our
sons and your daughters shall prophesy," etc.--is a promise not yet
exhausted, predictions given by the Holy Spirit may have been given
through Christians in former times, and may still be given. But if such
be the fact, these are not secular predictions; but spiritual and
supernatural, and of the same class with those of Scripture; they are
therefore not to be cited by Rationalists as examples of secular
prediction.

But it is objected that "the prophecies of Scripture are as obscure as
the oracles; are all wrapped up in symbolical language; that many of
them have a double meaning; that no two interpreters are agreed as to
the meaning of the unfulfilled predictions; and that no man can
certainly foretell any future event by means of them."

The objection proceeds on a total mistake of the nature and design of
prophecy, which is not to unvail the future for the gratification of
your curiosity, but to give you direction in your present duty;
precisely the reverse of the oracles referred to, which proposed to tell
their votaries what should happen, but rarely condescended to direct
them how to behave themselves so that things might happen well. The
larger part of the prophecies of Scripture is taken up with directions
to men how to regulate their conduct, rather than with information how
God means to regulate his. There is just as much of the latter as is
sufficient to show us that the God who gave the Bible governs the world,
and even that always urges the same moral lesson: "Say ye to the
righteous that it shall be well with him, for he shall eat the fruit of
his doings." "Woe to the wicked; it shall be ill with him, for the
reward of his hands shall be given him." Whenever a vision relates to
what God will do in the distant future, it is dark and mysterious; but
whenever any directions are given necessary for our immediate duty, then
the "vision is written and made plain on tables, _that he may run that
readeth it_." The possessors of a clearly engrossed title-deed have
surely no reason to complain that the president has chosen that his seal
appended to it shall consist of a device, which, by reason of its being
hard to read, and harder to imitate, secures both himself and them
against forgery. The double meaning of some prophecies is a double
check. So far from resembling the equivocations of heathen oracles, by
taking either of two opposite events for a fulfillment, they require
both of two corresponding ones;