Chapter 17. — Prophecies of Scripture.

CHAPTER 17. — PROPHECIES OF SCRIPTURE.

THE nature and force of the argument from prophecy have been already stated; (Vide chap. ix;) and it has been proved, that where real predictions are uttered, — not happy conjectures which shrewd and observing men may sometimes make, but predictions which imply foresight of events dependent upon the various contingencies of human affairs, and a knowledge of the characters, dispositions, and actions of persons yet unborn, so as to decide unerringly on the conduct which they will pursue — they can only be uttered by inspired men, and the author of such communications can be no other than the infinite and omniscient God, “showing to his servants the things which shall be hereafter,” in order to authenticate their mission, and to affix the stamp of his own infallible authority upon their doctrine.

The authenticity and the antiquity of the records which contain these predictions, have been already established; and the only subject of inquiry proper to this chapter is, the prophetic character of the predictions said to be contained in the Old and New Testaments. A few general observations may however be previously allowed.

1. The instances to be considered by those who would fully satisfy themselves on this point are not few but many. The believer in the Divine authority of the Old and New Testaments, is ready to offer for examination great numbers of professed prophecies relative to individuals, cities, states, the person and offices of Messiah, and the Christian Church, which he alleges to have been unequivocally fulfilled; independent of predictions which he believes to be now fulfilling; or which are hereafter to be fufilled in the world.

2. If as to the fulfilment of some particular prophecies, the opinions of men should differ, there is an abundance of others, the accomplishment of which has been so evident as to defy any rational interpretation which will not involve their fulfilment; while unbelievers are challenged to show any clear prediction of Holy Scripture which has been falsified by the event throughout the whole range of those ages which are comprehended by the Bible, from the Pentateuch to the Apocalypse.

3. The predictions in Scripture have already been distinguished in their character from the oracles and divinations of the heathen; (Vide chap. xvi;) and it may here be farther observed, that they are not, generally, separate and insulated predictions of the future, arising out of accidental circumstances, and connecting themselves with merely individual interests and temporary occasions. On the contrary, they chiefly relate to, and arise out of a grand scheme for the moral recovery of the human race from ignorance, vice, and wretchedness. They speak of the agents to be employed in it, and especially of the great agent, the REDEEMER himself; and of those mighty and awful proceedings of Providence as to the nations of the earth, by which judgment and mercy are exercised with reference both to the ordinary principles of moral government, and especially to this restoring economy, to its struggles, its oppositions, and its triumphs. They all meet in CHRIST, as in their proper centre, and in him only, however many of the single lines, when considered apart, may be imagined to have another direction, and though they may pass through intermediate events. “If we look,” says Bishop Hurd, “into the prophetic writings, we find that prophecy is of a prodigious extent; that it commenced from the fall of man, and reaches to the consummation of all things; that for many ages it was delivered darkly, to a few persons, and with large intervals from the date of one prophecy to that of another; but at length became more clear, more frequent, and was uniformly carried on in the line of one people, separated from the rest of the world — among other reasons assigned, for this principally, to be the repository of the Divine Oracles; that, with some intermission, the spirit of prophecy subsisted among that people to the coming of Christ, that he himself, and his apostles, exercised this power in the most conspicuous manner; and left behind them many predictions recorded in the books of the New Testament, which profess to respect very distant events, and even run out to the end of time, or in St. John’s expression, to that period, ‘when the mystery of God shall be perfected.’ Farther, beside the extent of this prophetic scheme, the dignity of the person whom it concerns, deserves our consideration. He is described in terms which excite the most august and magnificent ideas. He is spoken of, indeed, sometimes as being the seed of the woman, and as the Son of man; yet so as being at the same time of more than mortal extraction. He is even represented to us as being superior to men and angels; as far above all principality and power; above all that is accounted great, whether in heaven or in earth; as the Word and Wisdom of God; as the eternal Son of the Father; as the Heir of all things, by whom he made the worlds; as the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person. We have no words to denote greater ideas than these: the mind of man cannot elevate itself to nobler conceptions. Of such transcendent worth and excellence is that Jesus said to be, to whom all the prophets bear witness! “Lastly, the declared purpose for which the Messiah, prefigured by so long a train of prophecy, came into the world, corresponds to all the rest of the representation. It was not to deliver an oppressed nation from civil tyranny, or to erect a great civil empire, that is, to achieve one of those acts which history accounts most heroic. No: it was not a mighty state, a victor people —

Non res Romanæ perituraque regna — that was worthy to enter into the contemplation of this Divine person. It was another, and far sublimer purpose which he came to accomplish; a purpose, in comparison of which all our policies are poor and little, and all the performances of man as nothing. It was to deliver a world from ruin; to abolish sin and death; to purify and immortalize human nature; and thus, in the most exalted sense of the words, to be the Saviour of men and the blessing of all nations. There is no exaggeration in this account. I deliver the undoubted sense, if not always the very words of Scripture. Consider then to what this representation amounts. Let us unite the several parts of it, and bring them to a point. A spirit of prophecy pervading all time — characterizing one person, of the highest dignity — and proclaiming the accomplishment of one purpose, the most beneficent, the most Divine, the imagination itself can project. Such is the Scriptural delineation, whether we will receive it or no, of that economy which we call prophetic.”

