pretation, if we reflect, how exactly it agrees with all that the Jewish prophets were understood to intend, and what Jesus himself and his apostles assert was intended, by their predictions.

It were endless to enumerate all the prophecies of the Old Testament, which have been supposed to point at Jesus: and the controversy concerning the application of some prophecies to him may be thought difficult. But it is very certain that the Jews, before the coming of Christ, gave this construction to their scriptures: they even looked beyond the letter of their sacred books, and conceived the testimony of the Messiah to be the soul and end of the commandment. The spirit of prophecy was so firmly believed to intend that testimony, that the expectation was general of some such person, as Jesus, to appear among them, and at the very time in which he made his appearance. This, I say, is an undoubted fact, what account soever may be given of it; and so far evinces that the principle, delivered in

severing testimony, they gave, in evil times, to Jesus Christ, and to his pure religion.

On the whole, there cannot be the least doubt of the interpretation, here given of this famous text. The expression fairly admits this interpretation; and (what the true critic will regard most) the scope of the place, or pertinence of the reasoning, addressed to St. John, admits no other.

the text, corresponds entirely to the idea which the fathers entertained of the prophetic spirit.

Next, Jesus himself appeals to the spirit of prophecy, as bearing witness to his person and dispensation. Search the scriptures, says he to the Jews, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of ME* Two things are observable in these words. 1. If the Jews thought they had eternal life in their scriptures, they must needs have understood them in a spiritual sense; for the letter of them taught no such thing: and I know not what other spiritual sense, that should lead them to the expectation of eternal life, they could put on their scriptures, but that prophetic or typical sense, which respected the Messiah. 2. Jesus here expressly asserts, that their scriptures testified of him. How generally they did so, he explained at large in that remarkable conversation with two of his disciples, after his ressurrection, when, beginning at Moses and ALL the prophets, he expounded unto them in ALL the scriptures the things concerning himself.†

The apostles of Jesus are frequent and large in the same appeal to the spirit of prophecy.

Those things, says St. Peter to the Jews, which God had shewed by the mouth of ALL his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled.* And, again, after quoting the authority of Moses, Yea, and ALL the prophets from Samuel, and those that follow after, as many as have spoken have likewise foretold of these days.†

St. Paul seems to have composed some entire epistles, with the view of shewing that Christ was prefigured in the law itself, and that He was, in truth, the substance of the whole Jewish dispensation. So thoroughly, according to him, did the spirit of prophecy pervade that system, and so clearly did it bear testimony to Jesus! Whence, in his apology before Agrippa, we find him asserting of the whole Christian doctrine, that he said none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come.§

More citations cannot be necessary on so plain a point. And I bring these to shew, not the truth of the principle itself (which is not now under

Acts iii. 18. † Acts iii, 24. See also Acts x, 43. 1 Pet. i. 10. See especially the epistles to the Hebrews, and Galatians.

$ Acts xxvi. 22. See farther, Acts xxviii. 23. Rom. iii. 21. Eph. ii. 19, &c

consideration) but the certainty of the interpretation, here given to the text. For I make it say no more (though it says it indeed more precisely) than the scriptures themselves were understood by the Jews to say, and are represented by Jesus and his apostles, as actually saying, when I affirm its sense to be, "That the scope and end of prophecy was the testimony of Jesus."

On this principle, then, we are to regulate all our reasonings on the subject of prophecy. They who maintain, and they who would confute, its pretensions, must equally go on this supposition. If the system of prophecy can be justified, or so far as it can be justified, on these grounds, the defence must be thought solid and satisfactory; because those grounds are not arbitrarily assumed, but are such as that system itself acknowledges. On the contrary, whatever advantage may be fairly taken of those grounds to discredit prophecy, must needs be allowed, for the same reason.

Again: On the believer's scheme, that prophecy is of divine inspiration, there can be no presumption in arguing from the grounds here supposed in favour of prophecy. Because, though all conclusions from a principle of human invention must be hazardous and rash, yet from a principle of divine authority many sober and just inferences may be

drawn. For it is one thing to discover a principle, and another to argue justly and cogently from it.

On the other hand, the unbeliever, who regards the whole system of prophecy as of human invention, must yet be allowed to argue pertinently from the same grounds, because they are the proper grounds of that system: his arguments may be rightly formed, though the principle, from which he argues, appear to him of no authority. The rules of logic will indeed oblige him to argue on that principle; for, otherwise, he combats, not his adversary's position, but a phantom of his own raising.

Having premised thus much concerning the right interpretation of the text, and the important relation it bears to the present subject, I should now proceed to inquire what conclusions naturally and fairly result from it. For from this assumption, that Jesus is the end of prophecy, it will, i think follow very evidently, that the greater part of those objections which make so much noise, and are so confidently urged, on the subject of prophecy, have no force at all in them.

But, before we enter on that task, it may be useful to consider more particularly what the ASSUMED PRINCIPLE itself is, and to pause a while in contemplation of this idea.