Croesus and Trajan made are sufficient to prove, that there was something supernatural and diabolical in them. Cræsus sent to have many Oracles consulted at a set time, and the question to be put to them was, what Croesus himself at that time was doing; and he resolved to be employed about the most improbable thing that could be imagined, for he was boiling a tortoise and a lamb together in a brass pot; and yet the Oracle of Delphi discovered to the messengers what the king was then about. Trajan, when he was going into Parthia, sent a blank paper sealed up, to an Oracle of Assyria for an answer: the Oracle returned him another blank paper, to show that it was not so to be imposed upon.

"3. Pharaoh not yielding to this evidence, God pro- | Heathens had of their Oracles: and the trials which ceeded to farther punishments, and covered the whole land of Egypt with frogs.(5) Before these frogs were removed, the magicians undertook to bring into some place cleared for the purpose a fresh supply; which they might easily do, when there was such plenty every where at hand. Here also the narrow compass of the work exposed it to the suspicion of being effected by human art; to which the miracle of Moses was not liable: the infinite number of frogs which filled the whole kingdom of Egypt (so that their ovens, beds, and tables swarmed with them), being a proof of their immediate miraculous production. Besides, the magicians were unable to procure their removal, which was accomplished by Moses, at the submissive application of Pharaoh, and at the very time that Pharaoh himself chose, the more clearly to convince him that God was the author of these miraculous judgments, and that their infliction or removal(6) did not depend upon the influence of the elements or stars, at set times or in critical junctures.

"But though things of present concernment were discovered both to Croesus and Trajan beyond all human power to know, yet both were imposed upon by ambiguous answers, when they consulted about things future, of which the Devil could not attain the knowledge.

"Many of the Heathen priests themselves, upon examination, publicly confessed several of the Oracles to be impostures, and discovered the whole contrivance and management of the deceit, which was entered upon record. And in the rest, the power of the Devil was always so limited and restrained, as to afford sufficient means to undeceive men, though many of his predictions might come to pass."-JENKINS's Reasonableness of Christianity.

"Many of the learned regard all the Heathen Oracles as the result of the grossest imposture. Some consider them as the work of evil spirits. Others are of opinion, that through these Oracles some real prophecies were occasionally vouchsafed to the Gentile world, for their instruction and consolation. But to whichsoever of these opinions we may incline, it will not be difficult to discover a radical difference between these and the Scripture prophecies.

"4. The history of the last attempt of the magicians confirms the account here given of all their former ones. Moses turned all the dust of the land into lice; and this plague, like the two preceding ones, being inflicted at the word of Moses, and extended over the whole kingdom of Egypt, must necessarily have been owing, not to human art, but to a Divine power. Nevertheless, the motives upon which the magicians at first engaged in the contest with Moses, the shame of desisting, and some slight appearances of success in their former attempts, prompted them still to carry on the imposture, and to try with their enchantments to bring forth lice; but they could not. With all their skill in magic, and with all their dexterity in deceiving the spectators, they could not even succeed so far as they had done in former instances, producing a specious counterfeit of this work of Moses. Had they hitherto performed real miracles by the assistance of the Devil, how came they to desist now?. It cannot be a greater miracle to "In the Heathen Oracles, we cannot discern any clear produce lice, than to turn rods into serpents, water into and unequivocal tokens of genuine prophecy. They blood, and to create frogs. It has, indeed, been very were destitute of dignity and importance, had no conoften said, that the Devil was now laid under a re- nexion with each other, tended to no object of general straint: but hitherto no proof of this assertion has concern, and never looked into times remote from their been produced. The Scripture is silent, both as to the own. We read only of some few predictions and progDevil being now restrained from interposing any far-nostications, scattered among the writings of poets and ther in favour of the magicians, and as to his having philosophers, most of which (besides being very weakly afforded them his assistance on the former occasions. But authenticated) appear to have been answers to quesif we agree with Moses, in ascribing to the magicians tions of merely local, personal, and temporary concern, nothing more than the artifice and dexterity which be- relating to the issue of affairs then actually in hand, longed to their profession, we shall find that their and to events speedily to be determined. Far from want of success in their last attempt was owing to the attempting to form any chain of prophecies, respecting different nature and circumstances of their enterprise." things far distant as to time or place, or matters contrary to human probability, and requiring supernatural Note B.-Page 65. agency to effect them, the Heathen priests and soothsayers did not even pretend to a systematic and connected plan. They hardly dared, indeed, to assume the prophetic character in its full force, but stood trembling, as it were, on the brink of futurity, conscious of their inability to venture beyond the depths of human conjecture. Hence their predictions became so fleeting, so futile, so uninteresting, that they were never collected together as worthy of preservation, but soon fell into disrepute and almost total oblivion.

