In which all Christians of all ages and of all places are agreed. And even the misapplication of prophecy may be converted to the support of the Gospel. For though Christians have stigmatized and defamed each other with all the prophetic names of abhorrence and execration which point out and characterize the enemies of their faith, and the despisers of the Gospel; yet none of them, however reviled and calumniated, ever attempted to deny the prophecies themselves, and only disputed the sense and application of them; which tends to remove the prejudice or the pretence of INFIDELS and of Mahometans, that our Scriptures have been interpolated or corrupted.

The prophecies must therefore be considered the spiritual gift of the Head of the church for its benefit and security in the world; and the signal means and instrument of increasing and consolidating Messiah's kingdom and glory throughout all nations; and when employed with chastised judgment, true wisdom, and sound discretion, the valuable and distinguished services which it has already rendered and must always render to the Christian faith and to the Catholic church, are beyond dispute and beyond calculation.

SECTION II.

THE DESIGN AND USE OF PROPHECY.

PROPHECY and miracles are the fundamental proofs of Christianity, the pillars of the Catholic church, the Jachin and Boaz of the spiritual temple, the masts and sails of the sacred ark, and the walls and bulwarks of the city of God. Both together indeed conspire to give to the faith of the Gospel, and to our holy religion, that irresistible force of persuasion, and that solid and substantial body of argument and of evidence, which have prospered and secured it against all kinds of assaults, and all varieties of enemies, and of difficulties, and against which we are assured that even the

66

gates of hell can never prevail." Without questioning in the least, or in any degree undervaluing the truth and certainty of the argument from miracles, and without deeming it in any degree defective, or incapable of conveying entire conviction and satisfaction to the mind, which no doubt it has done, and can always do, prophecy must, notwithstanding, be regarded as the peculiarly important and impregnable fortress of the truth, the grand foundation and the ultimate hope and resource of the church; being liable to no artifice or deception; admitting neither evasion

nor denial; and furnishing no scope for the cheats and tricks of impostors, and neither refuge nor excuse for the reveries and delusions of fanatics; it must be ever deemed the strong citadel of the Gospel, and the inexhaustible armoury of its faith.

It is not that the argument from miracles has lost any degree of its force in the lapse of ages, or suffered any declension of its authority from the effects of time, or that it is not equally cogent and efficacious now as on former occasions, and in earlier periods of the church. Because, though it is a maxim that in traditional truths each remove weakens the force of the proof, yet the circumstantial evidence, which is allowed on all hands to be the most convincing and irrefragable, is now infinitely increased, and continually increasing, and more than compensates for any deficiency or decline of direct evidence, and of ocular testimony. And we have perhaps now as good grounds, if not much better, to believe in the great miracle of the resurrection of Christ, than they had, who had heard it attested by the beholders. If, indeed, all the various facts, and the vast train of events and circumstances dependent and concomitant, were combined in their regular order, and brought to bear upon it, and to enforce it, they would form such a body of evidence, and such a weight of argument, as to convey perhaps more settled conviction, and com

posed assurance, than the testimony of the eyewitnesses, and to be to every fair and candid mind overpowering and irresistible *.

Nor is it that the argument from miracles is not equally certain and satisfactory in itself, as that of prophecy; but because they differ in the time and the manner and circumstances of their operation and of their effect: they affect and influence mankind in different periods of the world, and in different states of the mind; miracles are absolutely necessary in order to prove an original revelation, and to establish it in the first instance; and, till it is once received, the argument from prophecy cannot be adduced; it has no weight and no foundation. But the previous revelation being once admitted, the argument from prophecy is then in full strength and operation, and is more persuasive and influential than that from miracles, because THEY might be supposed to introduce and to recommend a system of religion contrary to that already believed, in which case there would be a conflict of not only system with system, but of former miracles with latter miracles; and it is easy to see that the old system, like the old wine, would be in most instances pronounced better, and would exclude the new; until the argument from prophecy had evinced their mutual union

See the Trial of the Witnesses of the Resurrection by Bishop Sherlock, and Jeremy Taylor's Moral Demonstration of Christianity.

and conformity with each other, and had confirmed the subsequent by the preceding revelation.

As in the case of the Jews, who were neither required nor expected to give up the Old Testament for the New, nor Moses for Jesus Christ, merely on account of the miracles which attended and attested the first preaching of Christianity; because they had been forewarned that miracles not only might be, but would positively be wrought by false prophets, as they had been in Egypt before for the purpose of trying their sincerity, and proving their fidelity in adhering to the truth, and abstaining from idolatry. And hence the argument from prophecy, though not better in itself, yet, from the peculiar state and condition of those to whom it is addressed, and for whom it is intended, is more applicable and more indispensable to remove doubt and suspense, and to overcome difficulty and objection, than that of miracles; because it not only proves the truth of the Gospel, but shews, moreover, that it is so far from being inconsistent with the Law, that it corresponds with it, that it fulfils it, and perfects it.

And hence St. Paul took especial care to announce that he did not destroy the Law, but that he established it, as his Lord and Master had done before him; whilst to the Gentiles this mode of reasoning could not be adopted, and did not apply; and to them, as the argument from miracles was the only argument they were capable of

E