DISCOURSE VIII.

OF THE EVIDENCE ARISING FROM THE PROPHECIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

MATTHEW, CHAP. 11.-VERSE 2.

Where is he that is born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.

SUCH was the language of the eastern Magi, whose devotion had led them to Jerusalem to attend the birth of our Saviour. They were men of a religious order among the Persians, no less eminent for their knowlege of nature, and particularly of the appearances in the heavens, than for the consideration and rank which they held in the state. The costly presents they brought proved at once their riches and the sincerity of their conviction. Of the latter indeed there could be no doubt, by whatever means it was produced; as it had determined them to perform a pious pilgrimage into a distant and hostile nation, in order to testify the revelation they had received, and pay a religious homage to the new-born prince. Religious it certainly was, if they were called to it by a summons from heaven; a summons given, as they conceived it, by the appearance of a star, and explained by the predictions of the ancient Jews. The prophecies of the Old Testament were not unknown in the east; and the title King of the Jews' was undoubtedly taken from those writings, and was designed by the wise men, as it was applied by the Jewish people, to signify their promised Saviour, the Messiah, or Christ. So Herod, who then filled the throne, understood it; for he immediately gathered the chief priests and scribes together, and demanded of them, where Christ should be born.'

But what must we think of the reason which these travellers gave for their inquiry? They had seen his star in the east.' Must we therefore be led to credit the exploded science of judicial astrology; or, as the cavillers at revelation would persuade us, reject the argument of these sages, as a mere chimera, the whimsical conclusion of Chaldean soothsayers? The rational inquirer will do neither the one nor the other for, though the common pretences to predictions and declarations from the stars be groundless and absurd, yet the judgment of these astronomers may have been just and conclusive. The observation of the heavens was the favorite amusement of eastern nations. They first discovered, and marked out, the different motions of the sun, moon, and stars, their periods, and the rules of their appearance: in all this was science and certainty, and the learned of later ages have been benefited by their studies. But on this solid knowlege curiosity, or su perstition, had hung the weak appendage of astrology; and the casual events of human life were conceived to be connected with, and signified by, the appearances of the heavens. Here was error only and illusion; which, as just reasoning and true philosophy grew up and florished, gradually withered away, and is now intirely neglected and forgotten; whereas the science of astronomy is both solid and useful. The study of it not only furnishes our minds with real knowlege; it prepares them also, and more perhaps than any other, for religious contemplations: it opens and enlarges our conceptions of the immense extent, the distant connexions, the regular and perpetual government, of the creation; and, consequently, of the power, wisdom, and goodness of the Creator: and this influence of it seems, in some sort, to be confirmed by the example before us for we may reasonably believe that, of all the Gentile world, their minds were best prepared for the reception of the Gospel, to whom it was first communicated, and who first came to worship its divine Author. Now, supposing in those nations such a general disposition to contemplate the heavens, and that God had purposed to reveal to them the important event of our Lord's nativity; in what apter manner could the alarm be spread, than by a miraculous change of the objects they were most used to consider? What could sooner excite

the attention of astronomers than the appearance of a new star? The conclusion they drew from this wonderful spectacle might either be suggested by divine inspiration, or be the ordinary effect of human opinion; an opinion perhaps founded in their own vain theories, but confirmed by the Jewish prophecies of the Messiah, which then held the world in anxious suspense, and were supposed to draw near their completion: and the latter will appear the more probable supposition to those, who consider the words of the Scripture history; where the wise men, seeing again in Judea the star which had occasioned their journey, are said to have 'rejoiced with an exceeding great joy;' the proper description of men, who, on a sudden, were become absolutely convinced of an opinion, which before they had held only on grounds of probability, and on which they had hazarded their ease and reputation.

