THE FACT OF PREDICTION. 



71 



behalf. Since the destruction of the Temple, Israel has been 

 deprived of both sacrifice and priest. At the same time they 

 will refuse the delusive help and consolation offered by- 

 idolatry. If the altar is taken away, they will not put an 

 image in its place. If they have no longer an ephod-clad priest 

 to inquire of God, they will not seek counsel of the teraphim. 



Strange to say it was predicted in the sacred book which the 

 Jews themselves have handed down that they were to reject 

 the Messiah 1 This has already been before us (see page 03) ; 

 but we have also a prediction — this time in the Xew Testament 

 — dealing with the question as to how long this attitude of 

 rejection and loathing is to continue. The Apostle in his 

 Epistle to the Eomans is correcting a possible misconception on 

 the part of the Christians at Eome. " For [ w^ould not, brethren," 

 he w^rites, " that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye 

 should be wise in your own conceits, that blindness (hardness) 

 in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiies is 

 come in " (Romans xi, 25). There are various interpretations 

 of this " fullness of the Gentiles " ; but all agree that this is not 

 even now complete. Until our own times, then, and after 

 there was to be no reversal of the judgment passed by the 

 fathers of Israel in the first century. The " hardness " was to 

 continue. That it has continued notwithstanding all the 

 sufferings of the Jewish people and all the efforts of the 

 Christian Church is one of the facts of history. What eye read 

 the then unwritten record in the middle of the first century ? 



There is a "hardness" frequently exhibited in our own day, 

 and which is wise exceedingly in its own conceit. If it consent 

 to listen — and that is an unwonted condescension — it never 

 even dreams of investigating the alleged facts, or of weighing 

 their significance. The whole are haughtily waived aside. The 

 facts are treated as if they were non-existent. Such an attitude 

 is unphilosophical and unscientific. It is childish and 

 contemptible. 



Before stating what seem to me to be necessary deductions 

 from the foregoing, I may be suffered to say a word upon a 

 somewhat common misconception. There is no necessary con- 

 nection between foreknowledge and predestination. Knowledge 

 of things past does not affect the facts in any way. The things 

 are not there because we know them : we know them because 

 they are there. And so with things future. Eeading of things 

 to come fixes no destiny. The destiny may be self-determined 

 or otherwise ; but foreknowledge is in itself no more responsible 

 for the destiny than my knowledge of the contents of to-day's 



