I. SCRIPTURAL PROPHECY IS THE DECLARATION BEFOREHAND OF SUCH EVENTS AS CAN BE KNOWN ONLY TO THE OM NISCIENT GOD. It implies the undoubted prediction of future and often remote occurrences, dependent on the contingencies of human affairs, and frequently on the character and conduct of persons at the time unborn; so as distinctly to mark the foresight and sovereignty of the infinitely wise and powerful Creator and Governor of the world. The conjectures which the most sagacious of mankind may venture to indulge with respect to futurity, are, as we all know, few and hazardous; and are only rarely confirmed, and then very partially, by events. The oracles of the heathen were of this kind; they were merely, as our text expresses it, cunningly devised fables," designed to soothe the immediate apprehensions of men as to some pending concern, calculated to gratify the depraved passions of earthly rulers and conquerors, and aiming at the advancement of those who delivered them, to wealth, authority or reputation. They were couched, moreover, in loose and ambiguous language; were very seldom accomplished; and then, perhaps, by some disgraceful play upon terms. They were little more than the guesses of jugglers and fortune-tellers.* Divine prophecy is no "cunningly devised fable;—it came not at any time by the will of man." It is the clear prediction of important events connected with the salvation of mankind; events so numerous, so circumstantially marked out, so entirely beyond the reach of human conjecture, and delivered by persons designated by such undoubted credentials to the sacred function, as to carry upon it the impress of divine prescience and wisdom-" Prophecy came not of old time (margin, at any time) by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." II. The EXTENT of scriptural prophecy is vast in various points of view. Its records occupy a large portion of the volume of inspiration. It began to be uttered when man fell, * When Croesus consulted the oracle at Delphi, relative to his intended war against the Persians, he received the following reply: Κροίσος "Αλυν διαβας μεγάλην αρχην καταλύσει; "Cræsus crossing the Halys, shall destroy a great empire." This he naturally interpreted of his overcoming the Persians. He was himself conquered, and lost his empire. The juggling oracle, however, by the ambiguity, saved its credit. Herod. lib. i. c. 53; Suidas, iii. 382; H. Horne, i. 4. § 3. and ceased not till the close of the Jewish dispensation. At the birth of our Lord it broke forth again, and sunk only with the last accents on the lips of the last of the apostles. Its parts are distributed over the various dispensations of religion for four thousand years. Guilty man was not thrust out of paradise, till prophecy had whispered some hope of a future Saviour. Predictions of the flood preceded that tremendous judgment; and a prophetic declaration that the deluge should not return, accompanied its cessation. The call of Abraham was attended with a prophetical annunciation of the land of promise, and the seed in whom all nations should be blessed. Jacob, on his dying couch, foretold the increase of his sons, the twelve patriarchs; and the continuance of the lawgiver in Judah till the advent of Shiloh. After the long-predicted bondage of Egypt, prophecy rekindled its torch, pointed out the "prophet like unto Moses;" and then sketched the most remote events of the Jewish story; whilst Job and the unwilling testimony of Balaam came in about the same time, to testify of the future Redeemer, and of the star that was to arise out of Jacob. After a cessation of prophecy, from the time of Moses, of about four hundred years, Samuel arose,* amidst the decay of religion and the extreme corruption of the priesthood, the first of a new series of divine messengers. The age of prophecy, emphatically so termed, now began. David came first, and tuned his harp. The remarkable prophet Jonaht followed; then Hosea, Amos and Micah, who led on the choir of the greater prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. The latter of these accompanied the Jewish people to Babylon, where Daniel arose and spake of the seventy weeks reaching unto Messiah the Prince. Haggai and Zechariah aroused the languid nation on their return, and Malachi§ announced the herald of the Saviour. As a pause of four hundred years intervened after the death of Moses, so did a like pause hush every whisper of prophecy till Christ our Lord arose- -ushered in, according to the prophetic declarations, by his precursor, John Baptist, and predicted the destruction of the Jewish city, and the dissolution of their polity. His blessed doctrine St. Paul followed first, * B. C. 1451-1056. + B. C. 975-862. § B. C. 396. and then St. John, taking up the strain of Daniel, expanding the visions which he had recorded, and pronouncing the predictions which have been fulfilling ever since, in the events of the world. Thus extensive IN POINT OF TIME, prophecy was not less so in respect of THE DISPENSATIONS which it subserved, the OBJECTS which it embraced, the MODES of its being communicated, and the PERIODS of its fulfilment. The nations bordering on Judea, the greatest heathen states, the succession of empires as connected with the church, the punishment of guilty individuals and of kingdoms-events near and remote-were the objects of prophetic vision. The writers of the prophecies were of every different class; some kings or princes, others patriarchs and heads of tribes, others prophets or priests, others legislators, others shepherds or fishermen. Their natural abilities, education, habits and employments were exceedingly dissimilar. They received the divine communications by various methods-voices from heaven, dreams, visions, angelic messages, direct impressions of the sacred Spirit. They wrote laws, history, odes, devotional exercises, doctrines and controversy. Moreover, the various usages and rites, the