exall itself any more above the nations—there shall be no more a prince
of the land of Egypt." (Vide Ezek. xxix and xxx.) It is more than
two thousand years since the prophecy was delivered, and Egypt has
never recovered its liberties, but is to this day under the yoke of foreigners.
It was conquered by the Babylonians; then by the Persians; and in suc-
cession passed under the dominion of the Macedonians, Romans, Sara
cens, Mamelics, and Turks. No native prince of Egypt has ever
restored his country to independence, and ascended the throne of his
ancestors; and the descendants of the ancient Egyptians are to this
hour in the basest and most oppressed condition. Yet in Egypt the
human mind had made some of its earliest and most auspicious corts.
The stupendous monuments of art and power, the ruins of which lie
piled upon the banks of the Nile, or still defy the wastes of time, attest
the vastness of the designs, and the extent of the power of its princes.
Egypt, too, was possessed of great natural advantages. Its situation was
singularly calculated to protect it against foreign invasion; while its
great fertility promised to secure the country it enriched from poverty,
baseness, and subjection. Yet after a long course of grandeur, and in
contradiction to its natural advantages, Ezekiel pronounced that the
kingdom should be "the basest of all kingdoms," and that there should
be "
no more a prince of the land of Egypt." So the event has been
and so it remains; and that this wonderful prophecy should be passec
over by infidels in silence, while they select from it a passage which
promised to give some colour to objection, is deeply characteristic of
the state of their minds. It is not from deficiency of evidence that the
word of God is rejected by them. The evil is not the want of light,
but the love of darkness.

Much ridicule has been cast upon the prophets for those significant actions by which they illustrated their predictions; as when Jeremial hides his linen girdle in a hole of the rock, and breaks a potter's vesse in the sight of the people; when Ezekiel weighs the hair of his head and beard in balances, with many other instances familiar to those who read the Scriptures. But this ridicule can only proceed from ignorance. In the early ages of the world, the deficiency of language was often supplied by signs; and when language was improved, "the practice remained," says Bishop Warburton, "after the necessity was over · especially among the easterns, whose natural temperament inclined them to this mode of conversation. The charges then of absurdity and fanaticism brought against the prophets, vanish of themselves. The absurdity of an action consists in its being extravagant and insignificative; but use and a fixed application made the actions in question both sober and pertinent. The fanaticism of an action consists in fondness for such actions as are unusual, and for foreign modes of speech; but those of the prophets were idiomatic and familiar." We may add, that several

of these actions were performed in vision; and that, considering the genius of the people who were addressed, they were calculated strongly to excite their attention, the end for which they were adopted.

Such are the principal objections which have been made to Scripture prophecy, as the proof of Scripture truth. That they are so few and so feeble, when enemies so prying and capable have employed their selves with so much misplaced zeal to discover any vulnerable part, is the triumph of truth. Their futility has been pointed out; and the whole weight of the preceding evidence in favour of the truth of the Old and New Testaments, remains unmoved. We have, indeed, but glanced at a few of these extraordinary revelations of the future, for the sake, not of exhibiting the evidence of prophecy, which would require a distinct volume, but of explaining its nature and pointing out its force. To the prophecies of the Old Testament, the attentive inquirer will add those of our Lord and his apostles, which will appear not less extraordinary in themselves, nor less illustrious in their fulfilment, so far as they have received their accomplishment. Many prophecies both of the Old and New Testament evidently point to future times, and this kind of evi dence will consequently accumulate with the lapse of ages, and may be among the means by which Jews, Mohammedans, and pagans shall be turned to the Christian faith. At all events, prophecy even unfulfilled now answers an important end. It opens our prospect into the future and if the detail is obscure, yet, notwithstanding the mighty contest which is still going on between opposing powers and principles, we see how the struggle will terminate, and know, to use a prophetic phrase, that "at eventime it shall be light."

CHAPTER XIX.

INTERNAL EVIDENCE of the Truth of Scripture-COLLATERAL
EVIDENCE.

THE internal evidence of a revelation from God has been stated to be that which arises from the apparent excellence and beneficial tendency of the doctrine. (Vide chap. ix.) This at least is its chief charac teristic, though other particulars may also be included in this species of proof, and shall be adduced.

The reader will recollect the distinction made in the chapter just referred to, between rational and authenticating evidence. It has been observed, that there are some truths made known to us through the medium of a revelation from God, which, though in their nature undis coverable by the unassisted faculties of man, yet, when once revealed, carry to our reason, so far as they are of a nature to be comprehendeu by it, the demonstration which accompanies truth of any other kind

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Vide chap. IX.) But it is only within the limit just mentioned that this position holds good; for such truths only rust be understood as are accompanied with reasons or rational proofs in the revelation itself, or which when once suggested to the mind, directs its thoughts and observations to surrounding facts and circumstances, or to established Irths to which they are capable of being compared, and by which they are confirmed. The internal evidence of the Holy Scriptures, therefore, As far as doctrine is concerned, is restrained to truths of this class. Of other truths revealed to us in the Bible, and those in many instances fundamental to the system of Christianity, we have no proof of this kind; but they stand on the firm basis of Divine attestation, and suffer no diminution of their authority because the reasons of them are either hidden from us for purposes of moral discipline, or because they transcend our faculties. If we had the reasons of them before us, they would not be more authentic, though to the understanding they would be more obvious. Such are the doctrines of a trinity of persons in the unity of the Godhead; of the hypostatic union of the two natures in Christ; of his Divine and eternal Sonship, &c. Such are many facts in the Divine government-as the permission of evil, and the long appa. rent abandonment of heathen nations—the unequal religious advantages afforded to individuals as well as nations-and many of the circumstances of our individual moral trial upon earth. Of the truth of these doctrines, and the fitness of these and many other facts, we have no internal evidence whatever; but a very large class of truths which are found in the revelations of Scripture, afford more or less of this kind of proof, and make their appeal to our reason as well as to our faith ;-in other words, their reasonableness is such, that though the great demon. stration does not rest upon that, it affords an additional argument why they should be thankfully received, and heartily credited.