"But if, at any time, evil spirits, by their subtlety and experience, and knowledge of affairs in the world, did foretel things which accordingly came to pass, they were things that happened not long after, and commonly such as themselves did excite and prompt men to. Thus, when the conspiracy against Cæsar was come just to be put into execution, and the Devil had his agents concerned in it, he could foretel the time and place of his death. But it had been foretold to Pompey, Crassus, and Cæsar himself, before, as Tully informs us from his own knowledge, that they should all die in their beds, and in an honourable old age, who yet all died violent deaths. Wise and observing men have sometimes been able to make strange predictions concerning the state of affairs; and therefore spirits may be much more able to do it. Evil spirits could foretel what they were permitted to inflict or procure: they might have foretold the calamities of Job, or the death of Ahab at Ramoth-gilead.

"The Devil could not always foretel what was to come to pass, and therefore his agents had need of their vaults, and hollow statues, and other artifices to conceal their ignorance, and help them out, when their arts of conjuration failed. But we have no reason to think that the Devil, who is so industrious to promote his evil ends, by all possible means, would omit such an opportunity as was given him by the opinion which the

(5) Exod. viii. 6-8. Nor, indeed, can it be imagined that after this or the former plague had been removed, Pharaoh would order his magicians to renew either. (6) Exod. viij. 8.

"The Scripture prophecies, on the other hand, constitute a series of predictions, relating principally to one grand object, of universal importance, the work of man's redemption, and carried on in regular progression through the Patriarchal, Jewish, and Christian dispensations, with a harmony and uniformity of design, clearly indicating one and the same Divine Author, who alone could say, 'Remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me; declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure.' The genuine prophets of the Almighty beheld these things with a clear and steadfast eye; they declared them with authority and confidence, and they gave, moreover, signs from heaven for the conviction of others. Accordingly, their writings have been handed down from age to age; have been preserved with scrupulous fidelity; and have ever been regarded with reverence, from the many incontestable evidences of their accomplishment, and from their inseparable connexion with the religious hopes and expectations of mankind."--Bishop of Llandaff.

CHAPTER XVII.
PROPHECIES OF SCRIPTURE.

THE nature and force of the argument from prophecy have been already stated;(7) 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.

'when the mystery of God shall be perfected.' Farther, besides 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 peopleNon res Romanæ perituraque regna

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 that was worthy to enter into the contemplation of this individuals, cities, states, the persons and offices of Divine Person. It was another and far sublimer purMessiah, and the Christian Church, which he alleges to pose which he came to accomplish; a purpose, in comhave been unequivocally fulfilled; independent of pre-parison of which all our policies are poor and little, and dictions which he believes to be now fulfilling; or which all the performances of man as nothing. It was to deare hereafter to be fulfilled in the world. liver 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."

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;(8) and it may here be farther observed, that they are not, generally, separate and insulated predictions of the future, arising out of 4. Prophecy, in this peculiar sense, and on this amaccidental circumstances, and connecting themselves ple scale, is peculiar to the religious system of the with merely individual interests and temporary occa- Holy Scriptures. Nothing like it is found any where sions. On the contrary, they chiefly relate to and arise besides; and it accords perfectly with that system, that out of a grand scheme for the moral recovery of the nothing similar should be found elsewhere. "The prohuman race from ignorance, vice, and wretchedness. phecies of Scripture," says that accomplished scholar, They speak of the agents to be employed in it, and Sir W. Jones, "bear no resemblance in form or style especially of the great agent, the REDEEMER Himself; to any that can be produced from the stores of Grecian, and of those mighty and awful proceedings of Provi- Indian, Persian, or even Arabian learning. The antidenee as to the nations of the earth, by which judg-quity of those compositions no man of learning doubts; ment and mercy are exercised with reference both to and the unrestrained application of them to events the ordinary principles of moral government, and espe- long subsequent to their publication is a solid ground cially to this restoring Economy, to its struggles, its of belief, that they were genuine predictions, and conoppositions, and its triumphs. They all meet in CHRIST, Sequently inspired." The advantage of this species of as in their proper centre, and in him only, however evidence belongs then exclusively to our Revelation. many of the single lines, when considered apart, may Heathenism never made any clear and well-founded be imagined to have another direction, and though they pretensions to it. Mahometanism, though it stands may pass through intermediate events. "If we look," itself as a proof of the truth of Scripture prophecy, is says Bishop Hurd, "into the prophetic writings, we unsupported by a single prediction of its own. find, that prophecy is of a prodigious extent; that it the Christian only belongs this testimony of his faith; commenced from the fall of man, and reaches to the this growing evidence gathering strength by length of consummation of all things; that for many ages it was time, and affording from age to age fresh proofs of its delivered darkly, to a few persons, and with large in- Divine origin. As a majestic river expands itself more tervals from the date of one prophecy to that of ano- and more the farther it removes from its source, so prother; but, at length, became more clear, more frequent, phecy, issuing from the first promise in paradise as and was uniformly carried on in the line of one people, its fountain-head, acquired additional strength and fulseparated from the rest of the world-among other rea- ness as it rolled down successive ages, and will still sons assigned, for this principally, to be the repository go on increasing in extent and grandeur, until it shall of the Divine Oracles; that, with some intermission, finally lose itself in the ocean of Eternity." 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

