*

projected work was interrupted. Balls of fire bursting forth from the foundations with frequent and reiterated attacks, rendered the spot inaccessible to the scorched and blasted workmen, and the attempt was renounced. Can any thing mark more visibly the foreknowledge of our Lord?

9. But an additional particular of yet greater moment is to be noticed. Our Saviour predicts the dispersion of the Jews, and yet their preservation as a distinct people-“ They shall be led away captive unto all nations." This threatening joins on with those delivered by the various prophets of the Old Testament, and is another of those connecting links which increase exceedingly the proof of the prophetical inspiration. Moses and Isaiah had declared that the Jews should be " plucked off from their land-be removed to all the kingdoms of the earth-should find no ease, neither should the sole of their foot have rest-should be only oppressed and cursed always should be mad for the sight of their eyesshould become an astonishment, a proverb, and a by-word —that their cities should be wasted without inhabitants, and their houses without man, and their land be utterly desolate -that upon it should come up thorns and briers-and that then should the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lay desolate, and they were in their enemies' land."

And have not these predictions been wonderfully fulfilled for more than seventeen hundred years? And are they not now fulfilled before your eyes? Are not the Jews dispersed over the world? Is not their name a proverb? Have not all nations vilified, persecuted and oppressed them? Are not the Jews at this day an astonishment and a by-word? Are they not even obliged, in many places, where they are

The record of this fact is in Ammianus Marcellinus, a heathen historian of undoubted credit, who held several honorable military commands under different emperors, and was a great admirer of Julian. The contemporary Christian writers affirm that it was in the mouths of all men, and was not denied even by the atheists themselves. "If it seem yet incredible to any one," say they," he may repair both to the witnesses of it yet living, and to them who have heard it from their mouths; yea, they may view the foundations, lying yet bare and naked." Bishop Warburton has incontestably established the truth of this fact; and even Gibbon, with his usual inconsistency, acknowledges that it is attested by contemporary and respectable evidence. Whether a miraculous power was exerted, need not be determined the interruption and cessation of the attempt at such a crisis and after such preparations, mark the unquestionable hand of God.

tolerated, to live in a separate quarter, and wear some badge of degradation ?*

And is not their once fruitful land barren and desolate ? "From the centre of the elevation about Jerusalem," says a recent traveller, "is seen a wild, rugged and mountainous desert; no herds depasturing on the summit; no forests clothing the acclivities; no water flowing through the valleys; but one rude scene of savage, melancholy waste, in the midst of which the ancient glory of Judea bows her head in widowed desolation."+

Still it was further declared, that the Jews should not be lost among the nations, but should remain a distinct and separate people. "When they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly. I will make a full end of the nations, whither I have driven them; but I will not make a full end of thee." And, surely, the preservation of the Jews as a distinct people, notwithstanding their dispersion for seventeen hundred years, is a remarkable and altogether unparalleled proof of the truth of our Lord's predictions. It is not only an event in fulfilment of prophecy, but an event involving a supernatural agency; an event contrary to the uniform course of human affairs; an event in which there is a permanent suspension of all the laws of our social being. That they should continue for so many ages scattered and dispersed, pursued and reviled, oppressed and persecuted; yet neither worn out by this usage, nor induced by it to renounce their religion-that neither time, nor custom, nor sufferings should overcome their attachment to it; but that they should still subsist a numerous, a distinct, a wretched people, the librarians of the very prophecies which condemn them, and the unconscious witnesses, wherever they rove, of the truth of the

*This was formerly the case in London, and is now so in Frankfort and elsewhere. In Rome their privileges have lately been curtailed, and they are compelled to reside in a particular quarter. Of course, I do not for an instant palliate or excuse the injustice and criminality of the conduct of Christians towards the unhappy Jews. The secret will of God in overruling events is one thing; the law of our actions another. The express moral commandments of the Almighty are our only guide. So in other fulfilments of prophecy, to which we shall presently come. The guilt of man is not lessened in his particular actions, because it pleases God, in a mysterious manner, to accomplish his predictions in the various occurrences of the world. This is so clear a dis tinction, that, perhaps, it need scarcely be noticed,

t Jolliffe apud Keith,

Scriptures, has something in it so prodigious, as to shut up and conclude the proof of the prophetical inspiration. And when connected with our Lord's repeated prediction of the very judicial blindness, under which we behold them suffering, constitutes an irresistible evidence of the truth of Christianity.

The whole of this series of prophecies, indeed, as to the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the Jews, is so broad and unambiguous in its main features, so numerous and distinct in its details, so minute in many of its parts, combines events so utterly improbable when it was delivered, is so defined as to the time of its accomplishment, was fulfilled by persons so unlikely to concur in such transactions, is connected with so many events now fulfilling in the worldit looked back to so many prophecies of the Old Testament, and looked forward to so many ages of modern history, during which it has continued to receive its accomplishment-and is so incontestably confirmed by the very attempts made to defeat it, and especially by the mysterious, and, except on the hypothesis of the truth of the Scriptures, the unaccountable state of the Jews before our eyes in the present day-as to constitute altogether an evidence which has never failed to overwhelm with conviction the mind of every sincere and candid inquirer; it raises the argument in favor of Christianity to the highest point of moral demonstration. It can be explained away by no fortuitous circumstances, it admits of no evasion, it stands forth a palpable, bold, unequivocal monument of the divine prescience of our Lord, and of the truth of the Christian religion.

