inys). It is a replacing the sinner in a state in which, as conforming to the Divine will, he is accepted by God, and becomes an object of the Divine complacency. God desires to be known as gracious and compassionate. "There is forgiveness () with Thee," says the Psalmist, cxxx. 4, “that Thou mayest be feared," i.e. that Thou mayest be in Thy forgiving mercy an object of veneration. Forgiveness of sins is an act which God performs for His name's sake, as it is expressed lxxix. 9. Hence the Old Testament speaks not only of the restlessness of him who conceals his sins, or forgives them himself, but also of the peace of him who is absolved from sin by the verdict of God. To this subject belong the whole of Ps. xxxii. and Prov. xxviii. 13, with which must be connected the passages in which the mercy of God towards contrite and humble hearts is spoken of, Ps. li., xxxiv., xix., etc. Hence we find not only ascriptions of praise for the future atonement, like Mic. vii. 18 sqq., but also thanksgivings for pardon received, like Ps. ciii. This experience of salvation, however, still remains but relative, and decidedly differs from that of the New Testament. In the first place, it does indeed afford peace of mind concerning individual sins, nay, for the moment, concerning the whole standing of the sinful subject before God; but not resting on an objective and permanent atonement obtained for the church, it does not establish any permanent state of reconciliation. That which applies to the church as a whole with respect to the insufficiency of the ministry of reconciliation established in it,-viz. that it was to the future that it must look for a perfect atonement and pardon, comp. Zech. iii. 8 sqq. (2), Ps. cxxx. 7 sq.: "O Israel, wait for the Lord; He will redeem Israel from all his sins,"— applies also, notwithstanding the inward nature of the expiation, Ps. li. 19, to the individual also. Not such atoning grace and justification were imparted to him as to enable him to say with the apostle: "Old things are passed away; behold, all things › become new." He was pacified concerning the past, but to begin again seeking to be henceforth just through the

works of the law. Feelings of love and gratitude to God, who had thus forgiven him, were aroused within him, and he experienced somewhat of the assistance of that Divine Spirit who creates willingness in man. But, in the second place, there was not in him, until the ἄνθρωπος πνευματικός appeared in Christ, an indwelling of this Spirit, in virtue of which a subversion of the old foundations of his life was effected, and the σπéρμа of a new and spiritual personality, of a spiritual man, implanted in him. This is aptly expressed by Rougemont (Christus und seine Zeugen), when he says that under the Old Testament conversion was indeed reached as a moral change, but not regeneration as a new creation. It is true that spiritual energies were already active within the psychical province; but even the very highest operation of the Divine Spirit in the Old Testament, viz. the gift of prophecy (comp. § 161), continued to be, as we shall soon see, an extraordinary condition, and one which even interfered in a violent manner with the ordinary course of its possessor's life. And it was just because, in the third place, the Divine Spirit did not make in the Old Testament saints a new foundation of life,-did not as yet work outwards from within, as the transforming principle of the whole man,—that the conquest of death and everlasting life were not effected. The individual might indeed be for the moment raised above death and the grave, comp. Ps. lxxiii. 26, etc. (and this subject will be discussed Part III.), but then death was but concealed under a veil. The deliverance from death connected with the pardon of sin in the Old Testament was only a transitory deliverance, a postponement of temporal death. It was in this sense that Nathan said unto David, 2 Sam. xii. 13, "Thou shalt not die;" in this that Job, the sick man, who had found forgiveness of sins, said, xxxiii. 28, "He has redeemed my soul from going into the pit, and my life shall see the light;" and in this also that the Psalmist exclaimed, ciii. 2 sqq., “Praise the Lord, O my soul, . . . who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who

crowneth thee with loving-kindness and tender mercies." And when Habakkuk enounces the proposition, "The just shall live," in (comp. § 203), it refers to deliverance and preservation under impending judgments, to such as was, e.g., expressed in the words of Jeremiah to Baruch, Jer. xlv. 5: "Thy life will I give thee for a prey" (comp. xxi. 9). It is a temporary deliverance from death, but the sentence of death is not cancelled. Hence how differently from Job xxx. 28 sound the thanksgivings of the justified in Rom. viii., when the Spirit of the risen Redeemer is energizing in the redeemed! Hence, too, the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews declares, xi. 40, that before the redemption of the New Testament, the fathers of the old covenant were not partakers of the τελείωσις.

