IV. The Promises and Threats made by Mofes to the Ifraelites, in case of obedience or difobedience to the divine Law,-confidered as proving the conftant fuperintending care of God over a people feparated from the reft of the world, for the exprefs purpose of preferving the knowledge of himself, and of his gracious intentions towards mankind.

V. The appointment of Cyrus to be the deliverer of the Jews, and the restorer of the Temple and City, confidered as designed to prove, that the captivity of the Jews was by the especial direction of the Almighty-intended as a punishment for their idolatry, to continue only for a definite term of years; as they were deftined to preferve the promises, and remain as a separate nation in their own land, till the coming of the Meffiah.

VI. The deftruction and defolate ftate of Babylon, compared with the denunciation of the Prophets during the time of its greatest fplendour-considered as an awful example of the judgments of God upon the enemies of his people.

VII. The precife time fixed for the accomplishment of the promise of the Meffiah predicted

D 4

dicted by Daniel 537 years before his birth, so very diftinctly as to awaken a general expectation of his arrival, not only among the Jews, but all over the East, where a tradition prevailed relative to the appearance of fome great perfonage, about the time of the advent of our Lord.

VIII. The Promise of John the Baptist, the meffenger or forerunner of the Messiah, given 400 years before his birth, being the last prediction of the laft of the feries of Prophets under the Mosaic difpenfation.

IX. The Prophetic description of the Birth, Character, Miffion, Sufferings, Death, Refurrection, and Afcenfion of the Meffiah, compared with his Hiftory, written by the Evangelifts after his Afcenfion into heaven,

X. The destruction of the City and Temple of Jerufalem,-the difperfion of the Jewish people, the total fubverfion of the Jewish government, religious and civil, foretold by Christ as to happen immediately after the establishment of the Christian religion, and having happened exactly according to his prediction-confidered as the confequence of their rejection of the Lawgiver promised

by

by Moses, and therefore as proving him to be the promised Meffiah expected by the Jews; -and the publication of the Gospel to the Gentiles previous to the deftruction of the Jewish polity, confidered as proving Jefus to be the Meffiah, " in whom all the nations of the earth were to be bleffed."

SECOND CLASS.

PROPHECIES RELATING TO THE REIGN OF ANTICHRIST, AND THE REIGN AND FINAL TRIUMPH OF THE MESSIAH.

I. Prophecies concerning the establishment of the Papal Power, or Popery,-confidered as the fcourge of the Western Churches, in confequence of the corruptions of the Religion of Christ, and as one branch of Antichrift.

II. Prophecies concerning the establishment of the Mahometan Power, or Mahometanifm, confidered as the fcourge of the Eastern Churches, in confequence of the corruptions of the Religion of Christ,—and as another branch of Antichrift.

III. Prophecies concerning Infidelity,* confidered as particularly prevalent in the last and

and prefent centuries, as a third branch of Antichrist, and as a rising power which has already made great progress in its work, as the fcourge of Popery, or the Church of Rome, has effected a confiderable change among the followers of Mahomet, and has enticed a multitude of Proteftants to enlist under its banners.

IV. Prophecies concerning the general diffufion of the Gospel-the conversion of the Jews-the final triumph of our Lord, and the universal happiness of his glorious reign, -confidered as the accomplishment of the original promife made to Adam, -as the ultimate meaning of the prophetic defcriptions of the kingdom of the Meffiah, and as tending to reconcile the different opinions of Jews and Chriftians upon this fubject.

CLASS

CLASS I.

CHAPTER THE FIRST.

The Promife made to Adam after the Fallconfidered as a Prophecy of general Salvation by the Meffiah, the Redeemer of the World,

As it is the fashion of the present day, to question the truth of the narrative of which this Prophecy forms a part, I must entreat the reader to place the weight of historic evidence against the force of ridicule, before he thinks himself at liberty to reject it as falfe.Without any reference to the authority of infpiration for fupport, he will find the testimony of all antiquity more than a balance for the cavils of modern fcepticism, If it were within the limits of this work, it would be cafy to prove, that the earliest annals of the remoteft ages-the various fyftems of theology among the most antient nations-the