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ness and simplicity: this topic enlarged on. Also, the perfect correspondency of the predictions with the facts and events.

Lastly, if to such marks of excellence we add, that these predictions were professedly delivered to give credit and stability to a revelation, which pretended to come from Heaven, and which therefore strongly demanded the interposition of God to support it if true, or to defeat it if false, the predictions of Christ will afford very strong confirmation of the truth of Christianity.

DISCOURSE III.

THE EVIDENCE IN FAVOR OF CHRISTIANITY WHICH IS DERIVED FROM THE PROPHECIES DELIVERED BY JESUS CHRIST.

LUKE, CHAP. XXIV.-VERSE 19..

Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people.

THE arguments for the divine mission of Christ, which are derived from the miracles performed by himself and his apostles, have been explained with a force and accuracy, to which little perhaps can now be added.

The argument from the prophecies of the Old Testament has been considered, in every age, as another great support of the Christian system; and has continued to receive fresh light from the judgment of later divines, and the well-directed researches of modern critics.

Its weight and importance are indeed obvious: every accomplished prediction is a species of miracle; its uses are the same; and the evidence of its reality is even less liable to doubt and dispute, because it is almost always confirmed by the concurrent testimony of two distinct sets of men; one of which are witnesses to the delivery of the prophecy, and the other to the truth of the fact, in which it was completed.

If then the evidence derived from prophecy be so peculiarly convincing, it may seem strange that any part of it should have been neglected; yet have the predictions delivered by our

Saviour himself been comparatively but little noticed: one or two of the more remarkable have indeed been separately stated; but the argument resulting from the whole has been less frequently and less diligently considered.

One reason of this inattention may perhaps be assigned. The facts foretold by Christ, it is acknowleged, had many of them taken place, before the books of the New Testament were published to the world. In these instances, therefore, it may be said, the prediction and its accomplishment are witnessed only by the same persons, and consequently fail of giving that intire satisfaction, of which this sort of evidence is capable.

This defect, which we shall hereafter see reason not to admit in the extent here stated, was the natural and unavoidable consequence of the different intentions with which these prophecies were delivered. All of them were doubtless designed to manifest the truth of Christianity, with different degrees of light indeed, to all ages; but some of them were more particularly calculated to confirm the faith and animate the courage of the apostles themselves; to turn their minds from the gross and groundless expectations which they had all so strongly imbibed, to the spiritual and real object of their Lord's mission; and to support their desponding spirits under all the sufferings which were to attend the several stages both of his ministry and of their own. Now, even on the supposition that these were the only ends to be secured by those prophecies, it is surely some advantage to the cause of Christianity, that we are able to show, that its first preachers were not publishers of facts, which they had hastily believed, from the partiality of affection, the credulity of their disposition, or the rashness of their natural tempers; but which had been confirmed to them by every species of rational evidence, which it is requisite to produce, or even possible to conceive.

In the consideration of ancient prophecies, the material subjects of inquiry are these: Were they certainly delivered, before the events, to which they refer, had taken place? Do they clearly correspond with those events? and, Were the events themselves extraordinary, unlikely, or remote; or such only, as human prudence and sagacity may pretend to foresee, and human artifice or power may be supposed able to effect?

That the events foretold by Christ are thus extraordinary will appear hereafter; that they punctually agree with the predictions, is in most cases too clear to need illustration, or to admit of dispute; and that the predictions themselves were really delivered before those events had happened, is confirmed by sufficient proofs, though not always of the same nature or of equal strength. Thus the prophecies, which describe the destruction of Jerusalem, and the subsequent calamities of the Jewish people, and some of those which unfold the future fortunes of the Christian church, were certainly not accomplished at the time, when the writings, in which they are recorded, were given to the world; and therefore the evidence for these, and of consequence that arising from them, is something beyond, and distinct from, the testimony of the apostles. Again, for the previous delivery of these predictions we have sometimes many other witnesses besides the disciples: the examples I would more particularly point out are those which relate to the resurrection of Christ, to the approaching rejection of the Jews, and the call and conversion of the Gentile world; all of which were undoubtedly both heard and understood by the Jews themselves: and, lastly, the previous delivery of every one of these predictions is established on the testimony of the apostles and other disciples; which must be allowed to be in itself an evidence of at least equal strength, with what has ever been either given or required for the confirmation of any other facts. And in these instances it acquires a peculiar degree of credibility, from the circumstances with which it is attended; for, if the apostles had purposely invented a chain of pretended prophecies, with the interested view of doing honor to their Lord, they would assuredly have so contrived the prudent fiction, as to reflect at least no needless dishonor on themselves: but the relation of these prophecies, on the contrary, is accompanied almost invariably with the humiliating confession of their own ignorance and guilt, their weakness and misconduct, their strange and perpetual misapprehensions, not only with respect to the spirit of their Master's doctrine, or the nature of his kingdom, but the obvious meaning of his plainest words and decla

rations.

But to come to the consideration of the prophecies them

selves; they cannot perhaps be better or more clearly arranged, than in the order of the events to which they allude.

The transactions, which ended with the death of Jesus, were foretold in terms so plain and direct, with such a truth and minuteness of circumstance, as manifestly to exclude every suspicion, that can be founded on the happiness of conjecture or the obscurity of application. That these sufferings were to be brought on him by the enmity of the Jews, assisted by the treachery of an apostle, who was frequently hinted at, and at length openly pointed out to the rest of the apostles and to himself; that in the moment of distress the eleven would all of them forsake the Lord; and that he among them, who was of greatest courage,-he, who was directed to strengthen his brethren,-he, who was the rock, on which was to be built the church of Christ,'-that he would not only be guilty of the same weakness, but would thrice deny that he knew him; that the Jews would deliver up a man, whom they could accuse of no crime, and whom they had lately hailed with Hosanna to the Son of David;' that they would deliver him up to a foreign nation, whose authority they all reluctantly admitted, and many pretended, from principles of religion, to deny and abhor; and that the Romans, without any motive whatever, would mock, insult, and scourge him, and, at last, merely to gratify the demands of a turbulent and despised populace, condemn him to the cruel and disgraceful death which was reserved for the pu nishment of the meanest and most abandoned criminals;-these circumstances are such, both in their number and nature, that though they may perhaps, after the fact, be explained consistently enough with the usual principles of human conduct; yet it is quite inconceivable, that they could ever be the objects of human foresight and expectation.

To support the minds of his disciples at this awful crisis, Jesus had before assured them, that the scene of his ministry on earth, though to be thus interrupted, would not yet be fully closed, but that on the third day he would rise again' from the dead, and go before them into Galilee." The prediction, however, of his resurrection, though delivered in the plainest terms, appears

* Matth. xxvi. 32.