ployed by God to prepare the world for the revelation of his Son; and the later prophecies of our Lord himself, and his inspired apostles, are still means of the same kind, for the farther advancement of the same great design, to spread that divine teacher's doctrine, and to give it full effect upon the hearts of the faithful. The great object, therefore, of the whole word of prophecy, is the Messiah and his kingdom; and it divides itself into two general branches, -as it regards either the first coming of the Messiah, or the various fortunes of his doctrine and his church until his second coming. With this object every prophecy hath immediate or remote connexion. Not but that in many predictions, in many large portions of the prophetic word, the Messiah and the events of his kingdom are not immediately brought in view as the principal objects: Yet in none of the Scripture prophecies are those objects set wholly out of the sight; inasmuch as the secular events to which many parts of prophecy relate will be found, upon a close inspection, to be such as either in earlier times affected the fortunes of the fect upon - Jewish people, or in later ages the state of Christendom, and were of considerable efthe propagation of the true religion, either as they promoted or as they obstructed it. Thus, we have predictions of the fall of the old Assyrian empire, and the desolation of Nineveh, its capital,- of the destruction of Tyre, and the ravages of Nebuchadnezzar in the neighbourhood of Palestine, of the overthrow of the Babylonian empire, by Cyrus of the Persian, by Alexander,-of the division of the Eastern world, after the death of Alexander, among his captains of the long wars between the rival kingdoms of Syria and Egypt of the intestine quarrels and court intrigues of those two kingdoms, — of the propagation of Mahomet's imposture, — of the decline of the Roman empire-of the rise and growth of the papal tyranny and superstition. Such events as these became the subject of prophecy, because their consequences touched the state of the true religion; and yet they were of a kind in which, if in any, the thoughtless and inconsiderate would be apt to question the controul of Providence. Read the - histories of these great revolutions: You will find they were effected by what you might the least guess to be the instruments of Providence, by the restless ambition of princes by the intrigues of wicked statesmen by the treachery of false sycophants -- by the mad passions of abandoned or of capricious women— by the phrensy of enthusiasts by the craft of hypocrites. But, although God hath indeed no need of the wicked man, yet his wisdom and his mercy find frequent use for him, and render even his vices subservient to the benevolent purposes of Providence. The evidence of a vigilant Providence thus mercifully exerted arises from the prediction of those events, which, while they result from the worst crimes of men, do yet in their consequences affect the state of religion and the condition of the virtuous. If such events lay out of the control of God's providence, they could not fall within the comprehension of his prescience: But, what God hath predicted, he foreknew; what he foreknew, he predetermined; what God hath predetermined whatever bad action he permits to be done, must no less certainly though less immediately than the good actions which he approves, operate, by the direction of his universal providence, to the final benefit of the virtuous. This comfortable assurance, therefore," that all things work together for good to them that love God," is derived from prophecy, especially from those parts of prophecy which predict those crimes of men by which the interests of religion are affected; and to afford this comfort to the godly, such crimes are made the subject of the sacred oracles. and the in Thus you see that in all prophecy the state of religion is the object, terests of religion are the end. Hence it is, that as a man whose mind is bent upon the accomplishment of some great design, will be apt, upon every occasion of discourse, to introduce allusions to that which is ever uppermost in his thoughts and nearest to his heart, so the Holy Spirit of God, when he moved his prophets to speak of the affairs of this low world, was perpetually suggesting allusions to the great design of Providence, the uniting of all things under Christ. And whoever would edify by the prophetic word must keep this great object constantly in view, that he may be ready to catch at transient hints and oblique insinuations, which often occur where they might be the least expected. Nor is an active attention to the events of the world less necessary. That prophecy should fetch its interpretation from the events of history, is a necessary consequence of its divine original: It is a part of the contrivance, and a part without which prophecy would have been so little beneficial rather, indeed, pernicious to mankind—that seeing God is infinitely wise and good, this could not but be a part of his contrivance. This is very peremptorily declared in the original of my text; where the expression is not, as in the English," no prophecy is," but "no prophecy is made of self-interpretation." No prophecy is to be found in Scripture, which is not purposely so frained as not to be of self-interpretation. It was undoubtedly within the power of the Almighty to have delivered the whole of prophecy in terms no less clear and explicit than those in which the general |