which Jahveh 

 hath not spoken, the prophet hath spoken presumptuously, 

 ]YTO, Thou shalt not be afraid of him.&quot; But here you 

 are to observe : (i) that the fulfilment of the individual 

 prophetic word is not here taken as the matter by which 

 the existence or non-existence of truly supernatural 

 prophecy is to stand or fall, but as a practical test by 

 which, the reality of true prophecy being assumed, the 

 divine commission of an individual prophet may be 



