and upon the miracles by which he proved to demonstration, that he was the promised Messiah of the Jews, the Mediator of a new covenant between God and man, and a divine Teacher sent to reform and save a guilty world.

III. The Prophecies.

The Old Testament contains a long series of predictions, which are expressed with greater distinctness, and marked with a more striking and appropriate reference to a particular train of events, in proportion as the prophets approached more nearly to the time of the Messiah. As he was the great object of the general expectation of the Jews, so was he the great end of the Prophecies. Sometimes he is pourtrayed as the innocent, patient, and unrepining sufferer, pierced with grief, and sinking under unmerited calamity for the sake of mankind; He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, who hath borne our sorrows, and was wounded for our transgressions (Isaiah liii.); and sometimes, with all the fervour and vivid colours of Oriental poetry, are described his temporal grandeur, the transcendent attributes of his divine character, and the glory and eternity of his kingdom. His name is called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace (Isaiah ix, 6.). These surprising intimations that occur in the Prophets of various ages, like rays of light proceeding from different quarters, all meet in the same point, and illuminate the same object. Here is none of that latitude of interpretation, or ambiguity of expression, in which the oracles of the heathens were conveyed. The history of Christ, as related by the Evangelists, may be considered as an enlarged and finished copy of the Prophecies, and the Prophecies themselves as the original sketches. The proportions and the outlines are uniformly preserved, and faithfully delineated. The colours indeed are more distinct and glowing, the figures have their just animation, but still their character and expression are the same.* Ineffectual have been the endeavours of the Jews to pervert the true meaning of these Prophecies; their literal sense is peculiarly applicable to our Lord, and to him alone they must necessarily be referred. Without mistaking their object, or perverting their clear and obvious sense, they cannot be applied to any other person whatever. Whilst these predictions strike the mind of an attentive reader of Scripture, with various degrees of evidence, there are some of them which cannot fail to impress him with the fullest conviction, as they immediately relate to the mission, miracles, and character, as well as the exact time of the coming of Christ. Isaiah and Daniel more especially seem rather to describe the past as Historians, than to anticipate the future as Prophets. We know, from the authority of Scripture, that multitudes of Jews, who had diligently studied the Prophecies from their youth, and acknowledged their divine authority, felt the force of their application to our Lord, and were converted to his religion. And not to appeal to other instances,

* Stillingfleet's Orig. Sacræ, book ii, ch. v, &c. Paley's Evidences, vol. ii, p. 67. Grotius de Veritate, lib. v, c. 17, 18. Gibson's Pastoral Letters, vol. iv, p. 52, of the Enchiridion Theologicum. Jortin's Remarks, vol. i, p. 73, 74. Prideaux's Connections vol. ii, p. 161. Josephus de Bello Judaico, lib. vi, c. 4, sect. 5, 6, 7, 8, compared with the predictions that relate to the Temple, as recorded by the Evangelists.

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we also know that the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, so circumstantially descriptive of the suffering Messiah, effected the conversion of the Eunuch of Ethiopia, mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, and contributed greatly to produce a conviction of the truth of Christianity in the mind of the profligate Lord Rochester.*

The books, which contain these Prophecies, have been most carefully preserved even by the enemies of Christianity. Such are the Jews, whose religious belief is founded upon an acknowledgment of the divine inspiration of the Prophets. Hence they are undesignedly the supporters of that faith, to which they are confessedly hostile. A wide difference of opinion has prevailed among them in various ages; for their interpretations of the Prophets, before the coming of the Messiah, agreed much better with those of the Christians, than any they have given since the establishment of Christianity. And it is very much to the purpose repeatedly to take notice, that whatever construction they have put upon the words of the Prophecies, they have never raised any doubt, or brought any arguments to invalidate their authenticity.

As the divine mission of Christ received such support from the Prophecies, of which he was the sub

* This fact is recorded by Bishop Burnet. "To him Lord Rochester laid open with great freedom the tenor of his opinions, and the course of his life, and from him he received such conviction of the reasonableness of moral duty, and the truth of Christianity, as produced a total change both of his manners and opinions. The account of those salutary conferences is given by Burnet in a book, intituled, Some passages of the Life and Death of John Earl of Rochester; which the critic ought to read for its elegance, the philosopher for its arguments, and the saint for its piety." Johnson's Life of Rochester, vol. iv, p. 6, 12mo.

ject; so it is very strongly confirmed by those events, which he foresaw and foretold. He clearly described the manner of his own death, with many particular circumstances the place where it was ordained to happen the treacherous method by which he was to be betrayed into the hands of the Jewish governors, and given up to the Roman power—the cruel and unbecoming treatment he was to suffer, and the exact period of time that should elapse from his death to his resurrection. Such was precisely the train of events, as they are related at large by the Evangelists, and as those events were attested by the full acknowledgment and confession of the first martyrs, who sealed their belief with their blood. The Saviour of mankind speaks of future events without hesitation, not as things merely probable, but absolutely certain. He does not shadow them out in vague and ambiguous terms; but marks them in their rise, progress, and effects, in the clearest and most circumstantial descriptions. The interval between the prediction and its accomplishment, seems in his view to be annihilated; his penetrating mind pierces the veil of futurity, and the distant allusions of the Prophet are converted into the clear prospect of the spectator. Even at the time when Judea was in complete subjection to the Roman power, when a strong garrison kept its capital in awe, and rebellion against their conquerors, who had at that time the empire of the world, appeared as improbable as it was fruitless; he deplored the fall of the holy city, and pointed out the advance of the Roman standard, as the token of desolation, and the signal for his followers to save themselves, by flight, from captivity and destruction. At the time too when the temple of Jerusalem was held in the highest veneration by all foreigners, as well as Jews, what were the immediate observations of our Lord, when his disciples directed his attention, in terms of wonder and astonishment, to the vast and solid materials, of which that magnificent edifice was built? He lamented its approaching fall, and declared in explicit terms, that so complete should be its demolition, that not one stone should be left upon another. At a time likewise when the number of his followers was limited to a few fishermen of Galilee, and when he seemed destitute of every means to accomplish his purpose, he predicted the wide diffusion of the faith, and expressly proclaimed, that before the threatened calamities overwhelmed the Jews, and subverted their empire, his gospel should be preached among all nations.*

The events, which happened about thirty years after the ascension of our Lord, completely verified these Prophecies. From the books of the New Testament, and particularly from the Acts of the Apostles, may be collected the fullest instances of the diligence and zeal with which the new religion was in a short time disseminated.

But Christians can appeal to an independent train of witnesses—to Jewish and to prophane authors, for circumstantial accounts of the fulfilment of our Lord's predictions. The historian Josephus, descended from the family, which bore the sacred office of High Priest, a distinguished general in the early part of the last Jewish war, has given a particular and exact confirmation of every circumstance. With singular care he

* See "History the Interpreter of Prophecy," 4th Edit. for the illustration of this subject at large; a work to which I refer with the less reserve, as the public have received it with approbation.