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paramount importance. In this view the Evangelist enters at once upon the ministry of Christ, and passes over all those interesting incidents of his birth and early life, which are preserved in the Gos pels of St Matthew and St Luke. He does not, however, omit to mention that remarkable person who is introduced by all the Evangelists, and whose previous mission seems to have been of peculiar efficacy in "preparing the way of the Lord." This preacher of repentance had been foreseen by the ancient prophets, and accordingly St Mark points him out to us, with great dignity, as coming to fulfil the character which they had assigned him. "As it is written in the Prophets, Behold "I send my Messenger before thy face, "which shall prepare thy way before "thee. The voice of one crying in the "wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the "Lord; make his paths straight. John

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"did baptize in the wilderness, and "preach the baptism of repentance for "the remission of sins."

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In these words we are, first of all, introduced into that lofty system of prophecy, which, from the beginning of the history of man, had been employed in different forms, and with different degrees of illumination, to shadow out those important events which were now to be transacted in the world. It is customary, as you know, with the Evangelists to mark the coincidences between the predictions of the Prophets and the events which they record. These are frequently so striking that it is impossible to elude their force; and if, on other occasions, we are little affected by them, the reason perhaps may be, that our previous acquaintance with the facts, renders us less attentive to those nice shades of coincidence which must have been peculiarly interesting to those

who had first studied the predictions, and were anxiously looking for their accomplishment. From this circumstance, however, it may happen, that a direct proof of the truth of Christianity, from the evidence of prophecy, may have a comparatively feeble influence on the minds of -men in the present age; and, while it is certainly to those who will examine it, an argument of great weight, yet it may not be less generally useful to consider prophecy in a more indirect view, by inquiring into other purposes which it has answered in carrying on the great scheme of Revelation.

It is to this last view, my brethren, that I propose at present to lead your attention; but, before proceeding to it, I trust that I shall be pardoned, if I venture to state to you the direct argument from prophecy, in words which, although they must be familiar to you all, I am

yet tempted to introduce here, as they supply the defect in my own argument, in a manner so infinitely superior to anything which I could ever hope to accomplish for myself. "I cannot presume," says a great master of moral and religious wisdom," in the limits of a single "discourse, to speak to you of all the ex"traordinary evidence upon this subject " which arises from the minute and pre"cise correspondence of all the signs "and types, and figurative meanings,' in "which the dispensation of the Gospel "fulfils the introductory dispensation of "the Mosaic law. I presume to remind "you only of the leading and prominent

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facts, which every age has known, and "which the present hour verifies. It "was foretold by the lawgiver of the Jews, that a greater than he was to come,→→→ and a greater than he has come. It "was foretold that this mighty Saviour

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"was to be despised and rejected of his "own people, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.' That Saviour has "come, to be rejected and despised,"to be, in truth, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. It was foretold “that Jerusalem was to be destroyed "when this great event arose; and when "this great event arose, Jerusalem was "destroyed. It was foretold that the ❝ light of Heaven was to arise upon the "Gentile world;-and upon the Gentile "world (and upon us, in the mercy of "God) that light has arisen. It was fore"told that the Jewish people was then to "be dissolved, that they were to be "strangers and wanderers in every land,' "until some future day of repentance " and of pardon ;—and, in this hour, the "Jewish people are strangers and wan"derers in every country upon earth. "To this weight and consent of evidence,"

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