Now, as suspicious as this circumstance may appear at first sight, it will be found, on inquiry, to be exactly suited to that idea of prophecy which the text gives us of it, as being, from the first, and all along, intended to bear Testimony to Jesus. For from that idea I conclude again,
II. “That prophecies of a double sense may well be expected in such a scheme.”
And where is the wonder that, if prophecy was given to attest the coming of Jesus and the dispensation to be erected by him, it should occasionally, in every stage of it, respect its main purpose; and, though the immediate object be some other, it should never lose sight of that, in which it was ultimately to find its repose and end?
It hath been before observed, That, between the earlier notices concerning Jesus, and the advent of that great person, it seemed good to infinite wisdom (I speak in terms, suited to the representation of scripture) to institute the intermediate œconomy of the Jewish Law. Among other provisions for the administration of this Law, prophecy was one; and, upon its own pretensions, a necessary one; for the government claims to be strictly theocratical; and the people, to be governed by it, were to be made sensible, at every step, that it was so. Therefore the interesting events in their civil history were to be regarded by them, as coming within the cognisance, and lying under the controul, of their divine governour: to which end, a race of men were successively raised up among them, to give them warning of those events, and, by this divine foresight of what was seen to be accomplished in their history, to afford a clear conviction, that they were, in fact, under that peculiar government.
Add to this, that the Law itself, so wonderfully constructed, was but a part, indeed the rudiments, of one great scheme; was given, not for its own sake, but to make way for a still nobler and more generous institution; was, in truth, a preparatory state of discipline, or pædagogy, as St. Paul terms it, to bring the subjects of it, in due time, to Christ[27].
Jesus then, the object of the earliest prophecies, was not overlooked in this following dispensation; which was, indeed, instinct with presages of that divine person. It gave the shadow of good things to come, but the body was of Christ[28]. The legal prophets, in like manner, while they were immediately employed, and perhaps believed themselves to be solely employed, in predicting the occurrences of the Jewish state, were at the same time, preluding, as it were, to the person and dispensation of Jesus; the holy Spirit, which inspired them, bearing out their expression, and enlarging their conceptions, beyond the worth and size of those objects, which came directly in their view.
There is nothing in this account of prophecy, but what falls in with our best ideas of the divine wisdom; intently prosecuting one entire scheme; and directing the constituent parts of it to the general purpose of his providence, at the same time that each serves to accomplish its own.
This double, or secondary sense of prophecy was so far from giving offence to Lord Bacon, that he speaks of it with admiration, as one striking argument of its Divinity. In sorting the prophecies of scripture with their events (a work much desired by this wise author, and intended by this Lecture) we must allow, says he, for that latitude which is agreeable and familiar unto divine prophecies, being of the nature of the author, with whom a thousand years are but as one day; and therefore they are not fulfilled punctually at once, but have springing and germinant accomplishment throughout many ages, though the height or fulness of them may refer to some one age[29].
But, that we may not mistake, or pervert, this fine observation of our great philosopher, it may be proper to take notice, that the reason of it holds in such prophecies only as respect the several successive parts of one system; which, being intimately connected together, may be supposed to come within the view and contemplation of the same prophecy: whereas it would be endless, and one sees not on what grounds of reason we are authorized, to look out for the accomplishment of prophecy in any casual unrelated events of general history. The Scripture speaks of prophecy, as respecting Jesus, that is, as being one connected scheme of Providence, of which the Jewish dispensation makes a part: so that here we are led to expect that springing and germinant accomplishment, which is mentioned. But had the Jewish Law been complete in itself, and totally unrelated to the Christian, the general principle—that a thousand years are with God but as one day—would no more justify us in extending a Jewish prophecy to Christian events, because perhaps it was eminently fulfilled in them, than it would justify us in extending it to any other signally corresponding events whatsoever. It is only when the prophet hath one uniform connected design before him, that we are authorised to use this latitude of interpretation. For then the prophetic spirit naturally runs along the several parts of such design, and unites the remotest events with the nearest: the style of the prophet, in the mean time, so adapting itself to this double prospect, as to paint the near and subordinate event in terms that emphatically represent the distant and more considerable.
So that, with this explanation, nothing can be more just or philosophical, than the idea which Lord Bacon suggests of divine prophecy.