"To

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 is 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,

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 dependence 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 uncertain 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 twofold application, to events distant from, and (to human foresight) uniconnected 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.(9)

in not a few cases, and those too on which the Christian | rance, by such indefinite expressions as might be 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 neigh bouring 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; in 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 againt the unequivocal fulfilment of several prophecies, that many have doubted or denied what the believers in Revelation have (9) "The correspondences of types and antitypes, on this subject so strenuously contended for. How few though they are not proper proofs of the truth of a docof mankind have read the Scriptures with serious at- trine, yet may be very reasonable confirmations of the tention, or been at the pains to compare their prophecies foreknowledge of God; of the uniform view of Prowith the statements in history! How few, especially vidence under different dispensations; of the analogy, of the objectors to the Bible, have read it in this man- harmony, and agreement between the Old Testament ner! How many of them have confessed unblushingly and the New. The words of the law concerning one their unacquaintance with its contents, or have proved particular kind of death, He that is hanged is accursed what they have not confessed by the mistakes and mis- of God, can hardly be conceived to have been put in on representations into which they have fallen. As for any other account than with a view and foresight to the the Jews, the evident dominion of their prejudices; application made of it by St. Paul. The analogies betheir general averseness to discussion; and the extra- tween the paschal lamb and the Lamb of God slain vagant principles of interpretation they have adopted from the foundation of the world; between the Egypfor many ages, which set all sober criticism at defiance, tian bondage and the tyranny of sin; between the render nugatory any authority which might be as baptism of the Israelites in the sea and in the cloud, cribed to their denial of the fulfilment of certain pro- and the baptism of Christians; between the passage phecies in the sense adopted by Christians. We may through the wilderness, and through the present world; add to this, that among Christian critics themselves between Joshua bringing the people into the promised there may be much disagreement. Eccentricities and land, and Jesus Christ being the Captain of salvation absurdities are found among the learned in every de- to believers; between the sabbath of rest promised to the partment of knowledge, and much of this wayward-people of God in the earthly Canaan, and the eternal rest ness and affectation of singularity has infected inter- promised to the people of God in the heavenly Canaan; preters of Scripture. But, after all, there is a truth between the liberty granted them from the time of the and reason in every subject which the understandings death of the High-priest, to him that had fled into a city of the generality of men will apprehend and acknow- of refuge, and the redemption purchased by the death of ledge, whenever it is fully understood and impartially Christ; between the High-priest entering into the holy considered; to this in all such cases the appeal can only place every year with the blood of others, and Christ's be made, and here it may be made with confidence. once entering with his own blood into heaven itself, to 6. For want of a right apprehension of the meaning appear in the shadows of things to come, of good things of somewhat an unfortunate term which has obtained to come, the shadows of heavenly things, the presence of in theology, the "double sense" of many prophecies, an God for us. These, I say, and innumerable other anaobjection of another kind has been raised, as though no logies, between the figures for the time then present, definite meaning could be assigned to the prophecies of patterns of things in the heavens, and the heavenly Scripture. Nothing can be more unfounded. "The things themselves, cannot without the force of strong double sense of many prophecies in the Old Testament," prejudice be conceived to have happened by mere chance, says an able writer, "has been made a pretext by ill- without any foresight or design. There are no such disposed men, for representing them as of uncertain analogies, much less such series of analogies, found in meaning, and resembling the ambiguity of the pagan the books of more enthusiastic writers living in such Oracles, But whoever considers the subject with due remote ages from each other. It is much more credible attention, will perceive how little ground there is for and reasonable to suppose what St. Paul affirms, that such an accusation. The equivocations of the heathen these things were our examples; and that in that uniOracles manifestly arose from their ignorance of future form course of God's government of the world, all events, and from their endeavours to conceal that igno- | things happened unto them of old for ensamples, and

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 chatacter 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 understoood, 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 advoeating, 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. 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 foretel; 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. We-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 besides 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 they are written for our admonition, upon whom the Jesus Christ, which cannot be said of the long-disends of the world are come. And hence arises that apt-persed ten tribes, and scarcely of Benjamin, which was ness of similitude, in the application of several legal performances to the morality of the Gospel, that it can very hardly be supposed not to have been originally intended."-DR. S. CLARKE's Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion, p. 263.

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 of the Roman Empire? The prediction, however,