4. Prophecy, in this peculiar sense, and on this ample scale, is peculiar to the religious system of the Holy Scriptures. Nothing like it is found any where beside; and it accords perfectly with that system, that nothing similar should be found elsewhere. “The prophecies of Scripture,” says that accomplished scholar. Sir W. Jones, “bear no resemblance in form or style to any that can be produced from the stores of Grecian, Indian, Persian, or even Arabian learning. The antiquity of those compositions, no man of learning doubts; and the unrestrained application of them to events long subsequent to their publication, is a solid ground of belief that they were genuine predictions, and consequently inspired.” The advantage of this species of evidence belongs then exclusively to our revelation. Heathenism never made any clear and well-founded pretensions to it.

Mohammedanism, though it stands itself as a proof of the truth of Scripture prophecy, is unsupported by a single prediction of its own. “To the Christian only belongs this testimony of his faith; this growing evidence gathering strength by length of time, and affording, from age to age, fresh proofs of its Divine origin. As a majestic river expands itself more and more the farther it removes from its source, so prophecy, issuing from the first promise in paradise as its fountain head, acquired additional strength and fulness as it rolled down successive ages, and will still go on increasing in extent and grandeur, until it shall finally lose itself in the ocean of eternity.”

5. The objection which has been raised to Scripture prophecy from its supposed obscurity, has no solid foundation. There is, it is true, a prophetic language of symbol and emblem; but it is a language which as definite and not equivocal in its meaning, and as easily mastered as the language of poetry, by attentive persons. This, however, is not always used. The style of the prophecies of Scripture very often differs in nothing from the ordinary style of the Hebrew poets; and, in not a few cases, and those too on which the Christian builds most in the argument, it sinks into the plainness of historical narrative. Some degree of obscurity is essential to prophecy: for the end of it was not to gratify human curiosity, by a detail of future events and circumstances; and too great clearness and speciality might have led to many artful attempts to fulfil the predictions, and so far the evidence of their accomplishment would have been weakened. The two great ends of prophecy are, to excite expectation before the event, and then to confirm the truth by a striking and unequivocal fulfilment; and it is a sufficient answer to the allegation of the obscurity of the prophecies of Scripture, that they have abundantly accomplished those objects, among the most intelligent and investigating, as well as among the simple and unlearned in all ages. It cannot be denied, for instance, leaving out particular cases which might be given, that by means of these predictions the expectation of the incarnation and appearance of a Divine Restorer was kept up among the people to whom they were given, and spread even to the neighbouring nations; that as these prophecies multiplied, the hope became more intense; and that at the time of our Lord’s coming, the expectation of the birth of a very extraordinary person prevailed, not only among the Jews, but among other nations. This purpose was then sufficiently answered, and an answer is given to the objection. In like manner prophecy serves as the basis of our hope in things yet to come; the final triumph of truth and righteousness on earth, the universal establishment of the kingdom of our Lord, and the rewards of eternal life to be bestowed at his second appearing. In these all true Christians agree; and their hope could not have been so uniformly supported in all ages, and under all circumstances, had not the prophecies and predictive promises conveyed with sufficient clearness the general knowledge of the good for which they looked, though many of its particulars be unrevealed. The second end of prophecy is, to confirm the truth by the subsequent event; and here the question of the actual fulfilment of Scripture prophecy is involved, to which we shall immediately advert. We only now observe, that it is no argument against the unequivocal fulfilment of several prophecies, that many have doubted or denied what the believers in revelation have on this subject so strenuously contended for. How few of mankind have read the Scriptures with serious attention, or been at the pains to compare their prophecies with the statements in history! How few, especially of the objectors to the Bible, have read it in this manner! How many of them have confessed, unblushingly, their unacquaintance with its contents, or have proved what they have not confessed by the mistakes and misrepresentations into which they have fallen. As for the Jews, the evident dominion of their prejudices; their general averseness to discussion; and the extravagant principles of interpretation they have adopted for many ages, which set all sober criticism at defiance, render nugatory any authority which might be ascribed to their denial of the fulfilment of certain prophecies in the sense adopted by Christians. We may add to this, that among Christian critics themselves there may be much disagreement. Eccentricities and absurdities are found among the learned in every department of knowledge, and much of this waywardness, and affectation of singularity has infected interpreters of Scripture. But, after all, there is a truth and reason in every subject which the understandings of the generality of men will apprehend and acknowledge, whenever it is fully understood and impartially considered; to this, in all such cases, the appeal can only be made, and here it may be made with confidence.

