The prophetical argument of course requires a more patient attention than that derived from miracles. Miracles were palpable, instant, direct appeals to the omnipotent God, subject to the immediate senses, the eyes, and ears of man: prophecy requires time, and a cautious and minute comparison of the language of the sacred oracles with the correspondent fulfilment. The argument is of a slower growth and a longer period; but when fairly established, brings in all the perfections of Deity in attestation of a divine revelation: it is a standing miracle.

And if the prophecies are found to be pronounced by the same persons, and for the support of the same doctrines and no other, as were supported by the miraculous operations-that is, if those who wrought the miracles delivered the predictions; and those who delivered the predictions performed the miracles, the result in point of evidence is the more triumphant.

Let us now proceed to consider this evidence of scriptural prophecy in its GENERAL FEATURES AND SCHEME; and then let us give a specimen of the

ACTUAL AND CLEAR FULFILMENT OF ITS PREDICTIONS BEFORE THE EYES OF MANKIND.

We shall confine ourselves to the first of these divisions on the present occasion. We shall here begin by laying down a definition of prophecy-we shall then point out its vast extent-the union and harmony of all its parts in the person of the Saviour-the infinite wisdom apparent in the contrivance and arrangement of these parts-the divine commission and unimpeachable moral conduct of the persons who delivered the several predictions- and the important practical uses which prophecy has subserved, and still subserves, in the church. These particulars constitute what we may call the general features, or scheme of divine prophecy.

I. SCRIPTURAL PROPHECY IS THE DECLARATION

BEFOREHAND OF SUCH EVENTS AS CAN BE KNOWN

ONLY TO THE OMNISCIENT GOD. It implies the undoubted prediction of future and often remote occurrences, dependent on the contingencies of human affairs, and frequently on the character and conduct of persons at the time unborn; so as distinctly to mark the foresight and sovereignty of the infinitely wise and powerful Creator and Governor of the world.

The conjectures which the most sagacious of mankind may venture to indulge with respect to futurity, are, as we all know, few and hazardous; and are only rarely confirmed, and then very partially, by events. The oracles of the heathen were of this kind; they were merely, as our text expresses it, " cunningly devised fables," designed to soothe the immediate apprehensions of men as to some pending concern, calculated to gratify the depraved passions of earthly rulers and conquerors, and aiming at the advancement of those who delivered them, to wealth, authority, or reputation. They were couched, moreover, in loose and ambiguous language; were very seldom accomplished; and then, perhaps, by some disgraceful play upon terms. They were little more than the guesses of jugglers and fortune-tellers.'

Divine prophecy is no "cunningly devised fable; -it came not at any time by the will of man." It is the clear prediction of important events connected with the salvation of mankind; events so numerous, so circumstantially marked out, so entirely beyond the

1 When Croesus consulted the oracle at Delphi, relative to his intended war against the Persians, he received the following reply: Κροισος Αλυν διαβας μεγάλην αρχην καταλύσει; "Cræsus crossing the Halys, shall destroy a great empire." This he naturally interpreted of his overcoming the Persians. He was himself conquered, and lost his empire. The juggling oracle, however, by the ambiguity, saved its credit.— Herod. lib. i. c. 53; Suidas, iii. 382; H. Horne, i. 4. § 3.

reach of human conjecture, and delivered by persons designated by such undoubted credentials to the sacred function, as to carry upon it the impress of divine prescience and wisdom" Prophecy came not of old time (margin, at any time) by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."

II. The EXTENT of scriptural prophecy is vast in various points of view. Its records occupy a large portion of the volume of inspiration. It began to be uttered when man fell; and ceased not till the close of the Jewish dispensation. At the birth of our Lord it broke forth again, and sunk only with the last accents on the lips of the last of the apostles.

Its parts are distributed over the various dispensations of religion for four thousand years. Guilty man was not thrust out of paradise, till prophecy had whispered some hope of a future Saviour. Predictions of the flood preceded that tremendous judgment; and a prophetic declaration that the deluge should not return, accompanied its cessation.

The call of Abraham was attended with a prophetical annunciation of the land of promise, and the seed in whom all nations should be blessed.

Jacob, on his dying couch, foretold the increase of his sons, the twelve patriarchs; and the continuance of the lawgiver in Judah till the advent of Shiloh.

After the long-predicted bondage of Egypt, prophecy rekindled its torch, pointed out the "prophet like unto Moses ;" and then sketched the most remote events of the Jewish story; whilst Job and the unwilling testimony of Balaam came in about the same time, to testify of the future Redeemer, and of the star that was to arise out of Jacob.

After a cessation of prophecy, from the time of Moses, of about four hundred years, Samuel arose,2

2B. C. 1451-1056.

amidst the decay of religion and the extreme corruption of the priesthood, the first of a new series of divine messengers. The age of prophecy, emphatically so termed, now began. David came first and tuned his harp. The remarkable prophet Jonah3 followed; then Hosea, Amos, and Micah; who led on the choir of the greater prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.

The latter of these accompanied the Jewish people to Babylon, where Daniel arose and spake of the seventy weeks reaching unto Messiah the Prince. Haggai and Zechariah aroused the languid nation on their return, and Malachi announced the herald of the Saviour.

5

As a pause of four hundred years intervened after the death of Moses, so did a like pause hush every whisper of prophecy till Christ our Lord aroseushered in, according to the prophetic declarations, by his precursor, John Baptist, and predicted the destruction of the Jewish city, and the dissolution of their polity. His blessed doctrine St. Paul followed first, and then St. John, taking up the strain of Daniel, expanding the visions which he had recorded, and pronouncing the predictions which have been fulfilling ever since, in the events of the world.

Thus extensive IN POINT OF TIME, prophecy was not less so in respect of THE DISPENSATIONS which it subserved, the OBJECTS which it embraced, the MODES of its being communicated, and the PERIODS of its fulfilment. The nations bordering on Judea, the greatest heathen states, the succession of empires as connected with the church, the punishment of guilty individuals and of kingdoms-events near and remote-were the objects of prophetic vision. The writers of the prophecies were of every different class;

3 B. C. 975-862.

5 B. C. 396.

4 B.C. 606.
6 A. D. 96.

some kings or princes, others patriarchs and heads of tribes, others prophets or priests, others legislators, others shepherds or fishermen. Their natural abilities, education, habits, and employments, were exceedingly dissimilar. They received the divine communications, by various methods-voices from heaven, dreams, visions, angelic messages, direct impressions of the sacred Spirit. They wrote laws, history, odes, devotional exercises, doctrines, and controversy.

Moreover, the various usages and rites, the institutions and persons connected with the worship of God, the princes raised up to rule over the people, the very land in which they reposed as their inheritance, were prophetical symbols of future blessings. Every thing was pregnant with the prescient spirit under the former Testament.

It is quite obvious that this wide range and prodigious extent gives to the argument from prophecy, when verified by the respective fulfilments, an importance and sublimity, a sort of impress of divine magnificence, which surpasses all we could have conceived. We have not one or two oracular declarations, but a whole system of predictive grandeur running through every period of time, and stretching on to the consummation of all things."

III. Then the union and HARMONY OF ALL ITS PARTS in the person and salvation of our Lord, as its CENTRE POINT, increases the proof of divine prescience. It was not indeed necessary to the establishment of a divine revelation, that a connexion should subsist between the various and widely spread ramifications of prophecy. The foretelling of any distant and unconnected events would have attested the Christian reli

7 It is impossible to make this fully apparent to any but the serious student, who has really read the Bible with attention. To others, the references of this branch of our argument must appear confused.