(α) "The failure of a prophecy is never admitted, in spite of Scripture and of history, (Jer. xxxvi. 30. Isaiah xxiii. Amos vii. 10-17.)" (p. 343.)
Now this can only mean two things: viz. first, that a Divine Prophecy is not an infallible utterance: and secondly, that the three places quoted from the Old Testament are proofs of the fallibility of Prophecy; proofs which ought to overcome prejudice, and persuade men to renounce their "previous supposition" that Prophecy is infallible.
Certainly the charge is a grave one. For if Prophecy is untrue, then what becomes of Inspiration?
And yet, how stands the case? The writer seems to have expected "that no one would refer to the passages that he has bracketed, or that all would be too ignorant to know the utter groundlessness of his assumption. If there are, in the whole Scripture, two past prophecies which were signally and remarkably fulfilled, they are the first two which he has selected as instances to be dropped down, without a remark, of the failure of Scripture prophecies! And as to the third passage, surely it implies an 'incuria' which might be deemed 'crassa' to have asserted that it contained an instance of the non-fulfilment of Prophecy: for it implies that Mr. Jowett has read the verses to which he refers with so little attention as not to have discovered that the prediction which failed of its fulfilment was no utterance of Amos, but was the message of Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, in which he falsely attributes to Amos words he had not spoken!... Surely such slips as these are as discreditable to a scholar as a Divine[225]!"
And this, from a gentleman who has the impertinence to remind us oracularly, that "he who would understand the nature of Prophecy in the Old Testament, should have the courage to examine how far its details were minutely fulfilled!" (p. 347.) Are we then to infer that Mr. Jowett's courage failed him when he came to Amos vii. 10-17?
(β) "The mention of a name later than the supposed age of the prophet is not allowed, as in other writings, to be taken in evidence of the date. (Isaiah xlv. 1.)" (p. 343.)
But what is the meaning of this complaint when applied to Isaiah's well known prophecy concerning Cyrus? In the words of the excellent critic last quoted,—"We know not that we could point to such an instance as this in the writings of any other author of credit. Of course, Mr. Jowett knows as well as we do the distinction between History and Prophecy; and that the mention in any document of the name of one who was unborn at the time fixed as the date of the writing, would be at once a complete disproof of its accuracy as a history of the past, and a proof of its accuracy as a prediction of the future. Of course he also remembers that the point he has to prove is that this passage is History and not Prediction; and his mode of proving is this; he assumes that it is a history of the past,—advancing as a charge against the believers of Revelation, that they do not, (as they would in any other History,) reject the genuineness of the passage because it embalms a future name in a past history!... This audacious, (for we cannot use a weaker word,) assumption of what he has to prove, pervades his Essay[226]."
And thus, into whatever department of speculation we follow this writer, the tortuous path is still found to conduct us back to the same underlying fallacious assumption,—viz. that the Bible is like any other Book; in other words, is not inspired.
(γ) Persons in Mr. Jowett's position, "find themselves met by a sort of presupposition that 'God speaks not as Man speaks.'"—(p. 343.)
"A sort of presupposition," indeed!... Does the Reverend gentleman really expect that we will stoop so low as argue this point also with him? It shall suffice to have branded him with his own words.