6. For want of a right apprehension of the meaning of somewhat an unfortunate term which has obtained in theology, the “double sense” of many prophecies, an objection of another kind has been raised, as though no definite meaning could be assigned to the prophecies of Scripture. Nothing can be more unfounded. “The double sense of many prophecies in the Old Testament,” says an able writer, “has been made a pretext by ill-disposed men, for representing them as of uncertain meaning, and resembling the ambiguity of the pagan oracles. But whoever considers the subject with due attention, will perceive how little ground there is for such an accusation. The equivocations of the heathen oracles manifestly arose from their ignorance of future events, and from their endeavours to conceal that ignorance, by such indefinite expressions, as might be equally applicable to two or more events of a contrary description. But the double sense of the Scripture prophecies, far from originating in any doubt or uncertainty, as to the fulfilment of them in either sense, springs from a foreknowledge of their accomplishment in both; whence the prediction is purposely so framed as to include both events, which, so far from being contrary to each other, are typical the one of the other, and are thus connected together by a mutual dependency or relation. This has often been satisfactorily proved, with respect to those prophecies which referred, in their primary sense, to the events of the Old Testament, and, in their farther and more complex signification, to those of the New: and on this double accomplishment of some prophecies is grounded our firm expectation of the completion of others which remain yet unfulfilled in their secondary sense, but which we justly consider as equally certain in their issue, as those which are already past. So far, then, from any valid objection lying against the credibility of the Scripture prophecies, from these seeming ambiguities of meaning, we may urge them as additional proofs of their coming from God. For, who but the Being, who is infinite in knowledge and in counsel, could so construct predictions as to give them a two-fold application, to events distant from, and (to human foresight) unconnected with, each other? What power less than Divine could so frame them, as to make the accomplishment of them, in one instance, a solemn pledge and assurance of their completion in another instance, of still higher and more universal importance? Where will the scoffer find any thing like this in the artifices of heathen oracles, to conceal their ignorance, and to impose on the credulity of mankind?”

We now proceed to the enumeration of a few out of the great number of predictions contained in the Scriptures, which most unequivocally show a perfect knowledge of future contingent events, and which, therefore, according to our argument, as certainly prove that they who uttered them “spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,” by the Spirit of the omniscient and infinitely prescient GOD. f71

The very first promise made to man is a prediction which none could have uttered, but He whose eye looks through the depths of future ages, and knows the result as well as the beginning of all things. “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” In vain is it attempted to resolve the whole of the transaction with which this prediction stands connected, into allegory. Such criticism, if applied to any other ancient historical book, bearing marks of authentic narration as unequivocal as the book of Genesis, would not be tolerated by the advocates of this absurd conception themselves, whether they are open or disguised infidels. In vain is it alleged, that a mere fact of natural history is stated: for if the words are understood to express no more than the enmity between the human race and serpents, it would require to be proved, in order to establish a special punishment of the serpent, that man has a greater hostility to serpents than to other dangerous animals, which he extirpates whenever he can master them by force or stratagem; and that serpents have a stronger disposition to do injury to men, than to those animals which they make their daily prey, or to others which they never fail to strike when within their reach. As this was obviously false in fact, Moses could not assert it; and, if it had been true in natural history, to have said this and nothing more, to have confined himself to the mere literal fact, a fact of no importance, would have been far below the character of Moses as a writer — a lofty and sublime character, to which the heathens and sometimes infidels themselves have done justice. In no intelligible sense can these celebrated words be understood, but in that in which they are fixed by innumerable references and allusions of other parts of the sacred volume, and which ought, in all good criticism, to determine their meaning. The serpent, and the seed of the woman, are the representatives of two invisible and mighty powers; the one good, the other evil; the one Divine, though incarnate of the woman, the other diabolic; between whom an enmity was placed, which was to express itself in a long and fearful struggle, in the course of which the seed of the woman should sustain a temporary wound and suffering, but which should issue in the bruising of the head, the inflicting a fatal blow upon the power, of his adversary. The scene of this contest was to be our globe, and generally the visible agents of it men, under their respective leaders, the serpent on the one side, and the seed of the woman on the other, practising, and advocating, and endeavouring to render dominant truth or error, virtue or vice, obedience to God or rebellion against his authority. We ask then, has such a contest of principles and powers taken place in the world, or not? The answer must be in the affirmative; for every age bears witness to it. We see it commencing in Cain and Abel — in the resistance of the antediluvians to the righteousness taught by Noah; — in their punishment; — in the rise of idolatry, and the struggles of the truth in opposition to it; — in the inflictions of singular judgments upon nations, for the punishment and exposure of idolatry, as in the plagues of Egypt, the destruction of the nations of Canaan, &c. We trace the contest throughout the whole history of the Jewish nation down to the coming of our Lord; and occasionally we see it extending into the neighbouring pagan nations, although they were generally, as a part of their punishment, “suffered to walk in their own ways,” and Satan as to them was permitted to “keep his goods in peace,” till the time of gracious visitation should arrive. We see the incarnate Redeemer, for a time suffering, and at length dying. Then was “the hour and power of darkness;” then was his heel bruised: but he died only to revive again, more visibly and powerfully to establish his kingdom and to commence his spiritual conquests. In every direction were the regions, where Satan “had his seat,” penetrated by the heavenly light of the doctrine of Christ; and every where the most tremendous persecutions were excited against its unarmed and unprotected preachers and their converts. But the gates of hell prevailed not against the Church founded on a rock, and “Satan fell as lightning from heaven,” — from the thrones, and temples, and judgment seats, and schools of the ancient civilized world; the idolatry of ages was renounced; Christ was adored through the vast extent of the Roman empire, and in many of the countries beyond even its ample sweep. Under other forms the enemy revived, and the contest was renewed; but in every age it has been maintained. The principles of pure evangelical truth were never extinguished; and the “children of the kingdom,” were “minished and brought low.” only to render the renewal of the assault by unexpected agents, singularly raised up, more marked and more eminently of God. We need not run over even the heads of the history of the Church: what is the present state of things? The contest still continues, but with increasing zeal on the part of Christians, who are carrying on offensive operations against the most distant parts of the long-undisturbed kingdom of darkness; placing there the principles of truth; commencing war upon idolatry and superstition; and establishing the institutions of the Christian Church with a success which warrants the hope that the time is not far distant, when the “head of the serpent will be bruised” in all idolatrous countries, and the idols of modern heathen states, like those of old, be displaced, to introduce the worship of the universal Saviour, “GOD over all, blessed for ever.”