From what has been advanced, it may be seen how much was wanting under the Old Testament dispensation to the full restoration of a filial relation towards God. The notion of Divine sonship as conferred upon the nation in general (§ 82.1), and then upon the theocratic king (§ 165, with note 7), nay, as affirmed in a special sense of the godly (Ps. lxxiii. 15, 777, the race of thy sons), was still but a notion, to be fully realized only in the future. The highest relation of intercourse between God and man, instituted by prophecy, does not attain to the eminence of that filial state inaugurated by the New Testament; for which reason Christ declares the greatest of the prophets to be less than the least in His kingdom, Matt. xi. 11.

(1) Information concerning this controversy will be found in Buddeus, in his Institutio theol. dogmat. Coccejus was opposed not only by Alting and Leydecker, but also by Witsius, De economia fæderum Dei, ed. 4, p. 786 sqq. (comp. § 11). Among moderns, comp. especially Fr. v. Rougemont's work, Le Christ et ses temoins, which contains a series of apt remarks on this subject.

(2) According to Zech. iii. 8 sq., the priesthood pointed only in a type (i) to the future Redeemer (comp. § 200).

THIRD DIVISION.

OF PROPHECY (1).

FIRST SUBDIVISION.

THE PROPHETIC CONSCIOUSNESS.

§ 205.

Negative Propositions.

Although the natural gifts and personal qualifications of one called to the prophetic office formed the individual presupposition of his prophetic vocation, and though the ministrations of a prophet were objectively conditioned by the state of affairs, and the testimony of each prophet connected with all the revealed testimony of his predecessors, still that which made the prophet a prophet was not his natural gifts nor his own intention, and that which he proclaimed as the prophetic word was not the mere result of instruction received nor the product of his own reflection.

Older theology certainly erred in too widely severing the prophecy from its connection both with the individuality, the moral and intellectual idiosyncrasy of the prophet, and with the objective historical circumstances in which it had its roots, thus conceiving of the individual prophet as inserted in the age like a deus ex machina. It is quite certain, however, that neither personal inclination, nor natural endowment, nor human training could make a prophet, and equally so that the knowledge obtained by instruction or study was incapable of producing a prophecy. However true it may be that a certain learned education was imparted in the so-called schools of the prophets (§§ 162 and 174), and yet more so that the prophets were themselves assiduous students of the law, the history of Israel, and the older prophecies, still the prophet differs essentially from the later scribe and Rabbinist. It is not his to say, "It is

through the entire Old Testament. The leading of Israel, from the time of their deliverance out of Egypt, Ex. ix. 31, xiv. 31, comp. especially Deut. i. 32, ix. 33, and other passages, rests entirely on faith. But in proportion as their Divine election seemed to human apprehension thwarted, and the promise of redemption forfeited, by the apostasy of the nation and the judgments thereby incurred, the more emphatically was it asserted how all-important faith was as the root of all righteousness, and the condition on which the blessing was to be obtained. The thesis of prophetism, Isa. vii. 9, runs thus:

ײן ז ין

,"If ye do not believe, truly ye shall not remain ;" it is the saying uttered by the prophet to Ahaz when he sought help from Assyria (§ 181); comp. 2 Chron. xx. 20 (1). What then is this faith? Negatively speaking, it is a ceasing from all natural confidence in one's own strength and power, a renunciation of all trust in human support and assistance. Accordingly Jeremiah thus describes unbelief, xvii. 5: "Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm" (which was just what Ahaz had done). Positively, it is a fastening or support; for this is the proper meaning of N, namely, a fastening of the heart upon the Divine word of promise, a leaning upon the power and faithfulness of God, by reason of which He can and will effect what He chooses in spite of all earthly obstacles, and therefore a resting upon the 5, Ps. lxxiii. 26. Compare what is said Ps. cxii. 7 sq. of the just man:

נָכוֹן לִבּוֹ יִירָא His heart is fixed, trusting in tlie ") בָּטְחַ בַּיהוָה: סָמוּךְ לִבּוֹ לֹא

Lord; his heart is established, he shall not be afraid"). On its negative side, whereby faith renounces self-chosen human ways, it is a resting in, a quiet waiting upon God, Isa. xxx. 15, comp. with viii. 17, Ps. lxii. 6, and other passages, which resting involves a fearlessness of all the threats of men, Jer. viii. 12, and especially xxviii. 16: NE (2). On its positive, it is a sanctifying of the Lord, viii. 13, a giving of glory to His sole sovereignty, comp. Jer. xiii. 16. If N designates faith as the