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 virtu ally pronounced, "a people armed against man. kind." 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 $5, into hostile contact with every nation in the known world? No power, assuredly, save "the great power of God." of God." But God had here spo * 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! ken, and his word must not return unto him void. Mahomet was raised up to introduce a new religion; and the spirit of fanaticism which he kindled in Arabia, transformed the Arabs, as by a touch of magic, into a race of conquerors. In their progress towards universal dominion, they encountered in all directions the Jews and the Christians, the literal and the spiritual posterity of Isaac. Invincible in every other quarter, the Saracen arms, however, were unable to penetrate into the heart of Catholic Europe. From Sicily, indeed, where, to borrow the words of an exact historian, the religion and language of the Greeks were eradicated *," they infested and laid waste the coasts of Italy; made a temporary lodgment in Calabria; and carried their predatory warfare even to the gates of Rome. all efforts at conquest and settlement proved fruitless. Twice the gigantic project was formed and essayed, to march by the Rhine and Danube to the banks of the Hellespont; and to lay the spoils of a third continent at the foot of the throne of Damascus; but, in each instance, it expired in the birth. 87 A link, therefore, was still wanting to the fulfilment of the prophecy; some nations of Christian Europe there still were, with But Ockley. The destroying infliction, we observe, still follows its appointed victim, the heretical Greek church. whom the sword of the Saracens had not yet encountered; but the immutable word of God was pledged for the accomplishment, and the link required is found in the Crusades. * The career of Arabian conquest, which threatened nothing short of the utter subversion of Christianity, provoked a great revulsion; and this revulsion gave birth to those unexampled wars. The contest, which had been prosecuted by the literal descendants of Ishmael, as far as the western frontier of Europe, in the recoil was now carried, by the spiritual descendants of Isaac, into the heart of Asia, and centered once more in Palestine, where it originally arose. On the very soil where Abraham received the twofold promise, and which had given birth to both his sons, Isaac and Ishmael thus met, in their literal or spiritual offspring, after the revolutions of nearly three thousand years, to renew the prophetic struggle, which had continued without interruption until the final dispersion of the Jews. Gaul, Germany, and Britain, countries of Europe which the arms of the Saracens had rarely or never violated, supplied their chief strength to the armies of the Crusaders; and thereby was perfected the fulfilment of that which was written concerning Ishmael, that his hand should be * See sect. xi. H |