May we not ask, whether all this was not infinitely above human foresight? Who could confidently state that a contest of this peculiar nature would continue through successive ages; that men would not all go over to one or other of the opposing parties; nay, who could confidently conjecture in the age of Moses, (when the tendency to idolatry had become so strong, that the chosen seed themselves, under the constant demonstration of miracles, visibly blessed while they remained faithful to the worship of God, and as eminently and visibly punished when they departed from it, could not be preserved from the infection,) that idolatry should one day be abolished throughout the earth? Past experience and all probabilities were opposed to the hope that the cause of the seed of the woman should prevail, and yet it stands recorded, “it [rather HE,] shall bruise thy head.” Infidels may scoff at a Redeemer, and deride the notion of a tempter; but they cannot deny that such a contest between opposite parties and principles as is here foretold has actually taken place, and still continues: that contest, so extended, so continued, and so terminated, human foresight could not foretell; and the fact established, therefore, is an accomplishment of a prophecy, which could originate only in Divine prescience. The celebrated prediction of Jacob at the close of his life respecting the time of the appearing of “SHILOH,” may next be considered. The word signifies, “He who is to be sent,” or “The Peace maker.” In either sense, the application to that great Person, to whom all the patriarchs looked forward, and the prophets gave witness, is obvious. Those who doubt this, are bound to give us a better interpretation. — Before a certain event, a certain person was to come, to whom the people should be gathered. The event has certainly arrived, but who is the person? The application of the prophecy to Messiah is not an invention of Christians. The ancient Jews, as appears from their commentators, so understood it: and the modern ones are unable to resist the evidence drawn from it, in favour of the claims of our Lord. That it is a prediction, is proved from its form, and the circumstances under which it was delivered; that it has received a singular accomplishment in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, is also certain; and it is equally certain, that no individual beside can be produced, in whom it has been in any sense whatever accomplished. For the ample illustration of the prophecy the reader is referred to commentators, and to Bishop Newton’s well-known work on the prophecies. It is sufficient here to allege, that Judah, as a tribe, remained till after the advent of Jesus Christ, which cannot be said of the long-dispersed ten tribes, and scarcely of Benjamin, which was merged in the tribe of Judah. — CHUBB asks where the supremacy of Judah was when Nebuchadnezzar carried the whole nation captive to Babylon; when Alexander subdued Palestine; and when it was a tributary province to the Roman empire? The prediction, however, does not convey the idea either of independent or supreme power. This no one tribe had when all were united in one state, and each had its sceptre and its princes or chiefs. It is therefore enough to show, that under all its various fortunes, the tribe of Judah retained its ensigns, and its chiefs, and its tribeship, until Shiloh came. It is no uncommon thing for a country to be conquered, and for its ancient princes and government to remain, though as tributary. With respect to the tribe of Judah during the captivity in Babylon, Cyrus, as we learn from Ezra 1:8, ordered the vessels of the temple to be restored to “the prince of Judah.” This shows that the tribe was kept distinct, and that it had its own internal government and chief. Under the dominion of the Asmonean kings, the Jews had their rulers, their elders, and their council, and so under the Romans. But soon after the death of Christ, all this was abolished, the nation dispersed, and the tribes utterly confounded. Till our Lord came, and had accomplished his work on earth, the tribe of Judah continued. This is matter of unquestionable historic fact. In a short time afterward it was dispersed and mingled with the common mass of Jews of all tribes and countries: this is equally unquestionable. Now again we ask, could either human foresight determine this, or is the application of the event to the prophecy fanciful? The prediction was uttered in the very infancy of the state of Israel, by the father of the fathers of the tribes of that people. Ages passed away; the mightiest empires were annihilated; ten of the chosen tribes themselves were utterly dispersed into unknown countries; another became so insignificant as to lose its designation; one only remained which imposed its very name upon the nation at large, the object of public observation until the Messiah came, and that tribe was Judah, the tribe spoken of in the prediction, and it remained as it were only to make the fulfilment manifest, and was then confounded with the relics of the rest. What prescience of countless contingencies, occurring in the intervening ages, does this imply? — A prescience truly, which can only belong to God.

