It is certainly to be deplored that error and
fanaticism have been so often mingled with prophetic studies. God has been thereby dishonored, and his word
profaned. The lips of scoffers have been
opened in taunt and derision, while timid believers have kept silence, as if
unable to reply.
We need not keep silence. Let us admit the fact on which the mockery is
founded, and there let it rest. It will
humble us; it will inspire caution; it will teach us wisdom, but it will do no
more. It will not deter us from such
studies, nor will it lead us to impeach the Word of God for consequences in
which man alone is the delinquent. It
will not lead us to join in the fears of the over-prudent respecting the
perilous nature of these investigations, nor to relinquish the field as either
impracticable, or barren, or injurious.
Because visions of futurity, drawn professedly from Scripture, have,
with unholy fire, kindled some burning fancies into the wildness of a frenzied
enthusiasm……are we, therefore, to shut up the prophetic record, and turn away
our eyes from pages tamped so broadly with the seal, and encircled so brightly
with the blessing of God? Are the
prophets to be treated as if belonging to the kindred of the sybils, and their
books to be buried out of sight? Nothing more profane has ever been uttered
against Scripture, than that the study of any part of it is fitted to unhinge
the mind, or raise its temperature beyond the point of calm and solemn
inquiry. No Romanist ever promulgated an
idea so indefensible as that any region of Scripture is unfruitful or forbidden
ground, to be employed merely as a field out of which a casual text may be
culled as taste or fancy may incline; that whole chapters and books of
Scripture are wrapt in such studied mystery that the very endeavor to
understand them betokens rashness and folly.
"Secret things belong to God," says
an objector. Most certainly; and whoever
insists on prying into God's secrets will only proclaim his own pride and
plunge himself into profounder ignorance.
But prophecy is no secret thing; it is a thing revealed. It is not truth over which God has drawn the
veil. It is just the opposite. It is truth from which God has withdrawn the
veil, on purpose that we may know it and profit by it.……We hear much of the
difference between things essential and things non-essential; but who will
undertake to draw the dividing line? Or
who will venture to affirm that the prophetic portions of the Word are its
non-essentials? Do not such truths as
the advent, the resurrection, the judgment, form some of the chief scenes of
prophecy; and are these non-essentials?
Strange, truly strange, that man should make such a division of the Word
of God! Stranger still, that he should
make it for the purpose of excusing himself for the neglect of so large and
precious a portion of revelation. Is not
the fact of its being revealed enough to show us that God thought it essential;
or if not essential absolutely and with reference to salvation, at least
essential relatively and as pertaining to holiness? If a man will persist in calling it
non-essential, surely he will not irreverently pronounce it unimportant? And if it be admitted to be important, then
surely all farther argument is at end.
It must be studied. We dare not
overlook or postpone the duty.
- Horatius Bonar
From his book: Prophetic Landmarks
No comments:
Post a Comment