that scrutiny the unbeliever is bound, upon his own principles, to engage in. If he be fearless of wavering in his unbelief, he will not shrink from the inquiry; or, if truth be his object, he will not resist the only means of its attainment-that he may either disprove what he could only doubt of before, or yield to the conviction of positive evidence and undoubted truth. This unhesitating challenge religion gives; and that man is neither a champion of infidelity, nor a lover of wisdom or of truth, who will disown or decline it.

To the believer such a subject is equally important and interesting. The apathy of nominal Christians, in the present day, is often contrasted with the zeal of those who first became obedient to the faith. The moral influence of the Christian religion is not what it has been, or what it ought to be. The difference in the character of its professors may be greatly attributed to a fainter impression and less confident assurance of its truth. Those early converts who witnessed the miracles of our Lord and of his apostles, and heard their divine doctrine, and they who received the immediate tradition of those who both saw and heard them, and who could themselves compare the moral darkness from which they had emerged with the marvellous light of the gospel, founded their faith upon evidence; possessed the firmest conviction of the truth; were distinguished by their virtues as well as by their profession, according to the testimony even of their enemies ;* cherished the consolations, and were inspired by the hopes of religion; and lived and died, actuated by the hope of immortality and the certainty of a future state. The contrast, unhappily, needs no elucidation. The lives of professing Christians, in general, cease to add a confirmation to the truth of Christianity, when they have often been the plea of infidels against it. Yet religion and human nature are still the same as they were when men were first called Christians, and when the believers in Jesus dishonoured not his name. But they sought more than a passive and unexamining belief. They knew in whom they believed; they felt the power of every truth which they professed. And the same cause, in active operation, would be productive of the same effects. The same strong and unwavering faith established on reason and conscious con

* Plinii Epis. 1. 10, ep. 97.

viction, would be creative of the same peace and joy in believing, and of all their accompanying fruits. And, as a means of destroying the distinction, wherever it exists, between the profession and the reality of faith, it is ever the prescribed duty of all who profess to believe in the gospel to search and to try-"to prove all things, and hold fast to that which is good ;" and to "be able to give an answer to every one that asketh them a reason of the hope that is in them."

To the sincere Christian it must ever be an object of the highest interest to search into the reason of his hope. The farther that he searches, the firmer will be his belief. Knowledge is the fruit of mental labourthe food and the feast of the mind. In the pursuit of knowledge, the greater the excellence of the subject of inquiry, the deeper ought to be the interest, the more ardent the investigation, and the dearer to the mind the acquisition of the truth. And that knowledge which immediately affects the soul, which tends to exalt the moral nature and enlarge the religious capacities of man, which pertains to eternity, which leads not merely to the contemplation of the works of the great Architect of the universe, but seeks also to discover an accredited revelation of his will and a way to his favour-and which rests not in its progress till it find assurance of faith or complete conviction, a witness without, as well as a witness within, is surely "like unto a treasure which a man found hid in a field, and sold all that he had and bought it." And it is delightful to have every doubt removed by the positive proof of the truth of Christianity -to feel that conviction of its certainty, which infidelity can never impart to her votaries,-and to receive that assurance of the faith, which is as superior in the hope which it communicates, as in the certainty on which it rests, to the cheerless and disquieting doubts of the unbelieving mind. Instead of being a mere prejudice of education, which may be easily shaken, belief, thus founded on reason, becomes fixed and immoveable; and all the scoffings of the scorner, and speculations of the infidel, lie as lightly on the mind, or pass as imperceptibly over it, and make as little impression there as the spray upon a rock.

In premising a few remarks, introductory to a Sketch of the Prophecies, little can be said on the general and comprehensive evidence of Christianity. The selection