The predictions respecting the Jewish nation, commencing with those of Moses, and running through all their prophets, are too numerous to be adduced. One of the most instructive and convincing exercises to those who have any doubt of the inspiration of the Scriptures, would be, seriously and candidly to peruse them, and by the aid of those authors who have expressly and largely written on this subject, to compare the prophecies with their alleged fulfilment. Three topics are prominent in the predictions of Moses and the prophets generally, — the frequent and gross departures of the Jews from their own law: their signal punishment in invasions, captivities, dispersions, oppressions, and persecutions; and their final restoration to their own land. All these have taken place. Even the last was accomplished by the return from Babylon, though, in its eminent sense, it is still future. In pursuance of the argument, we shall show, that each of these was above human foresight and conjecture.

The apostacies and idolatries of this people were foretold by Moses before his death. “I know that after my death ye will utterly corrupt yourselves, and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you, and evil will befall you in the latter days,” Deuteronomy 31:29; and he accordingly prophetically declares their punishment. It is, perhaps, scarcely possible to fix upon a stronger circumstance than this prediction, to prove that Moses was truly commissioned by God, and did not pretend a Divine sanction in order to give weight to his laws and to his personal authority. The rebellious race whom he had first led into the desert, had died there; and the new generation was much more disposed to obey their leader. At the moment he wrote these words, appearances had a favourable aspect on the future obedience of the people. If this had not been the case, the last thought a merely political man would have been disposed to indulge was, that his own favourite institutions should fall into desuetude and contempt; and much less would he finish his public life by openly telling the people that he foresaw that event, even if he feared it. It may, indeed, be said, that he uttered this conviction for the purpose of giving a colour to the threatenings which he pronounces against disobedience to his law, and that the object of those fearful menaces was to deter the people from departing from customs and rules which he was anxious, for the sake of his own fame, that they should observe. To this we answer, that Moses could not expect any weight to be attached by the Israelites to his threat, that the Divine judgments would be inflicted upon them for not obeying his laws, unless their former rebellions had been immediately and signally marked by such visitations. Without this to support him, he would have appeared in a ridiculous, rather than in an impressive and sublime attitude before the people assembled to hear his last commands. For forty years his institutions had been often disobeyed, and if no inflictions of the Divine displeasure followed, what reason had they to credit the menaces of Moses as to the future? But if such inflictions had resulted from their disobedience, every thing is rational and consistent in this part of the conduct of their leader. Let the infidel choose which of these positions he pleases. If he think that Moses aimed to deter them from departing from his institutions by empty threats, he ascribes an incredible absurdity to an unquestionably wise, and, as infidels themselves contend, a very politic man; but if his predictive threats were grounded upon former marked and acknowledged interpositions of Divine Providence, the only circumstance which could give them weight, he was God’s commissioned leader, and, as he professed, an inspired prophet.

It is a circumstance of great weight in the predictions of Moses respecting the punishment of the Jews, that these famines, pestilences, invasions, subjugations to foreign enemies, captivities, &c, are represented solely as the consequences of their vicious departures from God, and from his laws. Now, who could foresee, except an inspired man, that such evils would in no instance take place, — that no famine, no blight, no invasion would occur in Judea, except in obvious punishment of their offences against their law? What was there in the common course of things to prevent a small state, though observant of the precepts of its own religion, from falling under the dominion of more powerful neighbouring nations, except the special protection of God? and what but this could guard them from the plagues and famines to which their neighbours were liable? If the predictions of Moses were not inspired, they assume a principle which mere human wisdom and policy never takes into its calculations, — that of the connection of the national prosperity of a people, inseparably and infallibly, with obedience to their holy writings; and because they assume that singular principle, the conclusion is in favour of their inspiration. For let us turn to the facts of the case. The sacred books of the Jews are historical as well as prophetic. The history too is distinct from the prophecy; it is often written by other authors; and there is no mark at all of any designed accommodation of the one to the other. The singular simplicity of the historic narrative disproves this, as well as the circumstance, that a great part of it as recorded in the Old Testament is a transcript of their public records. Consult then this history, and in every instance of singular calamity we see a previous departure from the law of Moses; the one following the other, almost with the regularity and certainty of natural effects and causes! In this the predictions of Moses and the prophets are strikingly accomplished; and a more than human foresight is proved.

