of the rise of a new kingdom and the coming of a king from among the Jews, to whom Nature herself was to give birth; of the simultaneous origin of Christianity; the manner of Christ's death; the novelty, peculiarity, and wonderful efficacy and progress of his religion; the persecution of his followers; their indomitable zeal in propagating his faith; their immoveable adherence to his cause; the counsel that was taken against them by kings and governors, and the variety of their sufferings even unto death, it may well be averred that those are not very inquisitive after truth who, the inspiration of the prophets being visibly demonstrated, see not good reason from hence for searching the Old Testament Scriptures whether these things are so, or whether the prophets foretold what heathens have thus related. The proof lies open to inspection that these are express prophetic characteristics of the Messiah and of his cause. We read plainly in prophecy, and see the counterpart clearly in history, that a citizen of Judea was at that very time to set up his kingdom, and finally to obtain the dominion; that the predicted time "determined upon the people and upon the holy city," upon the Jews and Jerusalem, was that which was determined also "to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to heal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy ;"* that the kings of the earth would set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his anointed; that Messiah the prince was to come and be cut off, but not for himself, before the city and the sanctuary should be destroyed, and that the end thereof would be with a flood, to be succeeded by the desolations that were determined; that the Messiah would confirm the covenant with many, and that the sacrifice and oblation, which had been offered up for ages, should cease, and the desolation ensue which was to continue even till the consummation; and that, coincident with the taking away of the daily sacrifice and placing the abomination which maketh desolate, when the covenant should be established with many, the people that knew their God should be strong, and that they who understood among the people should instruct many, and fall by the sword, and by flame, by captivity, and by spoil many days.‡

Still more abundant confirmations of the authenticity of the New Testament and of the Messiahship of Jesus might be drawn from the arguments of the earliest as well as the latest antagonists of the Christian faith, who thought that it could be reasoned down when no other power could prevail against it. The reader is aware that these are neither few Dan. ix., 25-27; xi., 33.

* Dan. ix., 24. † Ps. ii., 21.

nor unimportant: and, if anything can be held as common ground, it may well be those facts on which the arguments of our adversaries are founded. If from the earliest ages they have reasoned from many Scriptural truths, without the power of denial, or even the expression of a doubt, then, upon their own showing, these facts pertain to believers as well as unto them. And if they, according to their fancy, have tried from thence to disprove the divinity of our faith, there is no reason to restrain us from proving, according to the word of God by the prophets, that these selfsame facts are demonstrations that it is Divine. The "foolishness of God," or that which man in his blindness reckons to be folly, is wiser than men. Man naturally dwells in darkness, not in light. But God dwelleth in the light; and in him is no darkness at all. "It behooved him in whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of our salvation perfect through sufferings." And that such was his purpose, prophets had foretold. But man, looking to the things that are seen, had lost the right apprehension of things spiritual and divine, and judged of them according to his earthly mind. To the proud spirit of the imperious Roman nothing could seem more revolting, and in the view of the speculative Greek nothing could appear more foolish, worshippers as they were of herogods, and devoted to a splendid and attractive paganism, than that the messenger of Heaven should assume the form of a servant; that a man lowly in heart should be esteemed a pattern of virtue; that salvation to all nations should come from among the Jews, or that the Son of God, in appearing among those who had rebelled against his Father, should come, not to take away men's lives, but to lay down his own for their sakes. It is not to be wondered at that they, who knew no glory but the pride of life, took up against Christians the scandal of the cross; and experience forbids that it should be matter of surprise that skeptics respond unconsciously to the voice of prophets. He who has eyes to see may here, as elsewhere, see how objections become proofs, and how perversely arguments yield an opposite demonstration. The facts from which Christians were to be confuted out of their own writings need not be repeated, but may be read in the words of evangelists and prophets, and have their just and proper bearing on the Christian evidence, when placed side by side with the prophecies, where they harmoniously form the testimony of the enemies as well as the witnesses of Jesus, and the testimony which God has given of his Son. Pagan historians having recorded facts concerning Christ which prophets beforehand testified of him, and those very things which chiefly constitute the prophetically anticipated history of the Messiah having been adduced

and adopted by the ablest defenders of paganism, and the genuineness and authenticity of the New Testament, as of the Old, being confirmed by many irrefragable proofs-what reason can there be for not completing the comparison, except the iniquitous fear of conviction in the minds of those who desire not the knowledge of the ways of the Lord?

