72 



REV. JOHN URQUHAR'J', ON 



newspaper makes me responsible for wliat was placed upon the 

 printed page. 



Let me now conclude by indicating some corollaries from our 

 study. 



1. Foreknowledge is not a power possessed by any merely 

 human mind. That is the testimony of every human conscious- 

 ness. It is the consciousness of our owm utter incapacity to 

 read the future which explains our astonishment and awe when 

 we are convinced that this has nevertheless been done. 



2. Since prediction is an act of intelligence, the fact of predic- 

 tion must be accepted as proof of the existence and of the 

 activity of mind that is superhuman. 



3. The vast variety of the predictions of Scripture, and the 

 ease with which they sweep through centuries, while dealing 

 with special, and fully described, details, show that here we are 

 in contact with a vast intelligence that is unlimited in this 

 power of foresight. 



4. The study of these predictions would have saved us the 

 lamentable misdirection of recent discussions upon the limits of 

 inspiration and the Divine and human elements in the Scripture. 

 The suggestion of two-foldness in a prediction, every word of 

 which has revealed the then future, is presumptuous trifling. 

 The message in its entirety is supernatural ; and a Book that 

 has such seals leaves no doubt in any candid mind as to its 

 origin and claims. 



Discussion. 



The Chairman : Mr. Urquhart's paper deals with non-moral 

 and non-spiritual instances of Prediction as well as with Prediction 

 contained in spiritual Prophecy. As regards the former, which is 

 somewhat akin to second sight, it is difficult in many cases to 

 distinguish between truth and imposture ; but there seems to be 

 undoubted evidence of some true cases. A clergyman now 

 working in London has more than once told in my hearing the 

 story of a dream which he had one year some weeks before a 

 University match at Lord's, of a trifling but most improbable 

 circumstance which was happening to him there, he knew not how 

 or why, and of its exact fulfilment when the match took place. 

 Personally, I feel imable to agree with all the details of the paper : I 

 regard the prophecies in the Bible as foretelling the coming and 

 growth of the Kingdom of God, but not as predicting modern 