Let us look farther into the detail of these threatened punishments. Beside the ordinary inflictions of failing harvests, and severe diseases, in their own country, they were, according to the prophecies of Moses, Deuteronomy 28, to be “scattered among all people, from the one end of the earth even to the other;” and where is the trading nation in which they are not, in Asia, Africa, and Europe? Many are even to be found in the West Indies, and in the commercial parts of America. Who could foresee this but God; especially when their singular preservation as a distinct people, a solitary instance in the history of nations, is also implied? f72 They were to find “no ease” among these nations; and the almost constant and long-continued persecutions, robberies, and murder of Jews, not only in ancient nations, but especially among Christian nations of the middle ages, and in the Mohammedan states to this day, are in wonderful accomplishment of this. They were to be “a proverb and a bye-word among all nations,” which has been in every place fulfilled, but was surely above human intelligence to foresee; and “the stranger that is within thee shall get above thee very high, and thou shalt come very low.” For a comment on this, let the conduct of the “stranger,” Turks and others, who inhabit Palestine, toward the Jews who remain there, be recollected, — the one party is indeed “very high,” and the other “very low.” Other parts of this singular chapter present equally striking predictions, uttered more than three thousand years ago, as remarkably accomplished; but there are some passages in it, which refer in terms so particular to a then distant event, the utter subversion of their polity and nation by the Romans, as to demonstrate in the most unequivocal manner the prescience of Him to whom all events, the most contingent, minute, and distant, are known with absolute certainty. That the Romans are intended, in verse 49, by the nation brought from “the end of the earth,” distinguished by their well-known ensign: “the eagle,” and by their fierce and cruel disposition, is exceedingly probable: and it is remarkable, that the account which Moses gives of the horrors of the “siege” of which he speaks, is exactly paralleled by those well known passages in Josephus, in which he describes the siege of Jerusalem by the Roman army. The last verse of the chapter seems indeed to fix the reference of the foregoing passages to the final destruction of the nation by the Romans, and at the same time contains a prediction, the accomplishment of which cannot possibly be ascribed to accident. “And the Lord shall bring thee. into Egypt again with ships, by the way whereof I spake unto thee, Thou shalt see it no more again: and there ye shall be sold unto your enemies for bondmen and bondwomen, and no man shall buy you.” On this Dr. Hales remarks, on the authority of their own national historian, Josephus, “Of the captives taken at the siege of Jerusalem, above seventeen years of age, some were sent to Egypt in chains, the greater part were distributed through the provinces to be destroyed in the theatres, by the sword, and by wild beasts, the rest under seventeen were sold for slaves, and that for a trifling sum on account of the numbers to be sold, and the scarcity of buyers: so that at length the prophecy of Moses was fulfilled — ‘and no man shall buy.’ The part that were reserved to grace the triumph of Vespasian were probably transported to Italy in ‘ships’ or by sea, to avoid a prodigious land journey thither through Asia and Greece, — a circumstance which distinguished this invasion and captivity from the preceding by the Assyrians and Babylonians. In the ensuing rebellion, a part of the captives were sent by sea to Egypt, and several of the ships were wrecked on the coast.” Thus, at a distance of fifteen centuries, were these contingent circumstances accurately recorded by the prophetic spirit of Moses — the taking of innumerable Jews captive — their transport to Egypt — their being sold till the markets for slaves were glutted, and no more buyers were found, and embarked on board vessels, either to grace the triumph of their conqueror, or to find a market in different maritime ports. Is it possible that these numerous and minute circumstances can be referred to either happy conjectures or human foresight?

