the frequent occurrence of prophecies may be productive of great religious advantages antecedent to their being fulfilled, since it may keep alive a sense of religion, and inspire with a hope of future deliverance from present calamity, such as slavery or banishment. And this seems to have been one great object in delivering the prophecies under the Old Testament dispensation, since most of them pointed to emancipation from either bodily or spiritual bondage.

But whatever may be the tendency or the utility of prophecy previous to its completion, its tendency subsequent to such a completion is, so far as it is known, decidedly and inevitably favourable to the divine appointment of him who delivered the prediction, and, in certain cases, to the divine selection of the person to whom such prediction points. The foreknowledge of future contingent events is universally allowed to be a peculiar attribute of Deity. Future contingencies, such, for example, as those which relate to the rise and fall of nations and states not yet in existence, or to the minute concerns of individuals not yet born, are secrets which it is evident no man or angel can penetrate; their causes being indeterminate, their relations with other things fluctuating and unknown: it follows, therefore, that the prediction of such contingent events cannot otherwise than proceed from God; and farther, since God cannot, without a violation of his perfect Holiness and Rectitude, visibly aid delusion and wickedness, the inference is equally cogent and necessary, that the accomplishment of predictions delivered by those who pretend they have divine authority, amounts to a full proof that they really possess the authority they assume. Other arguments may be evaded; other evidence may not convince; strange effects (though not miraculous ones) may be produced by other than divine power: but the plain and complete correspond. ence of events to the standing records of ancient prophecies, obvious and conspicuous to all who will be at the pains to compare them, and applying accurately

to the nicest shades of the specified circumstances, suggests most forcibly the conviction, that the predictions came from God, and were declared to man for the wisest and most important purposes. "This or nothing (says Justin Martyr) is the work of God to declare a thing shall come to be, long before it is in being, and then to bring about the accomplishment of that very thing, according to the same declaration.”

This then is a kind of evidence that may be known, read, and appreciated by all men; and this is the species of evidence with which every part of Scripture, from the Pentateuch to the Apocalypse, abounds. The history of the fall of man is immediately succeeded by the significant prediction of that "Seed of the Woman which should bruise the Serpent's head." Even there the Messiah was marked out so as not to be mistaken: the prophecy has never been applied to another: the "light of the world" shone distinctly, though it might, notwithstanding, glimmer feebly, when seen through the long vista of four thousand years. Previous to the general deluge, the will of God was but seldom declared in prophecy; but almost immediately after that remark able event, Noah delivered some extraordinary predictions relative to the descendants of his three sons; and those predictions, though they were divulged more than two thousand years before the Christian æra, have been fulfilling through the several periods of time to this day! In like manner the prophecies revealed from time to time, as those concerning the Ishmaelites, those of dying Jacob, of Balaam, of Moses (concerning the Jews), the prophecies relating to Nineveh, Babylon, Tyre, Egypt, the great empires, the destruction of Jerusalem, have been perfectly fulfilled to the minutest' particular; and that in several cases where attempts have actually been made to prevent their accomplishment. Moses, for example, foretold, that when the Jews forsook the true God they should be removed

4 Just. Mart. Apol. ii. sect. 14. This excellent apologist has indeed entered fully into the argument from prophecy, in the Apology just quoted.

into all the kingdoms of the earth; that "they should become an astonishment, a proverb, and a by-word among all nations"." None who notice the state of this singular people, scattered yet preserved, every where preserving their identity, no where possessing power, can be so regardless of truth as to deny that this is fully accomplished. Concerning Babylon it was foretold, that it should be shut up and besieged by the Medes, Elamites, and Armenians; that the river should be dried up; that the city should be taken in the midst of a feast; that the conqueror should be named Cyrus. All of which, as you are well aware, came to pass. Concerning Egypt it was predicted, "Egypt shall be a base kingdom: it shall be the basest of kingdoms; neither shall it exalt itself any more above the nations." "And there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt"." I need not ask whether this prophecy of the fate of Egypt, so celebrated for its antiquity, its power, and its wisdom, is not fulfilled. Concerning Tyre, the prediction and its completion are no less remarkable: I will make thee like the top of a rock; thou shalt be a place to spread nets upon; thou shalt be built no more. Thou shalt be no more: the merchants among the people shall hiss at thee thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt be any more."