institutions and persons connected with the worship of God, the princes raised up to rule over the people, the very land in which they reposed as their inheritance, were prophetical symbols of future blessings. Every thing was pregnant with the prescient spirit under the former Testament. It is quite obvious that this wide range and prodigious extent gives to the argument from prophecy, when verified by the respective fulfilments, an importance and sublimity, a sort of impress of divine magnificence, which surpasses all we could have conceived. We have not one or two oracular declarations, but a whole system of predictive grandeur running through every period of time, and stretching on to the consummation of all things.t III. Then the union and HARMONY OF ALL ITS PARTS in the person and salvation of our Lord, as its CENTRE POINT, increases the proof of divine prescience. It was not, indeed, * A. D. 96. + It is impossible to make this fully apparent to any but the serious student, who has really read the Bible with attention. To others, the references of this branch of our argument must appear confused. necessary to the establishment of a divine revelation, that a connection should subsist between the various and widely spread ramifications of prophecy. The foretelling of any distant and unconnected events would have attested the Christian religion. But it has pleased God to keep one grand end in view, to unite the scattered rays of light in one bright and refulgent object, the person and kingdom of the Messiah. When the apostle sums up in the text the prophetic records, he says, he had "made known the power and coming of Christ;" and in a similar passage in his first epistle, he describes the prophets as "testifying beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow." The "testimony of" or concerning "Jesus," says St. John, in his Apocalypse,"is the spirit of prophecy"-the scope, end, consummation of it. "To him give all the prophets witness," is the language of St. Paul. And our Lord himself said to the Jews, "Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they that testify of me.' And, "beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto his disciples in all the Scriptures, the things concerning himself." The first coming of Christ is the centre of one great division; the second coming of Christ comprehends the other. Remote as were the times when the prophecies were delivered, and unconnected as the divine messengers frequently were with each other, they are all found to illustrate one design, and that design the most dignified, the most beneficent, the most important to man, the most glorious to God which could be propounded. From the primeval promise in paradise, to the last of the apocalyptic visions, one theme, one mighty subject prevails; not always prominent, but always to be collected by a careful examination of the several particulars, their dependence on each other, and their reference to one common end. The entire riches of the prophetical inspiration are poured at the feet of the Son of God. A spirit of prophecy pervading all time, attaching itself to one person, and proclaiming the progress and accomplishment of one purpose of exuberant grace, gives an attestation to the Christian religion so sublime, so irresistible, as at once to convince the judgment and captivate the heart.* * See Bishop Hurd, to whom, and Bishops Sherlock and Horsley, I need not say, I am much indebted in this department of the argument. Mr. Davison's incomparable work has also greatly aided me throughout this lecture. IV. The INFINITE WISDOM apparent in the contrivance and arrangement of its parts, in subservience to this one great end, is a further evidence of a divine hand in the prophecies of the Scriptures. St. Paul, accordingly, on the contemplation of one branch only of the great scheme, assures us that "unto the principalities and powers in the heavenly places is made known by the church the manifold -multiform, variegated-wisdom of God." A similar sentiment is expressed by St. Peter, in the passage of his first epistle to which I have already referred, and which is an appendage, as it were, of my text. After reciting the solicitude of the ancient prophets to "search what and what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow"-the apostle adds in terms, brief, indeed, but sublime beyond expression, "which things the angels desire to look into." In this respect the argument from prophecy differs widely from that from miracles. Miracles, though permanent in their effects, are in themselves brief suspensions of the general laws of nature, subject at once to the eyes and ears and other senses of all who witness them, and, therefore, exacting the instant assent of the beholder. The more clear and sudden and surprising miracles are, the better they accomplish their end, that of proving a direct divine interposition. Not so the word of prophecy. The argument here arises, as we have already intimated, from a patient comparison of the prediction with the fulfilment, from a consideration of a variety of small and, apparently, trifling coincidences, from a careful examination of all the records of history, and from a study of the entire scheme by an analysis of its parts. The more, therefore, of wisdom there is developed in this scheme, the higher the proof of divine interference. And what language can describe the infinite contrivance of the prophetical word? The difficulties to be overcome were many and insuperable, except to the divine mind. A direct and unvailed discovery of futurity would not have been prophecy, but the disclosure of the "secret things which belong unto the Lord our God." Such a discovery might have excited a perilous curiosity, might have opened a door to the charge of collusion on the part of some of those who now unconsciously have fulfilled the divine declarations; and would have been altogether inconsistent with the uniform |