The first and fundamental doctrine of Scripture is, the existence of God; the great and the sole First Cause of all things; eternal, self existent, present in all places, knowing all things; infinite in power and wisdom; and perfect in goodness, justice, holiness, and truth. That this view of the Divine Being, for which we are indebted to the Scriptures alone, presents itself with powerful rational demonstration to the mind of man, is illustriously shown by that astonishing change of opinion on this great subject which took place in pagan nations upon the promulgation of Christianity, and which in Europe continues to this day substantially unaltered. Not only those gross notions which prevailed among the vulgar, but the dark, uncertain, and contradictory researches of the philosophers of different schools have passed away; and the truth respecting God, stated in the majesty and simplicity of the Scriptures, has been, with few exceptions, universally received, and that among enlightened Deists themselves. These discoveries of revela.

tion nave satisfied the human mind on this great and primary doctrine; and have given it a resting place which it never before found, and from which, if it ever departs, it finds no demonstration until it returns to the "marvellous light" into which revealed religion has introduced us. A class of ideas, the most elevated and sublime, and which the most profound minds in former times sought without success, have thus become familiar to the very peasants in Christian nations. Nothing can be a more striking proof of the appeal which the Scripture character of God makes to the unsophisticated reason of mankind. (9)

Of the state and condition of MAN as it is represented in our holy writings, the evidence from fact, and from the consciousness of our own bosoms, is very copious. What man is, in his relations to God his maker and governor, we had never discovered without revelation; but now this is made known, confirmatory fact crowds in on every side, and affords its evidence of the truth of the doctrine.

The Old and New Testaments agree in representing the human race as actually vicious, and capable, without moral check and control, of the greatest enormities; so that not only individual happiness, but social also, is constantly obstructed or endangered. To this the history of all ages bears witness, and present experience gives its testimony.All the states of antiquity crumbled down, or were suddenly over. whelmed, by their own vices; and the general character and conduct of the people which composed them may be read in the works of their historians, poets, and satirists, which have been transmitted to our times. These, as to the Greeks and Romans, fully bear out the darkest colouring of their moral condition to be found in the well known first chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Church at Rome, and other pas sages in his various epistles. To this day, the same representation depicts the condition of almost all pagan countries, and, in many respects too, some parts of Christendom, where the word of God has been hid. den from the people, and its moral influence, consequently, has not been suffered to develope itself. In those countries also where that

(9) The Scripture character of the Divine Being is thus strikingly drawn out by Dr. A. Clarke in his note on Gen. i, 1:

"The eternal, independent, and self-existent Being. The Being whose pur poses and actions spring from himself, without foreign motive or influence: he who is absolute in dominion; the most pure, most simple, and most spiritual of all essences infinitely benevolent, beneficent, true, and holy: the cause of all being, the upholder of all things; infinitely happy, because infinitely good; and eternally self sufficient, needing nothing that he has made. Illimitable in his immensity, inconceivable in his mode of existence, and indescribable in his essence known fully only to himself, because an infinite mind can only be comprehended by itself. In a word, a Being who, from his infinite wisdom, cannot err or be deceived; and who, from his infinite goodness, can do nothing but what is eternally just, right, and kind."

corrective has been most carefully applied, though exalted beyond comparison in just, honourable, benevolent, and sober principles and habits, along with the frequent occurrence of numerous and gross actual crimes, the same appetites and passions may be seen in constant contest with the laws of the state; with the example of the virtuous; and the controlling influence of the word of God, preached by faithful minis. ters, taught as a part of the process of education, and spread throught ociety by the multiplication of its copies since the invention of printing. The Holy Scriptures therefore characterize man only as he is actually found in all ages, and in all places to the utmost bounds of those geogra. phical discoveries which have been made through the adventurous spirit of modern navigators.

But they not only assume men to be actually vicious, but vicious in consequence of a moral taint in their nature,--originally and inevitably 30, but for those provisions of grace and means of sanctity of which they speak; and as this assumption is the basis of the whole scheme of moral restoration, through the once promised seed of the woman, and the now actually given JESUS, the SAVIOUR, So they constantly remind him that he is "born in sin, and shapen in iniquity," and that, being born of the flesh, "he cannot please God." What is thus represented as doctrine appeals to our reason through the evidence of unquestionable fact. The strong tendency of man to crime cannot be denied. Civil penal laws are enacted for no other purpose than to repress it; they are multiplied in the most civilized states to shut out the evil in all those new directions toward which the multiplied relations of man, and his increased power, arising from increased intelligence, have given it its impulse. Every legal deed, with its seals and witnesses bears testimony to that opinion as to human nature which the experience of man has impressed on man; and history itself is a record chiefly of human gult, because examples of crime have every where and at all times been much more frequent than examples of virtue. This ten dency to evil, the Scriptures tell us, arises from "the heart,”—the nature and disposition of man; and it is not otherwise to be accounted for.Some indeed have represented the corruption of the race, as the result of association and example; but if men were naturally inclined to good, and averse to evil, how is it that not a few individuals only, but the whole race have become evil by mutual association? This would be to make the weaker cause the more efficient, which is manifestly absurd. It is contrary too to the reason of the case, that the example and association of persons naturally well disposed, should produce any other effect than that of confirming and maturing their good disposi tions; as it is the effect of example and association, among persons of similar tastes and of similar pursuits, to confirm and improve the habit which gives rise to them. As little plausibility is there in the opinion