5 Deut. xxviii. 37.

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6 Is. xxi. 2. Jer. li. 11. Is. xliv. 7, 28. Jer. li. 36. Is. xlv. 1. 7 Ezek. xxix. 14, 15; xxx. 12, 13.

8 Ezek. xxvi. 14, 21. A remarkable instance in which apparently discordant prophecies were strictly accomplished, occurs in the case of Zedekiah. Jeremiah predicted concerning him, that as a captive he should see the king of Babylon, so that "his eyes should behold his eyes," and that he should be carried to that city (Jer. xxxii. 4, and xxxiv. 8). Ezekiel declared that "he should not see Babylon." (Ezek. xii. 13). How might a contemporary doubter of the divine illumination of those prophets have triumphed on account of the seeming contradiction of these two predictions. But Nebuchadnezzar, who was alike ignorant of both, is the instrument in the divine hands to effect their accomplishment: for Zedekiah was brought into the presence of Nebuchadnezzar, at Riblah; who, after having commanded his eyes to be put out, sent him in "fetters of brass" to Babylon (2 Kings, xxv. 6, 7.)

Now in all these, and a variety of other instances that might be adduced, it cannot with any semblance of reason be pretended, that " Prophecy came in old time by the will of man," the contrary assertion of the Apostle accords far better with a fair induction from the premises before us, that " Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." Indeed, one of the most acute metaphysicians and ablest reasoners Great Britain ever produced, the friend of Newton, and his advocate against Leibnitz, says, he feels no hesitation in putting the truth of Revealed Religion entirely upon the reality of that prophetic spirit which foretold "the man of sin," and the desolation of Christ's church and kingdom by Antichrist. If" (says he, after enumerating some of the predictions that relate to Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots), if, in the days of St. Paul and St. John, there were any footsteps of such a sort of power as this in the world: or, if there ever had been such power in the world: or, if there was then any appearance of probability, that could make it enter into the heart of man to imagine that there ever could be any such kind of power in the world, much less in the temple or church of God: and, if there be not now such a power actually and conspicuously exercised in the world: and if any picture of this power, drawn after the event, can describe it more plainly and exactly than it was originally described in the words of the prophecy: then may it with some degree of plausibleness be suggested, that the prophecies are nothing more than enthusiastic inventions 10"

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But the weight of evidence accumulates prodigiously when it is drawn from those prophecies which relate to the Messiah. Had only a single prophet left a collection of predictions concerning Christ, specifying the time and manner of his coming, and he had come agreeably to those predictions, it would seem next to impossible to evade the conclusion deducible from it. But in the Bible we have much more. Here is a series 92 Pet. i. 21. 10 Dr. Clarke's Works, vol. ii. p. 728.

of Prophets, for thousands of years, who regularly succeed each other to foretell the same event, and to depict the benefits it will produce. Nay, more than this, a whole nation constitutes his harbingers: they subsist distinct from the rest of the world more than three thousand years, to testify in a body the assurances they entertain respecting him: when he arrives, they disbelieve him, become reluctant witnesses of the truth of the prophecies they have preserved, but willing instruments in "killing the Prince of life""" and thus in accomplishing those predictions which, though they understood but in part, they constantly hoped to see realized until their hopes were about to be fulfilled!

Nor should it be forgotten that Jesus Christ himself, during his personal ministry on earth, referred the Jews, who were then his enemies and afterwards his murderers, to their own Sacred Books, in order to learn who he was, and what was his office: and that, after his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, his disciples pointed them again to the prophecies which they read regularly in the Synagogue, to convince them that he whom they had slain was "the Messiah who was to come." "Search the Scriptures (said Jesus Christ), for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me. Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life 12" "Beginning from Moses, and from all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself 13" Conformably with this, his Apostles make a like appeal. "To him (says Paul) give all the Prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins. Thus he mightily convinced the Jews, showing by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ 14" So likewise Peter affirms: "Yea, and all the Prophets, from Samuel, and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these Acts, iii. 15. 12 John, v. 39, 40. 13 Luke, xxiv. 27. 14 Acts, x. 43; xiii. 27; xv. 15; xviii. 28.