wholly withdraw ourselves from
inquiries of this kind, but that to pursue them in a confident
and dogmatic spirit, as if we had been admitted to the
council-chamber of heaven, and had there learned the exact day
and hour on which the papal throne must fall, or our Lord
reappear on earth, is a mark, not of wisdom, but of weakness and
folly.

5. In the _second_ and larger class of prophecies relating to the last
days, the element of time, and especially that of succession in time, is
either wholly wanting, or is indicated in only a vague and general way.

Examples of this class of prophecies are almost innumerable. A
remarkable specimen is found in the fourth chapter of Isaiah,
viewed in connection with the preceding context. The prophet's
position is that of his own day. He writes at a time when heavy
calamities are impending over his countrymen. With these
calamities he begins: "Behold the Lord, the Lord of hosts, doth
take away from Judah and Jerusalem the stay and the staff, the
whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water, the mighty
man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the
prudent, and the ancient, the captain of fifty, and the
honorable man, and the counsellor, and the cunning artificer,
and the eloquent orator." Chap. 3:1-3. So he proceeds, in terms
which must apply primarily to the Babylonish captivity, to the
end of the third chapter, which closes with the terrible
denunciation: "Thy men shall fall by the sword, and thy mighty
men in war. And her gates shall lament and mourn; and she, being
desolate, shall sit upon the ground" (ver. 25, 26). To complete
the picture of desolation, it is added in the beginning of the
fourth chapter: "And in that day seven women shall take hold of
one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own
apparel: only let us be called by thy name to take away our
reproach." The obvious meaning of this last threatening is, that
the mass of the men shall perish in war, so that the surviving
women cannot find husbands. Seven of them, therefore, ask of one
man the privilege of being called each his wife, while they
offer to forego all the usual advantages of that relation. Thus
far the prophet proceeds in a strain of threatening. But now,
with the single formula, "in that day," there is a sudden
transition to promise,