world and sensual pleasure; if the will be debauched by vice; if the understanding be perverted and blinded by pride and conceit.

Let the example of the heathen philosophers at the time of our Lord, be a warning to us. For what did Tacitus, and Suetonius, and Seneca, and Pliny know of the Christian doctrine? What conviction did the miraculous works of Christ produce on their minds? "The preaching of the cross was foolishness" to them. In their proud search after wisdom, and their contempt of the whole Jewish nation, they looked not beyond the surface. They examined nothing with candor and seriousness. They never approached the Christian question. They dismissed it so far as they heard of it by rumor, as unworthy their regard. With the same spirit as the modern literary unbeliever, they gave no heed to the divine message, bestowed no pains on ascertaining its truth, and lived and died in the gross and miserable bondage of their vices and ignorance. Such is the tendency of pride in the fallen heart of man. Let us guard against the first approaches to such a state of mind. Let us be led by the miracles to a serious study of the Scriptures, that we may see the doctrine of a crucified Lord to be "the power of God, and the wisdom of God."

III. But we must not rest in a formal adherence to the Christian faith. The example of the Jews may warn us against this opposite, but not less dangerous, evil. They were near the Saviour. They saw his miracles. They received, at the time, the deepest impression of his divine mission. They knew and acknowledged, at first, that he was the Christ, the Saviour of the world. But as our Lord afterwards developed his character and doctrine, as he rebuked the vices of the scribes and Pharisees, condemned their traditions, exposed their hypocrisy, expounded the spiritual nature of his kingdom, and called them to repentance and conversion, they began to hate his person and steel their hearts against his most decisive miraculous works. They persuaded themselves that he opposed their law, which they well knew to be divine. They attributed his miracles to evil spirits. They tempted him by cavils, and watched for his words that they might accuse him. They persisted in their unbelief, till that came upon them which was spoken of by the prophets, "By hearing ye shall hear and shall not understand;

and seeing ye shall see and shall not perceive. For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed: lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them."

That you may avoid this awful state, yield now to the conviction which calls you to heaven. Open wide the gate, so to speak, that the truth may enter in. Close your ears to vain objections, and your hearts to corrupt pleasures, and give yourselves up to preparation for the doctrine of Christ. "Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation." The glorious apparatus of miracles brings you up to the feet of Christ. There fall prostrate. There confess your sins. There implore his mercy. There renounce every criminal passion. There supplicate the inward influences of grace. There enter upon new resolutions of obeying the religion you profess, and acting on the evidences you have received. Remember, the higher you rise in privileges, the lower will be your fall, if you abuse or neglect them. The knowledge you have been blessed with, cannot but bring with it a correspondent accountableness. Call to mind the doom of those cities in which our Lord's mightiest deeds had been performed -"Wo unto thee, Chorazin! wo unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained unto this day."*

May God grant that the blessed purpose of our Lord's miracles may be fulfilled in our humiliation and salvation! For this is their high end-"These things were written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through his name."

* St. Matthew xi. 21-23.

For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye-witnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount. We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts: Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,

In the last Lecture, we considered the proof of the divine authority of the Christian religion, derived from the miracles which were wrought in attestation of it.

We now proceed to consider the second great branch of the same proof, that from prophecy; the nature and importance of which are fully developed in the words of the text. It will be recollected, that the state of our general argument is this, We have abundantly proved the AUTHENTICITY and CREDI BILITY of the books of the New Testament, and by them established those of the Old, Indeed, the former are built upon the latter, and recognize them in almost every page.

We have also demonstrated the DIVINE AUTHORITY of the New Testament from the evidence of miracles; which includes again the divine authority of the Old. For Christianity is the completion of the religion of Moses; his miracles, doctrine and legation, are repeatedly and solemnly attested

by our Saviour and his apostles, and declared to be from God.

The Old and New Testaments, therefore, are true; the sacred books are all genuine, and were severally published at the time when they profess to have been-the facts occurred as they are there stated; every thing may be fully credited, so far as the historical question goes. Moreover, the religion contained in the Holy Scriptures is proved to be of divine authority, to the extent of the evidence which miracles afford.

We now come to the second proof of this divine authority, arising from the clear and undoubted prophecies which have been fulfilled, and are now fulfilling before the eyes of men, in the events and revolutions of the world.

A proof this of surprising force, and as much displaying the interposition of Almighty God as miracles. Nay, more sonot as to the truth of the interposition, but as to the extent and prominence of the display of the divine attributes. Miracles are proofs chiefly of the omnipotence of God; but prophecy exhibits also the foreknowledge, the omniscience, the wisdom, the truth, the moral sovereignty of the supreme Governor of the world.

The argument arising from prophecy follows that from miracles. Prophecy is designed not to give immediate conviction-its very nature forbids that-but to lay in the materials of conviction, for those who should witness the accomplishment of its predictions. Miracles, therefore, being a direct, independent evidence of a divine communication, and waiting for no remote fulfilment, were the fit attestation, in the first instance, of a revelation from heaven. The Law was introduced on the evidence of miracles: but when Moses had proved his own commission by these immediate credentials, he delivered predictions of a greater Prophet; which, concurring with those of the patriarchs, and leading on to the whole series of predictions which designated the person of the Saviour, and the nature of his kingdom, made the evidence from prophecy essential to the future ages of the church. The Jews, being in possession of a religion attested by miracles, would have still adhered to it, unless something in that very religion had taught them to look for a new dispensation at the coming of their Messiah. To them, therefore, prophecy was indispensable; and accordingly our Lord not only performed miracles as a prophet of God, but professed to be the Messiah foretold in the Jewish Scriptures. The fulfilment of the predic

tions, therefore, relating to the Messiah, furnished the appropriate confirmation of all those claims which rested on our Lord's miracles and doctrine. Thus, as our text observes, we have "the word of prophecy" made more sure.

Prophecy, also, is important to the Christian church, as a perpetual testimony to the truth of divine revelation, both in the predictions already accomplished in the person of Christ, and in the history of the Jewish people and neighboring nations; and in the gradual fulfilment of those extended chronological predictions which embrace all the succession of events to the end of time.

The prophetical argument, of course, requires a more patient attention than that derived from miracles. Miracles were palpable, instant, direct appeals to the omnipotent God, subject to the immediate senses, the eyes and ears of man: prophecy requires time, and a cautious and minute comparison of the language of the sacred oracles with the correspondent fulfilment. The argument is of a slower growth and a longer period; but when fairly established, brings in all the perfections of Deity in attestation of a divine revelation: it is a standing miracle.

And if the prophecies are found to be pronounced by the same persons, and for the support of the same doctrines and no other, as were supported by the miraculous operations→ that is, if those who wrought the miracles delivered the predictions; and those who delivered the predictions performed the miracles, the result, in point of evidence, is the more triumphant.

Let us now proceed to consider this evidence of scriptural prophecy in its GENERAL FEATURES AND SCHEME; and then let us give a specimen of the ACTUAL AND CLEAR FULFILMENT

OF ITS PREDICTIONS BEFORE THE EYES OF MANKIND.

We shall confine ourselves to the first of these divisions on the present occasion. We shall here begin by laying down a definition of prophecy-we shall then point out its vast extent -the union and harmony of all its parts in the person of the Saviour the infinite wisdom apparent in the contrivance and arrangement of these parts-the divine commission and unimpeachable moral conduct of the persons who delivered the several predictions and the important practical uses which prophecy has subserved, and still subserves, in the church. These particulars constitute what we may call the general features or scheme of divine prophecy.