But may we allow ourselves to imagine that the God of truth would build the evidences of his revelation on error; and, because the warm imaginations of certain fanciful prophets had connected the rising of a bright star with the nativity of a hero, would signify the birth of his Son by a miraculous appearance of the same kind? The difficulty deserves a serious answer. We will proceed to it by degrees. Perhaps, in all our reasoning there are so many defects, such a mixture of uncertainty and falsehood, that to the all-discerning eye of God there may be little difference between our firmest and weakest conclusions. Possibly it may be of no great importance to the happiness of mankind to judge right in questions of philosophy; but whether it be important or not, certainly men have fallen into many mistakes of this kind, which the gospel has not attempted to correct and there seems to have been no reason why these mistakes should not be applied, if they could be applied, to support truth. For since it is the usual method of God's providence to bring good out of evil, why may we not also believe that he sometimes conducts men to truth through error? The error, indeed, must not make a necessary part of the argument; for then the whole would be fallacious; but it may excite attention to a just and solid proof, without any imputation on the wisdom or the veracity of its author. Thus, in the example we are considering, the circumstance on which the whole

evidence rests, is the nature of that extraordinary light by which the eastern travellers were conducted; and the history clearly shows it to be miraculous. A real star, we know, in its regular motions, could not have pointed out a certain country, much less a single village, or a particular house; but a miraculous light, which moved towards, and stood over, the habitation of the heavenly infant, was equally a proof of his divine mission; whether the opinion, entertained, as we may suppose, by these sages, that the rising of an uncommon star denoted the nativity of some eminent person, were the genuine dictate of nature, or the spurious offspring of fancy and folly.

A similar remark may facilitate our progress in examining the arguments for the truth of Christianity taken from the completion of ancient prophecies. Learned men have thought, that several of the passages, cited from them by the evangelists, had not originally the same sense in which they are applied; and, amidst the obscurity of those writings, and the short and imperfect histories of the times when they were composed, it may not always be easy to determine, which of them related to the Messiah: but it will be equally available to our purpose to discover, which of them were so applied by the Jews, before the coming of Christ: for, if the number and nature of the predictions, which they understood of the Messiah, be such, that neither art nor accident could fulfil them; then have we the same evidence of God's interposition for their accomplishment, whether they understood them rightly or not. The miracle consists in the correspondence of the events with the expectations; and it is not necessary to inquire, whence these expectations were derived. It is the less necessary, because the argument from ancient prophecies is intended chiefly to convince the Jews, who still adhere to the same interpretations of them, and believe them to relate to the yet future kingdom of their expected Messiah. Let us therefore attend to the descriptions of this kingdom, and examine how far Christianity answers them: we shall then be able to determine, whether Jesus had a fair claim to that title, by which the wise men inquired for him, of king of the Jews.'

And first, the extent of that empire, of which the Messiah was to be the founder and governor, is described in remark

able terms.

'All nations,' say the prophets, 'shall flow unto it;' all people, and nations, and languages shall serve him ;'† the heathen shall be his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth his possession ;'† 'his dominion shall be from sea to sea,'§' from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof.'|| And, though all other mighty monarchies have grown up by slow degrees, and, when arrived at the summit of their power, have speedily fallen to ruin, days sometimes destroying the works of ages; of the New Jerusalem, the kingdom of the Messiah, it was predicted, that its establishment should be without decay, its duration without end. The prophets speak of this Messenger of the Lord, as subduing the nations in a day, and keeping them in subjection for ever and ever. His appearance to be sudden, like the lightning;'** his continuance as long as the sun and moon endureth.'++

was

Now none of the greatest empires, that have arisen among mankind, ever equalled Christianity, either in its rapid progress, its extensive dominion, or the length of its prosperity. Suddenly indeed was this call from heaven heard and obeyed, in all those countries which could come within the view of the prophets, in every nation of the then known world. And, as the world has been enlarged by new discoveries, the laws and doctrines of Christ have been carried far beyond its ancient boundaries, into those regions where the sun was supposed to rise and set. Nor is there any reason to believe, that his authority, though continually increasing, is yet approaching to its utmost limits on the contrary, the present state of the world affords a presumption, independent of all predictions, that Christianity will become the universal religion of mankind. Several Christian states have been for some ages, and are now, sending forth large and florishing colonies into the most distant countries: Mahometans and heathens are not doing the same. The professors of Christianity, wherever they can gain admission, labor to make proselytes: those of other religions are either indif

* Isa. ii. 2. Mic. iv. 1.

§ Psalm lxxii. 8.

Isa. Ix. 22. and Mal. iii. 1. †† Psal. Ixxii. 5.

+ Dan. vii. 14.

|| Psalm 1. 1.

Psalm ii. 8.

** Matt. xxiv. and Luke xvii.