PROPHECY
The instances of the fulfillment of
predictions are too numerous to be set aside as
coincidences. If we admit that every effect has a cause; that every
event or action in human affairs is led up to by a series
of causes and effects, then it
follows as an unavoidable conclusion that if intelligence and knowledge
could be sufficiently far-reaching, the events
of the future could be foretold with
the accuracy of knowledge of the past
events leading thereto. An astronomer
has no difficulty in prophesying in eclipse of the moon next year, or a
hundred years hence, because he knows the laws governing the sun, earth
and moon. In simpler form be prophesies that the sun will rise at such an hour to-morrow or next
week.
There is no difficulty in admitting
the possibility of prophecy here. In the vastly more intricate and
complex relations of living and intellectual beings, such is the
infinite net-work of cause and effect, that it appears
impossible for any intelligence to be able to unravel the blended web.
Yet we have no doubt of the existence
of spiritual beings, with minds so
conversant with causes as to forecast the future of an individual or a
state with the certainty with
which an astronomer calculates an eclipse. It is not
within the capability of any medium. The medium is a receiving
instrument and the value of his
prophecy depends on the knowledge of the
spirits who communicate through and
by him. With spirit beings this faculty greatly varies. A spirit, simply
because a spirit, cannot prophesy.
The greater proportion know little of
cause and effect and are incapable of
hazarding more than a conjecture. Yet
these ignorant spirits are first to
prophesy future events, and bring
shame to those who trust them.
An astronomer can calculate an
eclipse of the sun to the fraction of a second, a thousand years in the
future or in the past. In other words he is able by his knowledge of
planetary laws to prophesy what will be the sun's place relative to the
moon and earth a thousand years hence. It is foreordained by laws that
these bodies shall reach such positions at such time. In the same manner
the position of the planets is calculated or prophesied. As
not a mote whirls in the air except as
impelled by law; as not a being sentient or intellectual, but is created
and sustained by law, if the laws of creative being were understood, the
calculation or prophesy could be made with as much certainty in the realm
of life as in that of cosmic bodies.
This is not foreordination, which means
that a divine will planned and saw the unfoldment of the plan to remotest
ages, and this idea almost necessitates a personal deity. It is that
effects cumulate in causes running to other effects, in an infinite
series, along grooves called laws, and these being determined by
organization and environment cannot change. The true prophet must have a
vast store of knowledge back of him, either his own or from a spiritual
source.
A spiritual intelligence with great
knowledge may read the order of events with more or less
certainty—according to its understanding—and impress a sensitive with its
conclusions. A true prophet must have either
knowledge or inspiration from those having knowledge.
And here let us again make a
distinction between this order of prophecy
and the so-called divine, which is noticeable because false and never
fulfilled. Not a single instance can be pointed out where the latter has
proven correct, in general or
in details. As instance the most explicit made
by Jesus Christ, which kept his
apostles on the watch for his second coming that was to make them rulers,
culminated in the Millerite excitement, which made it a farce.
He did not come as he promised, he
cannot come, with a flourish of Gabriel's trumpet, and judge the nations,
and not a well-informed person
in the world believes that it is possible for him to do so.
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