But Moses and other prophets agree, that, after all their captivities and dispersions, the Jews shall be again restored to their own land. This was, as we have said, in one instance accomplished in their restoration by Cyrus and his successors; after which they again became a considerable state. But who could foretell that, but HE who determines the events of the world by his power and wisdom? Jeremiah fixes the duration of the captivity to seventy years; he did that so unequivocally, that the Jews in Babylon, when the time approached, began to prepare for the event. But there was nothing in the circumstances of the Babylonian empire when the prediction was uttered, to warrant the hope, much less to support a confident conjecture. Could the subversion of that powerful empire by a then obscure people, the circumstance which broke the bondage of the Jews, have been foreseen by man? or when we consider the event as fulfilling so distinct a prophecy, can it be resolved into imaginative interpretation? A future restoration however awaits this people, and will be to the world a glorious demonstration of the truth of prophecy. This being future, we cannot argue upon it. Three things are however certain: — the Jews themselves expect it; they are preserved by the providence of God a distinct people for their country; and their country, which in fact is possessed by no one, is preserved for them. Without noticing numerous prophecies respecting ancient nations and cities, f73 the wonderful and exact accomplishment of which has been pointed out by various writers, and which afford numerous eminent instances of the prescience of contingent and improbable events, whose evidence is so overwhelming, that, as in the case of the illustrious prophecies of Daniel, unbelievers have been obliged to resort to the subterfuge of asserting, in opposition to the most direct proofs, that the prophecies were written after the events, we shall close our instances by adverting to the prophecies respecting the Messiah, — the great end and object of the prophetic dispensation. Of these not a solitary instance, or two, of an equivocal kind, and expressed only in figurative or symbolic language, are to be adduced; but upward of one hundred predictions, generally of very clear and explicit meaning, and each referring to some different circumstance connected with the appearing of Christ, his person, history, and his ministry, have been selected by divines, exclusive of typical and allusive predictions, f74 and those which in an ultimate and remote sense are believed to terminate in him. How are all these to be disposed of, if the inspiration of the Scriptures which contain them be denied? That these predictions are in books written many ages before the birth of our Saviour, is certain — the testimony of the Jews who reject Christ, amply proves this. That no interpolations have taken place to accommodate them to him, is proved, by the same predictions being found in the copies which are in the hands of the Jews, and which have descended to them from before the Christian era. On the other hand, the history of Jesus answers to these predictions, and exhibits their exact accomplishment. The Messiah was to be of the seed of David — born in Bethlehem — born of a virgin — an incarnation of Deity, God with us, — an eminent but unsuccessful teacher; — he was to open the eyes of the blind, heal the lame and sick, and raise the dead — he was to be despised and rejected by his own countrymen; to be arraigned on false charges, denied justice, and condemned to a violent death — he was to rise from the dead, ascend to the right hand of God, and there being invested with power and authority, he was to punish his enemies, and establish his own spiritual kingdom, which shall never end. We do not enter into more minute predictions, for the argument is irresistible when founded on these alone: and we may assert that no man, or number of men, could possibly have made such conjectures. Considered in themselves, this is impossible. What rational man, or number of rational men, could now be found to hazard a conjecture that an incarnation of Deity would occur in any given place and time — that this Divine Person should teach wisdom, work miracles, be unjustly put to death, rise again, and establish his religion? These are thoughts which never enter into the minds of men, because they are suggested by no experience, and by no probability arising out of the usual course of human affairs; and yet if the prophets were not inspired, it would have been as impossible for them to have conceived such expectations, as for us; and indeed much more so, seeing we are now familiar with a religion which asserts that such events have once occurred. If then such events lay beyond not only human foresight, but even human thought, they can only be referred to inspiration. But the case does not close here. How shall we account, in the next place, for these circumstances all having met, strange as they are, in one person, and in one only among all the millions of men who have been born of woman, — and that person Jesus of Nazareth? He was of the house and lineage of David — he was born, and that by a singular event, in Bethlehem — he professed to be “God with us,” and wrought miracles to substantiate his claim. At his word or touch, the “eyes of the blind were opened,” “the lame leaped as a hart,” the dumb spake, the sick were healed, and the dead lived, as the prophets had foretold. Of the wisdom of his teaching, his recorded discourses bear witness. His rejection and unjust death by his countrymen, are matters of historic fact; his resurrection and ascension stand upon the lofty evidences which have been already adduced: the destruction of the Jewish nation, according to his own predictions, followed as the proof of the terror of his offended majesty; and his “kingdom” among men continues to this day. There is no possible means of evading the evidence of the fulfilment of these predictions in the person of our Lord, unless it could be shown that Jesus and his disciples, by some kind of concert, made the events of his life and death to correspond with the prophecies, in order to substantiate his claim to the Messiahship. No infidel has ever been so absurd as to hazard this opinion, except Lord Bolinbroke; and his observations may be taken as a most triumphant proof of the force of this evidence from prophecy, when an hypothesis so extravagant was resorted to by an acute mind, in order to evade it. This noble writer asserts, that Jesus Christ brought on his own death by a series of wilful and preconcerted measures, merely to give his disciples the triumph of an appeal to the old prophecies! But this hypothesis does not reach the case; and to have succeeded, he ought to have shown, that our Lord preconcerted his descent from David — his being born of a virgin — his birth at Bethlehem — and his wonderful endowments of eloquence and wisdom: that by some means or other he wilfully made the Jews ungrateful to him who healed their sick and cleansed their lepers; and that he not only contrived his own death, but his resurrection, and his ascension also, and the spread of his religion in opposition to human opinion and human power, in order to give his disciples the triumph of an appeal to the prophecies! These subterfuges of infidels concede the point, and show that the truth cannot be denied but by doing the utmost violence to the understanding.

