compose these prophecies and palm them on the world after the date of the events to which they relate, would have been unlikely and absurd, and success in such an undertaking utterly impossible.

2. It has often been observed that prophecies which relate to circumstances dependent on the will and power of man, and on the working of human passions, have an inherent tendency to accomplish themselves. Now it is certain that there was no such tendency in those respecting Christ. The incarnation, miracles, resurrection, and ascension, of the Holy One of Israel were events which no human power could either hasten or delay. And his sufferings and atoning death were brought about through the instrumentality of his enemies-persons who were so far from rightly applying the prophecies, that they utterly disregarded and despised the truths which many of them contained. When the Jews refused to believe in Jesus, and rejected their only Saviour; when they led him as a lamb to the slaughter; when they pierced his hands and his feet; when they gave him vinegar mingled with gall to drink; when they mocked him as he was hanging on the cross; when they consigned his body to the rich man's tomb-they little thought that they were affording to the church in all generations, unquestionable proofs that he was the true Messiah.

Since then the prophecies respecting Christ and the events of his history precisely corres

pond, and since it is certain that the events did not produce the prophecies, nor the prophecies the events, no alternative remains but to ascribe them both to the wisdom and power of God.

SECTION III.

ON THE SUPREME BEING.

EVERY man who reasons fairly from the premises with which nature furnishes us, will confess that the contrivances with which we are surrounded prove the existence of an all-wise Contriver; that their uniform tendency shows the benevolence of God; that the moral character of his government is made known to a considerable extent, in the perceptible order of his providence; and that his holiness may be inferred from the very nature of that law which he has written on the hearts of all men. Yet it must be allowed, that it is chiefly through revelation that we are thus led to reason from creation and providence, and that merely natural religion, even with the additional light of tradition, has left the heathen world in all ages, in a state of great darkness respecting the Supreme Being.

Surely then it is a convincing evidence of the divine origin of the Holy Scriptures, that this darkness is removed wherever the sacred volume is known; and that prophets and apostles have supplied us with an account of

ing to this narration, we have no reason whatever to doubt. Of its fulfilment, about 350 years afterwards the subsequent history of the Jews contains a clear account. There we read that Josiah was born of the seed of David according to the prophecy, and that he destroyed Jeroboam's altar at Bethel; " and as Josiah turned himself he spied the sepulchres that were in the mount, and sent and took the bones out of the sepulchres, and burnt them upon the altar and polluted it, according to the word of the Lord which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words."5

Jeremiah's predictions of the invasion of Judæa and the destruction of Jerusalem by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar, of the captivity of the Jews in Babylon during seventy years, and of their peaceful return to their own land, were utterly disregarded by his hearers as improbable and absurd. Yet they were all accomplished in the course of a century, and subsequent historians or prophets who probably had no connexion with

5 2 Kings xxiii, 16.-There is a point in this example, which affords a striking evidence of its authenticity. The prophecy states that the priests were to be offered on the altar, and men's bones burnt thereon. The history mentions only the burning of the bones of the priests on the altar. The history unfolds the true meaning of the prediction, which was that the priests should be offered on the altar by the burning of their skeletons upon it. Yet this apparent difference would surely have been avoided by a forger, had such an one either invented the history as a key to the prophecy, or composed the prophecy after the event had happened.

Jeremiah, give a clear account of the events by which they were fulfilled. 6

Cyrus, king of Persia, the conqueror of Babylon and the deliverer of the Jews, was prophesied of by name nearly two centuries before his birth. In the counsels of God he was pre-ordained to be the Lord's shepherd, to perform all his pleasure-" even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built, and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid."7 Such were the words of the prophecy delivered by Isaiah; and who can wish for a more satisfactory account of their accomplishment than we find in the book of Ezra ?

The genuineness of the books of the Old Testament and the general truth of its history being allowed (an allowance which no sound critic will refuse to make), we have only to compare one part of that volume with another, in order to satisfy ourselves of the lucid character of these and many other prophecies, and of the exactness with which they have been fulfilled.

What could be more precise than the language in which our Lord foretold his own sufferings, death, and resurrection, the unfaithfulness of the Apostle Peter, and the sending of the Holy Ghost the Comforter? And who can deny that the simple and explicit narrative of these events, contained in

6 Compare Jer. i, 14, 15; vi, 1; xxxiv, 2; xxv, 8—11; xxx, 10; xxxiii, 7; with 2 Kings xxv.; 2 Chron. xxxvi.; Ezra i.; Dan. ix, 2.

the New Testament itself, affords a satisfactory proof that Jesus was a true prophet?

These observations, however, apply with peculiar force to that wondrous line of prophecy which runs through the Old Testament, and which distinctly relates to the Messiah himself that seed of the woman, who should bruise the serpent's head.s Prophets who lived in various ages, and were wholly independent of each other-persons of different characters and conditions-are found severally contributing distinct portions to the general stock of information respecting the deliverer who was to come. Through their means the church is furnished with a prophetical description of its Head and Saviour, in a marvellous degree precise and comprehensive. His divine name and nature 9-his incarnation in the nature of man'—the nation,2 the tribe,* and the family' from which he was to spring -the preaching of his forerunner 5—his virgin mother-the place of his birth—the date of his coming his righteous character' the meekness, humility, and kindness of his disposition-his matchless miracles-the unbelief and contempt to which he was exposed the treason of his familiar friend'his vicarious sufferings and violent death3

8 Gen. iii, 15. 1 Gen. iii, 15. 4 Isaiah xi, 1. 6 Isaiah vii, 14.

9 Isaiah ix. 6. Jer. xxiii, 6.
3 Gen. xlix, 10.

2 Gen. xxii, 18.

5 Isaiah x1, 3. Mal. iii, 1. 7 Micah v, 2. 8 Dan. ix, 25. 1 Isaiah xlii, 2, 3; 1, 6.

9 Isaiah xi, 5.
2 Isaiah xxxv, 5, 6.
4 Psalm xli, 9.

3 Isaiah liii, 1-3.

5 Isaiah liii, 3-7.