It is for this reason that I have dwelt the longer upon this first branch of the fulfilment of prophecy. Our remaining examples must be considered with greater brevity; for we still have other points of high importance to produce.

The scheme of scriptural prophecy extends, as we observed, over the whole surface of the history of the Jewish and Christian churches, and the nations connected with them. But I shall confine myself to the accomplishment of it in those events which remain still open to the inspection of mankind. I omit, therefore, all the prophecies which were delivered by the patriarchs. I omit the various predictions in the times of the judges and kings of Israel. I pass by those numerous prescient descriptions of the nations adjoining the Holy Land

of the Jews; and many relating to that extraordinary people themselves.

I proceed, therefore, to select,

II. The accomplishment of prophecies relating to VARIOUS CITIES, NATIONS AND EMPIRES OF THE WORLD, as connected with the designs of God in the development of the great work of redemption, and now submitted to the examination of mankind.

1. I speak first of cities. I will not dwell on the wellknown prophecies relating to Nineveh and Tyre. It is sufficient for me to ask, Where is their former grandeur, power, riches? I ask, who it was that declared that "an utter end" should be made of Nineveh," that exceeding great city of three days' journey." I ask, who said of Tyre, once the most celebrated of the cities of Phœnicia, and the ancient emporium of the world-of whose colonies Carthage, the rival of Rome, was one ;-whose "merchants were princes, and her traffickers the honorable of the earth;" which sat as a queen in the midst of the seas-I ask, who it was that said of her, "I will lay thy stones, and thy timber, and thy dust in the midst of the waters-I will make her like the top of a rock-it shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea." I ask, who it is that has accomplished these denunciations with an exactness so unerring, that the very site of Nineveh is unknown; while that of Tyre just preserves the marks imprinted on her by the prophetic word. She is a rock, whereon fishers dry their nets.' whole village of Tyre contains now only fifty or sixty poor families," says a modern traveller, afterwards a leader of the French infidelity," who live obscurely on the produce of their little ground, and a trifling fishery-their houses are wretched huts, ready to crumble into ruins."+

"The

I pass on to Babylon. Of its glory, of its walls and hanging gardens, of its palace and temple of Belus, of its lakes and embankments, I will not speak. But I will ask, who predicted by name, more than a century and a half before his birth, Cyrus, the conqueror of this haughty city, the deliverer of the Jews, and the monarch that issued the decree for rebuilding the temple? I ask, who foretold the very plan which he adopted for effecting his purpose? Who spake of the "two-barred gates, and the gates of brass not being shut;" * The very words of Bruce. t Volney ap. Keith.

of the "drying up of the river:" of the "might of the defenders failing them;" of the " posts running one to meet another to show the king of Babylon that his city was taken at one end;" of the "heat of the feasts and the drunken, and their perpetual sleep?" Let history tell. Let the same profane historians, who record her riches and her glory, relate the account of her subjugation. The divine books condescend neither to the one nor the other. It is not there I learn the particulars either of her greatness or of her fall, But the prophetic word gives me the key to the profane history, and furnishes me with an unanswerable proof of the fulfilment of its denunciations. It does more. It tells me that the same events which fulfilled the sacred predictions, served also to punish the pride and impiety of the monarch of Babylon, in bringing out the sacred vessels of gold and silver for the purpose of insulting the majesty of the God of heaven. It tells me that the very night of Belshazzar's impious feast was the instant of his fall. It points out to me, not only an omniscient God fulfilling his word, but a sovereign Judge vindicating his righteousness. It does more, It tells me that these same events provided for the fulfilment of the prophecies respecting the termination of the seventy years' captivity of his people, and gave a pledge of that greater redemption from spiritual bondage, and that greater overthrow of the mystical Babylon, which belong to the New Testament history.

But the prophecy stops not here. The Scriptures foretell its perpetual desolation that "the Arabian should not pitch his tent there; but that the wild beasts should dwell there; and the houses be filled with doleful creatures, and the owls and the satyrs dance there;" that it should be made “ a pos session for the bittern, and pools of water, and be swept with the besom of destruction." And how has the fact corre sponded with these predictions? Its destruction has been advancing in every age, from the time of the capture of it by Cyrus, to the present hour. In the fourth century it was reduced to a great desert, its walls forming an enclosure for wild beasts. Its actual state, as described by the latest trav ellers, answers to the very words of the prophets delivered two thousand five hundred years ago. It is one heap of ruins, the most conspicuous of which is called Monkelibeh, or the Overturned;t whilst the lakes of stagnant water + Rich's Memoirs.

* Herodotus and Xenophon.