Jews, even when they spoke a dialect of the Hebrew language. So that still I do not see, upon the whole, what advantage the Jews, whether of ancient or modern times, can be thought to have over us, in explaining the prophetic scriptures. And then

2. As to the completion of the prophecies, the same histories are in the hands of both: and if they do not apply them, as we do, the appeal is open to common sense. Every man is left at lib. erty to judge for himself, which side is best supported in the application of them. The prejudice might, indeed, be thought equal on both sides, if it were not decided by their own scriptures, that no prejudice of any people upon earth was ever so invincible, as that of the Jews.

3. Lastly, on both heads, there is a peculiar presumption, that they, and not we, are misled by prejudice: It is this: They were led by their prophecies, as interpreted by themselves, to expect that they would be completed at the time, in which, we say, they were completed; and it was not till after the coming of Christ that they began to interpret them differently, and to look out for another completion of them. Judge then, if they, or we, are likely to have erred most, through prejudice, in expounding and applying the prophecies.

The natural and proper sense will be thought to be that, in which we take them; for that sense occurred first to themselves, and was, in truth, their sense, before we adopted it.

When I say their sense-I mean, especially, in respect to the time, which they had fixed for the accomplishment of the prophecies concerning the Messiah: for, as to their giving a temporal sense to some prophecies, in which we find a spiritual, that is another matter, concerning which, as I said, the appeal lies to every competent and dispassionate inquirer. In the mean time, it must be thought some presumption in favour of the Christian interpretation, that, whereas the Jews, in rejecting a spiritual or mystical sense of those prophecies (which yet is admitted by them, without scruple, on other occasions, and is well suited to the genius of their whole religion) are driven to the necessity of supposing a two-fold Messias-a new conceit, taken up without warrant from their scriptures, and against their own former ideas and expectations-WE, on the contrary, by the help of that spiritual sense, are able to explain all the prophecies of one and the same Messias, conformably to the event, and even to the time which the Jews themselves had prefixed for the completion of them.

Now, when, of two interpretations, one has apparently all the marks of shift, constraint, and distress in it, and the other comes out easy, uniform, and consistent: we may guess beforehand, as I said, which of them is likely to be well founded.

III. Still it is pretended, "that the argument from prophecy is properly addressed to those only who admit the divinity of the Jewish scriptures, as the Jews have invariably done; and that it hath no force, but on that previous supposition. Why then is the argument pressed on others, who do not believe the divine authority of those scriptures? And how should it prevail with any, whether believers or not, when the Jews themselves, who of all men most firmly believe that authority, are not convinced by it?"

The latter part of the difficulty which respects the incredulity of the Jews, hath been already removed; so far, I mean, as it is founded on their prejudices. As for the assertion, "That the argument from prophecy presupposes the truth and divinity of the Jewish scriptures, and must therefore have most weight with the Jews, or rather hath no weight at all, but with them, or with others, who admit that common principle," though something,

like this, may have been said, I take it to be wholly unsupported as well by fact, as by any good reason.

I. I argue against this assumption from fact; that is, from the method, taken by the early Christians to convert the Gentile world, and from the success of that method.

If we look into the history of the gospel, we shall find the apostle Peter, pressing this argument from prophecy on the Gentile Cornelius ;* and the apostle Paul, urging it with effect, on the Jews indeed first, but also on the Asiatic Gentiles. If we turn to the Christian apologists, we shall find them addressing this topic to Gentile unbelievers, nay, as venturing the whole cause of christianity on this single argument.‡ Justin Martyr makes as free use of it in his Apology to the Antonines, as in his Dialogues with Trypho. We know, too, the success of this argument, thus employed in many instances: and therefore see, as well the fitness of the argument to produce this

† Τίνι γὰρ ἐν λόγῳ ἀνθρώπῳ ςαυρωθέντι ἐπειθόμεθα, ὅτι πρωτότοκΘ τῷ ἀγεννήτῳ ἐςι, καὶ αὐτὸς τὴν κρίσιν το παντὸς, ἀνθρωπείς γένες ποιήσεται, εἰ μὴ μαρτύρια, πριν ἐλθῶν αὐτὸν ἄνθρωπον γενόμενον, κεκηρυγμένα περὶ αὐτέ εὕρομεν, καὶ ὅτως γενόμενα ὁρῶμεν ;

JUSTIN MARTYR, Apol. i. c. 88.

effect, as the judgment of the apostles and primitive Christians concerning its fitness. But to come

2. To the reason of the thing.

The Jews, who professed to believe, and did, in fact, believe, the divine inspiration of their sacred oracles, were, doubtless, bound by their own principles, to expect with assurance the due completion of them. The Gentiles, who did not previously respect those oracles, as of divine authority, but regarded them only in the light of human conjectures, yet saw that such passages, whether we call them oracular or conjectural, did, in truth, occur in the Jewish scriptures; and were obliged to admit, on the faith of historical testimony, that those scriptures were composed by the persons, whose names they bear, and at the times fixed for the composition of them. What then is the difference of the two cases? believed that their oracles would be fulfilled, because they held them to be divine; the Gentiles had to wait till those oracles were fulfilled, before they acknowledged their divinity. In either case, the argument is independent of the belief, or the expectation, and turns on the completion only. Then, indeed, the Jew sees that his belief was well founded, and the Gentile admits that the prediction was divine.

Only this: the Jews