of a part implies no disparagement to the whole. Ample means for the confirmation of our faith are within our reach. Newton, Bacon, and Locke, whose names stand pre-eminent in human science, to which they opened a path not penetrated before, found proof sufficient for the complete satisfaction of their minds. The internal evi dence could not be stronger than it is. There are manifold instances of undesigned coincidences in the Acts and Epistles of the Apostles, which give intrinsic proof that they are genuine and authentic. No better precepts, no stronger motives than the gospel contains have ever been inculcated. No system of religion has ever existed in the world at all to be compared to it: and none can be conceived more completely adapted to the necessities and nature of a sinful being like man, endowed with the faculty of reason and with capacities of religion. And the miracles were of such a nature as excluded the idea of artifice or delusion;-they were wrought openly in the presence of multitudes-they testified the benevolence of a Saviour, as well as the power of the Son of God. The disciples of Christ could not be deceived respecting them; for they were themselves endowed with the gift of tongues, and of prophesying, and with the power of working miracles; they devoted their lives to the propagation of the gospel, in opposition to every human interest, and amid continual sufferings. The Christian religion was speedily propagated throughout the whole extent of the Roman empire, and even beyond its bounds. The written testimony remains of many who became converts to the truth, and martyrs to its cause; and the most zealous and active enemies of our faith acknowledged the truth of the miracles and attributed them to the agency of evil spirits. Yet all this accumulation of evidence is disregarded, and every testimony is rejected unheard, because ages have since intervened, and because it bears witness to works that are miraculous. Though these general objections against the truth of Christianity have been ably answered and exposed, yet they may fairly be adduced as confirmatory of the proof which results from the fulfilment of prophecy, and as binding infidels to its investigation. For it sup plies that evidence which the enemies of religion, or those who are weak in the faith, would require, which applies to the present time, and which stands not in need of any testimony,-which is always attainable by the

researches of the inquisitive, and often obvious to the notice of all, and which past, present, and coming events alike unite in verifying;-it affords an increasing evidence, and receives additional attestations in each succeeding age.

But, while some subterfuge has been sought for evading the force of the internal evidence, and the conviction which a belief in the miracles would infallibly produce, and while every collateral proof is neglected, the prophecies also are set aside without investigation, as of too vague and indefinite a nature to be applied, with certainty, to the history either of past ages or of the present. A very faint view of the prophecies of the Old and New Testaments will suffice to rectify this equally easy and erroneous conclusion. Although some of the prophecies, separately considered, may appear ambiguous and obscure; yet a general view of them all -of the harmony which prevails throughout the prophecies--and of their adaptation to the facts they predict, must strike the mind of the most careless inquirer with an apprehension that they are the dictates of Omniscience. But many of the prophecies are as explicit and direct as it is possible that they could have been; and, as history confirms their truth, so they sometimes tend to its illustration, of which our future inquiry will furnish us with examples. And if the prophetical part of Scripture which refers to the rise and fall of kingdoms had been more explicit than it is, it would have appeared to encroach on the free agency of man-it would have been a communication of the foreknowledge of events which men would have grossly abused and perverted to other purposes rather than to the establishment of the truth; and instead of being a stronger evidence of Christianity, it would have been considered as the cause of the accomplishment of the events predicted, by the unity and combination it would have excited among Christians; and thus have afforded to the unbeliever a more reasonable objection against the evidence of prophecy than any that can be now alleged. It is in cases wherein they could not be abused, or wherein the agents instrumental in their fulfilment were utterly ignorant of their existence, that the prophecies are as descriptive as history itself. But whenever the knowledge of future events would have proved prejudicial to the peace and happiness of the world, they are couched in

allegory, which their accomplishment alone can expound, -and drawn with that degree of light and shade that the faithfulness of the picture may best be seen from the proper point of observation,-the period of their completion. Prophecy must thus, in many instances, have that darkness which is impenetrable at first, as well as that light which shall be able to dispel every doubt at last; and, as it cannot be an evidence of Christianity until the event demonstrate its own truth, it may remain obscure till history become its interpreter, and not be perfectly obvious till the fulfilment of the whole series with which it is connected. But the general and often sole objection against the evidence from the prophecies-that they are all vague and ambiguous-may best be answered and set aside by a simple exhibition of those numerous and distinct predictions which have been literally accomplished; and therefore to this limited view of them the following pages shall chiefly be confined.

Little need be said on the nature of proof from prophecy. That it is the effect of divine interposition cannot be disputed. It is equivalent to any miracle, and is of itself evidently miraculous. The foreknowledge of the actions of free and intelligent agents is one of the most incomprehensible attributes of the Deity; and is exclusively a divine perfection. He knows the determination of the human will, though he hath left it free-the past, the present, and the future are alike open to his view, and to his alone: and there can be no stronger proof of the interposition of the Most High than that which prophecy affords. Of all the attributes of the God of the universe, his prescience has bewildered and baffled the most all the powers of human conception; and an evidence of the exercise of this perfection in the revelation of what the infinite mind alone could make known is the seal of God, which can never be counterfeited, affixed to the truth which it attests. Whether that evidence has been afforded is a matter of investigation; but if it has unquestionably been given, the effect of superhuman agency is apparent, and the truth of what it was given to prove does not admit of a doubt. If the prophecies of the Scriptures can be proved to be genuineif they be of such a nature as no foresight of man could possibly have predicted-if the events foretold in them were described hundreds or even thousands of years before those events became parts of the history of man