The Christian religion exists, and its conformity with the testimony of the prophets may be tried. There is not another book in the world so generally diffused, or that can be read in so many languages, as either the Old Testament or the New. The inspiration of the prophets is as cognizable now by many nations as it ever was among any of the tribes of Israel: for the facts which confirm it pertain to the history of the world, and may be known or seen by all men; and the doctrines of the gospel of Jesus, whether their Divine origin be admitted or not, are as peculiar, compared with all that was ever else taught by man, as are the Jews among all the nations of the earth. Never man spake like Jesus; never men wrote like his apostles. It was, indeed, a new doctrine which they taught. It has never been ascribed to any other. It is clearly discriminated from all besides. The doctrines and dictates of the gospel are known and recognised as such, whether scoffed at by gainsayers or believed by Christians. And it stands up to this day as its own witness, not only that it is the truth to those who hear it, but that it is the doctrine of the Messiah to those who will examine it. Unchanged since its origin, and ever unchangeable, and fixed beyond the power of man to alter it, without a thousand confutations from every quarter, the New Testament may be compared text with text, or word with word, in all its essential principles or doctrines, with the Old, in order to see whether it, and it alone, bears the character of the New Covenant, which was to succeed the disannulling of the Old; whether it reveals the everlasting righteousness which the Messiah was to bring in; whether it contains in itself a germe of blessedness for "all the families of the earth;" and whether its free course and final extension would not be for "the healing of the nations." Simply from its distinctive character and exclusive marks, the doctrine of the gospel may be compared with the testimony of the prophets at the present hour, as well as it could have been at the time when the men of Thessalonica, with that intent, searched the Old Testament Scriptures: and every Gentile may now inquire, as well as any Jew of old, whether the New Testament harmonizes with the Old, and whether the latter confirms or confutes it, as either unfolding the promised salvation, or falsely pretending to be the gospel of the Messiah. While the lapse of ages has thrown back the light of truth upon the most ancient oracles of God, and while the

gospel has survived all opposition for eighteen hundred years, the claim to a fair comparison between the one and the other has been strengthened by time; and that comparison, in respect to doctrine, may now be made as competently as ever it could have been: and fearlessly and freely as a Christian may here challenge any adversary of the gospel to show any discrepance or discordance between the Old Testament and the New, he has a right, on his own part, to take up the one in the one hand, and the other in the other, and, reading the prophetic annunciations of the good tidings of great joy, and of the light that, springing from Judea, was to arise upon the nations and to outlast the desolations of many generations, to affirm, these words of Scripture, as well as others, have been fulfilled; for while these are blessings which God did promise, this is what God hath given.

CHAPTER IX.

TESTIMONY OF THE PROPHETS TO THE MESSIAHSHIP OF JESUS.

HAVING, in a merely historical view, traced back Christianity to its origin, and having seen, from the conjunct testimony of heathens and of believers, that the New Testament which we now possess formed the original Christian writings, and contains the record of the history and of the faith of Christ, the demonstration may be speedily brought to a close, that it forms, no less than the Old, the oracles of divine truth, and incontrovertibly bears supernatural attestation to the supernatural events which it records; sufficient in all reason to substantiate the doctrine which it contains as being, to the full assurance of the faith which it exacts, the unerring word of the living God.

We have seen how the case of experience against miracles has been settled on the confession of experience itself; and we have not only proof of a miracle, but, while the natural world produces evidence on our side, we see that, as pertaining to sentient and rational beings, there is a law, even a written law, in the moral world, and a book of the Lord in which it is contained, to the unerring certainty of which every inflicted judgment gives attestation alike full and fearful, and which, in literal fulfilment of manifold predictions, is established by a "uniform and unalterable experience.'

There being experience of the truth of a miracle, and that God has altered the laws which he had made, the argument

of our adversary is therefore inapplicable to his purpose, false in principle, and only true to its predicted character. But there is no experience that the word of God has returned to him void, or has failed to fulfil the purpose for which he sent it. In the punishment of impenitent nations, the council of the Lord stands confirmed to the world, as he revealed it to his servants the prophets. Our appeal is to their testimony. For God surely has shown sufficient cause, by the sentences which he has passed and executed on the earth, according to the verdicts which he pronounced by them, that they have to be heard as the heralds of his great salvation, as well as of the desolation which came as destruction from the Almighty. The spirit of prophecy, which gave forth the anticipated history of the world, and which pointed to cities in their utmost desolation while yet they blazoned in all the pride of their power, has never been known to lie; and predicted judgments have been fulfilled to the very letter, till the truth of every jot and tittle has been confirmed by its effect. And it would be to gainsay an established law, paramount to all human power, confirmed from generation to generation, and still maintaining its irresistible authority over all the movements of the political and moral world, to deny what the prophets have spoken, or to maintain that the fallibility of human testimony is attachable to the word that is proved to be Divine.

The measure of the iniquity of the Jews was full when they rejected and crucified the Lord of life, and would not know the time of their visitation. But though repentance would have averted wrath, no iniquity of theirs, itself predicted, could have frustrated the Divine purpose of redemption which was decreed from the beginning, and enunciated in Eden so soon as sin had entered into the world, and was repeated from age to age, in irrepealable promises and pledges, by the word of the Lord to all the prophets of Israel. On this sure word of prophecy-of the unchangeableness of which all changes on earth give token, and the stability of which the revolutions of empires, and the ruins of cities declare-rests the testimony of Jesus; and greatly is that testimony traduced or disparaged when it is held as entirely dependant for its validity on any councils or actions of men, or as substantiated solely by human testimony unaccompanied by Divine.

The testimony of the prophets, by whose mouth He spoke, is the testimony of God. Their word is the demonstration of the Spirit by whose inspiration it was given. They did not speak, for they could not have spoken as they did, out of the imaginations of their own hearts; nor could any other voice but that of the Lord give utterance to those things which they were chosen to record. That his