That wonderful series of particular prophecies respecting our Lord, contained in Isaiah 53, will illustrate the foregoing observations, and may properly close this chapter.

To this prophecy it cannot be objected, that its language is symbolic, or that in more than a few beautiful metaphors, easily understood, it is even figurative: its style is that of narrative; it is also entire in itself, and unmixed with any other subject; and it evidently refers to one single person. So the ancient Jews understood it, and applied it to Messiah; and though the modern Jews, in order to evade its force in the argument with Christians, allege that it describes the sufferings of their nation, and not of an individual, the objection is refuted by the terms of the prophecy itself. The Jewish people cannot be the sufferer, because he was to bear their griefs, to carry their sorrows, and to be wounded for their transgressions. “He hath borne OUR griefs and carried OUR sorrows,” &c; so that the person of the sufferer is clearly distinguished from the Jewish nation. Beside which, his death and burial are spoken of, and his sufferings are represented (verse 12) as voluntary; which in no sense can apply to the Jews. “Of himself, or of some other man,” therefore, as the Ethiopian eunuch rightly conceived, the prophet must have spoken. To some individual it must be applied; to none but to our Lord can it be applied; and applied to him, the prophecy is converted into history itself. The prophet declares, that his advent and works would be a revealing of “the arm of the Lord,” — a singular display of Divine power and goodness; and yet, that a blind and incredulous people would not believe “the report.” Appearing in a low and humble condition, and not, as they expected their Messiah, in the pomp of eastern monarchy, his want of “comeliness” and “desirableness” in the eyes of his countrymen, and his rejection by them, are explicitly stated — “He was despised, and we esteemed him not.” He is farther described as “a man of sorrows and acquainted with griefs;” yet his sufferings were considered by the Jews as judicial, — a legal punishment, as they contend to this day, for his endeavouring to seduce men from the law, and for which they had the warrant of God himself in his commands by Moses, that such seducers should be put to death. With what exactness are these sentiments of the Jews marked in the prophecy! We quote from the translation of Bishop Lowth.

“Yet we thought him JUDCIALLY stricken,

SMITTEN OF GOD, and afflicted.”

Christ himself and his apostles uniformly represented his death as vicarious and propitiatory; and this is predicted and confirmed, so to speak, by the evidence of this prophecy.

“But he was wounded For our transgressions,

He was smitten for our iniquities;

The chastisement by which our peace is effected, was laid upon him; And by his bruises we are healed.

We all of us like sheep have stray’d;

We have turn’d aside, every one to his own way;

And Jehovah hath made to light upon him the iniquity of us all. It was exacted and he was made answerable.”

Who can read the next passage without thinking of Jesus before the council of the Jews, and the judgment seat of Pilate?

“As a lamb that is led to the slaughter,

And as a sheep before her shearers

Is dumb; so he opened not his mouth.

By an oppressive judgment he was taken off.”

The very circumstances of his burial are given: —

“And his grave was appointed with the wicked

But with the rich man was his tomb.”

Yet, though thus laid in the grave, the eye of the prophet beholds his resurrection, “the joy set before him,” and into which he entered; the distribution of spiritual blessings to his people, and his spiritual conquest of the nations of the earth, notwithstanding the opposition of “the mighty;” and he enumerates these particulars with a plainness so wonderful, that, by merely an alteration of the tenses of the verbs, the whole might be converted into an abridged view of what has occurred, and is now occurring under the Christian dispensation, in the furtherance of human salvation: —

If his soul shall make a propitiatory sacrifice

He shall see a seed, which shall prolong their days,

And the gracious purpose of Jehovah shall prosper in his hands. Of the travail of his soul he shall see (the fruit) and be satisfied; By the knowledge of him shall my servant justify many;

For the punishment of their iniquities he shall bear.

Therefore will I distribute to him the many for his portion, And the mighty people shall he share for his spoil;

Because he pour’d his soul out unto death;

And was number’d with the transgressors:

And he bore the sin of many,

And made intercession for the transgressors.”

To all these predictions the words of a modern writer are applicable: “Let now the infidel, or the skeptical reader, meditate thoroughly and soberly upon these predictions. The priority of the records to the events admits of no question. The completion is obvious to every competent inquirer. Here then are facts. We are called upon to account for these facts on rational and adequate principles. Is human foresight equal to the task? Enthusiasm? Conjecture? Chance? Political contrivance? If none of these, neither can any other principle that may be devised by man’s sagacity, account for the facts; then true philosophy, as well as true religion, will ascribe them to the inspiration of the Almighty. Every effect must have a cause.” f75