suggested, antecedently, by the circumstances of the case; and they are accurately met, by the whole phenomena of Christianity and Mahometanism.

Christ and his religion, conformably with the dignity of his heirship, are infinitely perfect, pure, and holy: Mahomet and his superstition, consonantly with the disadvantages of his natural descent, are debased and degraded by an inordinate mixture of alloy. The two creeds, in a word, maintain throughout, the distance implied by the original relation between the two brethren. Christianity is, in every feature, the genuine offspring of the legitimate son Isaac: Mahometanism, in all its lineaments, the meet progeny of the spurious son Ishmael. 84 Accordingly, the creed of Mahomet is found to be composed, in its better features, from the Jewish and Christian Scriptures; and in its worse, from rabbinical and heretical corruptions of the one and the other.* Generally, where his doctrine departs most grossly from the true religion, he is to be traced in the Talmuds, or in the apocryphal gospels. His deflexions, no less than his approximations, thus confirm the relation of his lie to the truth.

It is remarkable, that one of the greatest ex

• See sections iv.-ix. passim.

ceptions which has been taken to Mahometanism, namely, its plagiarisms from the Old and New Testaments, and its sweeping adoption of the dreams of the Talmudists, and the diseased speculations of Christian heretics, proves a main essential towards the establishment of a preordained connection between the two systems, growing out of the original twofold promise.

But the distance and distinctness preserved in all the circumstances of agreement, are not merely appropriate as suited to the original contrast between the sons of Abraham: they are essential, further, to guard the truth and dignity of the greater prophecy concerning the Messiah, and to vindicate the consistency of the divine proceedings. Had Mahometanism approached more nearly to Christianity, in the soundness of its principles, and the purity of its precepts; had the personal character of Mahomet been at all assimilated to the holy and undefiled character of Jesus; painful and perplexing doubts must inevitably have arisen, not only as to the consistency of the divine government, but as to the claims of the rival prophets. Let us beware, therefore, to what extent we carry our unqualified reprehension of Mahomet and his superstition, lest we be found, in so doing, to cast reflections on the unerring wisdom, which has

made their defects and demerits signally instrumental, to guard the evidences, and proclaim the unrivalled supremacy, of the only true · faith.

But the completeness of the analogy, in their respective accomplishments, between the branches of the original promise, it will presently appear, remarkably depends on two specific predictions, contained in the branch which relates to the covenant of Ishmael. It is foretold of Ishmael : "His hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him." It is also said of him: "And he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren."* Let these predictions be traced in the subsequent events of history, and the fulness of their accomplishment will furnish large materials for the establishment and elucidation of the present argument.

Planted by the hand of Providence, at the first, in immediate contact with his brethren, the offspring of Isaac, the Ishmaelite early cultivated a spirit of general hostility to mankind, by the exercise of an implacable and unremitting hostility against the Jews. Scripture abounds with notices of the mutual hatred of the kindred nations; and its prescriptive notoriety is attested by a significant sentence of the philosophic Ta

* Gen, xvi. 12.

citus. * So long, however, as the two people maintained the rank, and stood in the position, of neighbouring nations, their mutual hostility was confined within narrow limits. And the general and final dispersion of the Jews, which ensued on the destruction of their city and temple by the Romans, seemed to elude even the grasp of prophecy itself, by placing them wholly beyond the reach of their hereditary enemy. But the word of God is surer than the foresight of man. His providence had means in store equal to the exigency. Mahomet was raised up, and, at his bidding, the tribes of Arabia became also dispersed throughout the world. † The posterity of the two sons of Abraham met in opposite quarters of the earth ‡, to renew the prophetic conflict; and the avenging bow of Ishmael § pursued, in her remotest isles, God's

Tac.

*Solito inter accolas odio, infensa Judaeis Arabum manus." Hist. 1. v. § 1.— The mutual hostility of the nations bespoke, indeed, more than the hatred of neighbourhood; and induced "plus quam civilia bella.” † Attention has been drawn incidentally by a modern writer, to the curiously similar character of the two dispersions: Though without any empire in a mother-country, they (the Arab colonists of Africa, India, &c.) were bound together by language and religion; and, like the modern Jews, were united together, though scattered over various countries." Mickle's Lusiad, preface, p. lxxiii.

Spain, in particular, at the period of the Saracenic invasion, was colonised, it is worthy of notice, by vast multitudes of Jews. See De Marlès, tome i. p. 60.

S Gen. xxi. 20.

*

outcast and apostate people. The success of Mahomet was thus made effectual to the literal accomplishment of the prediction concerning Ishmael, as it related to the Jews, when, to all human appearance, every prospect of its accomplishment had been done away.

But the hostility of Ishmael was not limited to his brethren after the flesh. For, by the terms of the original prediction, the Arabs were virtually pronounced, "a people armed against mankind." In their native deserts, they amply justified and illustrated their prophetic character. But what power could bring a remote and insulated people, from strong attachment to the soil disinclined to emigrate, and destitute of ships, of colonies, and of any but inland commerce 65, into hostile contact with every nation in the known world? No power, assuredly, save " the great power of God." But God had here spo

85

*Hott. Hist. Orient. p. 216. This peculiar providential office of Mahometanism receives striking illustration from the narrative of a Mahometan writer, cited in the Asiatic Researches, relating to a cruel persecution against the Jews, on the coast of Malabar : "In the Hejirah year 931, answering to A. D. 1524-5, the Mahomedans appear, by Zeireddien's narrative, to have been engaged in a barbarous war on the Jews of Cranganore ; many of whom our author acknowledges their having put to death without mercy; burning and destroying, at the same time, their houses and synagogues.” Asiat. Research. vol. v. p. 22.

+ Gibbon. This forcible expression is only a metaphrase of the prediction, Gen. xvi. 12. How often, where the sceptical historian affects to reject the prophecy, is he driven by facts to admit the fulfilment !