VI. THE PROPHETS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.1 'We have also a more sure word of prophecy.'-2 PET. 1. 19. W E are so familiar with these words, and with the corresponding passages in the First Epistle that bears the name of the same apostle, as applied to the prophetic writings of the Old Testament; they offer, as it seems, so ready and powerful a weapon for the apologist who maintains the authority and inspiration of those writings, that one who has been led to take a different view is almost tempted to shrink back into silence. To declare the conviction that the words in both cases refer not to the written words of the older prophets, but to the spoken words of the prophets who were living and working when the apostle wrote, may seem to many so likely to disturb and nsettle an inherited belief, the conviction itself much at variance with the consensus, almost unanimous, of interpreters, that it would be natural 1 Preached before the University of Oxford, November 13, 1864. enough to veil the conviction with a prudent reticence, and to avoid this as one would avoid any other occasion of offence. Every truer and better feeling, however, enters its protest against such an unworthy and timorous wisdom. To seek safety rather than truth, to repeat old words as applicable to that to which we have ceased to think that they apply, to ignore and avoid a question because it is difficult and hazardous—this is not the way to enter into the secret treasure-chambers of the House of the Interpreter. It wellnigh vitiates all other gifts which help men to appropriate those treasures. Elaborate accuracy, vivid illustration, logical subtlety, an almost prophetic earnestness,—all these may be so marred and trammelled by the fear of forsaking the beaten track, and entering on a new path, that they may fail to bring us to the true life and meaning of the words, to the feelings and the thoughts of those who spoke them. Fatal as is the love of novelty for its own sake, the fascination of bold or sceptical speculation, this shrinking back from new forms of truth is hardly less so. The true interpreter unites reverence for those who have explored the mines of truth with the belief that the gold, and the silver, and the precious stones are still unexhausted and inexhaustible. 'The scribe instructed to the kingdom of heaven, brings forth out of his treasures things new and old." I ask you then, brethren, as men in whom this spirit is or should be dominant, to follow me in this inquiry into the meaning of St. Peter's words, taking each step carefully, and with open eyes prepared to accept the conclusion, if the path really leads to it. That conclusion, so far from undermining our reverence for the Divine Word, will be found, I believe, to clothe it with a new authority and power. The Second Epistle of St. Peter will stand forth more clearly, as on the same level, and by the same writer as the First, one in thought and language, showing the same influences acting from without, the same Spirit teaching and guiding from within. Truth, for its own sake, would be worth having; clearer insight into the life of the apostolic Church, into the methods of God's working, would be its own reward. But here, as elsewhere, it may happen that those who seek safety first will find themselves in the end occupying positions that are unsafe and untenable; that those who follow truth fearlessly will find that, as she is strong next to the Almighty,' so is she also safe, as abiding in the tabernacle of God, sheltered under the everlasting arms. 6 (1.) The first step in our progress is simple and 1 Matt. xiii. 52. easy enough, though it too requires the correction of language which we have used vaguely, and often wrongly. Most of us, it may be, can remember the time, when the chief or the only thought suggested to us by what we heard in Collects or Lessons, of the 'church built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,'1 was that of the unity of the two great portions of God's revelation of Himself. The prophets of the Old Testament and the apostles of the New, the 'goodly fellowship' and the 'glorious company,' -these made up, we thought, the foundation on which the Church of Christ was built, He himself being the chief corner-stone. Here, indeed, the true meaning is demonstrable at once. 'God hath set some in his Church, first apostles, secondarily prophets. The words of the Wisdom of God, speaking in the Incarnate Son, pointed to them both as future: 'I will send unto them prophets and apostles.' St. Paul spoke of them as both equally present: 'He gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists.' It is of these that he says 5 that their labours in governing and teaching were the groundwork of that goodly superstructure. Upon them the Church was built. It is of these that he declares that the 12 1 Eph. ii. 20; Collect for St. Simon and St Jude's Day. 21 Cor. xii. 28. 4 Eph. iv. 11. mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, had been revealed to them, the apostles and prophets, by the Spirit.'1 Yes, we underrate at once the extent and the importance of that prophetic gift in the apostolic Church. We think of a liturgical order and of Church government, systematized, as it came to be in the second or third century, and forget that all along there was this power, exceptional, in one sense abnormal, but for that very reason mightier for good than any routine of discipline or worship could be. Outwardly, indeed, the most striking feature in the life of the Church of Christ was, that it was the revival of the prophetic order. More than four hundred years had passed since any one had risen up to speak the word of the Lord to Israel, and men had sighed as hopelessly for its revival as for the recovery of the Urim and Thummim of the high priest. But at last the revival came, when the word of the Lord came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness, and men counted him as 'a prophet.' When One greater than John came teaching as having authority, they looked to Him as the prophet, or 'one of the prophets.'4 When the day of Pentecost came the gifts took 1 Eph. iii. 5. 2 Neh. vii. 65. 8 Mark xi. 32. |