distinct, a wretched people, the librarians of the very prophecies which condemn them, and the unconscious witnesses, wherever they rove, of the truth of the Scriptures, has something in it so prodigious, as to shut up and conclude the proof of the prophetical inspiration. And when connected with our Lord's repeated prediction of the very judicial blindness, under which we behold them suffering, constitutes an irresistible evidence of the truth of Christianity.

The whole of this series of prophecies, indeed, as to the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the Jews, is so broad and unambiguous in its main features, so numerous and distinct in its details, so minute in many of its parts, combines events so utterly improbable when it was delivered, is so defined as to the time of its accomplishment, was fulfilled by persons so unlikely to concur in such transactions, is connected with so many events now fulfilling in the world-it looked back to so many prophecies of the Old Testament, and looked forward to so many ages of modern history, during which it has continued to receive its accomplishment-and is so incontestably confirmed by the very attempts made to defeat it, and especially by the mysterious, and, except on the hypothesis of the truth of the Scriptures, the unaccountable state of the Jews before our eyes in the present day- -as to constitute altogether an evidence which has never failed to overwhelm with conviction the mind of every sincere and candid inquirer; it raises the argument in favour of Christianity to the highest point of moral demonstration. It can be explained away by no fortuitous circumstances, it admits of no evasion, it stands forth a palpable, bold, unequivocal monument of the divine prescience of our Lord, and of the truth of the Christian religion.

It is for this reason that I have dwelt the longer upon this first branch of the fulfilment of prophecy.

Our remaining examples must be considered with greater brevity; for we still have other points of high importance to produce.

The scheme of scriptural prophecy extends, as we observed, over the whole surface of the history of the Jewish and Christian Churches, and the nations connected with them. But I shall confine myself to the accomplishment of it in those events which remain still open to the inspection of mankind. I omit, therefore, all the prophecies which were delivered by the patriarchs. I omit the various predictions in the times of the Judges and Kings of Israel. I pass by those numerous prescient descriptions of the nations adjoining the Holy Land of the Jews; and many relating to that extraordinary people themselves.

I proceed, therefore, to select,

II. The accomplishment of prophecies relating to

VARIOUS CITIES, NATIONS, AND EMPIRES OF THE

WORLD, as connected with the designs of God in the development of the great work of redemption, and now submitted to the examination of mankind.

1. I speak first of cities. I will not dwell on the well-known prophecies relating to Nineveh and Tyre. It is sufficient for me to ask, Where is their former grandeur, power, riches? I ask, who it was that

declared that "an utter end" should be made of Nineveh," that exceeding great city of three days' journey?" I ask, who said of Tyre, once the most celebrated of the cities of Phoenicia, and the ancient emporium of the world-of whose colonies Carthage, the rival of Rome, was one ;—whose “merchants were princes, and her traffickers the honourable of the earth;" which sat as a queen in the midst of the seas -I ask, who it was that said of her, "I will lay thy stones and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the waters-I will make her like the top of a rock-it

shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea ?" I ask, who it is that has accomplished these denunciations with an exactness so unerring, that the very site of Nineveh is unknown; while that of Tyre just preserves the marks imprinted on her by the prophetic word. She is "a rock, whereon fishers dry their nets."7 "The whole village of Tyre contains now only fifty or sixty poor families," says a modern traveller, afterwards a leader of the French infidelity," who live obscurely on the produce of their little ground, and a trifling fishery-their houses are wretched huts, ready to crumble into ruins."

"

I pass on to Babylon. Of its glory, of its walls and hanging gardens, of its palace and temple of Belus, of its lakes and embankments, I will not speak. But I will ask, who predicted by name, more than a century and a half before his birth, Cyrus, the conqueror of this haughty city, the deliverer of the Jews, and the monarch that issued the decree for rebuilding the temple? I ask, who foretold the very plan which he adopted for effecting his purpose ? Who spake of the "two-barred gates, and the gates of brass not being shut" of the drying up of the river;" of the "might of the defenders failing them;" of the " "posts running one to meet another to show the king of Babylon that his city was taken at one end;" of the "heat of the feasts and the drunken, and their perpetual sleep?" Let history tell. Let the same profane historians, who record her riches and her glory, relate the account of her subjugation. The divine books condescend neither to the one nor the other. It is not there I learn the particulars either of her greatness or of her fall. But the prophetic word gives me the key to the profane history, and furnishes me with an unanswerable proof of the fulfilment of its denunciations. It does more. It tells me that the 7 The very words of Bruce. 8 Volney ap. Keith. 9 Herodotus and Xenophon.

9

same events which fulfilled the sacred predictions, served also to punish the pride and impiety of the monarch of Babylon, in bringing out the sacred vessels of gold and silver for the purpose of insulting the majesty of the God of heaven. It tells me that the very night of Belshazzar's impious feast was the instant of his fall. It points out to me, not only an omniscient God fulfilling his word, but a sovereign Judge vindicating his righteousness. It does more. It tells me that these same events provided for the fulfilment of the prophecies respecting the termination of the seventy years' captivity of his people, and gave a pledge of that greater redemption from spiritual bondage, and that greater overthrow of the mystical Babylon, which belong to the New Testament history.

But the prophecy stops not here. The scriptures foretel its perpetual desolation-that "the Arabian should not pitch his tent there; but that the wild beasts should dwell there; and the houses be filled with doleful creatures, and the owls, and the satyrs dance there;" that it should be made "a possession for the bittern, and pools of water, and be swept with the besom of destruction." And how has the fact corresponded with these predictions? Its destruction has been advancing in every age, from the time of the capture of it by Cyrus, to the present hour. In the fourth century it was reduced to a great desert, its walls forming an enclosure for wild beasts. Its actual state, as described by the latest travellers, answers to the very words of the prophets delivered two thousand five hundred years ago. It is one heap of ruins, the most conspicuous of which is called Monkelibeh, or the Overturned; 10 whilst the lakes of stagnant water amidst its masses of dilapidated buildings, and the arid sun-burnt mounds which arise above them, exactly

VOL. I.

10 Rich's Memoirs.

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fulfil the apparently irreconcileable predictions, that it should become "pools of water;" and yet be a "wilderness, a dry land, and a desert."

2. But from single cities, however remarkable, I turn to nations, and ask you to look at the graphical description given of the descendants of Ishmael by the pen of prophecy. His descendants, the Arabs, have been in every age, and are still, what it was foretold they should be, a wild and unsubdued people, an uncivilized and independent nation, whose trade is plunder, who retain their habits of hostility towards all the rest of the human race, though for three hundred years the greatest part of the whole temperate zone was included within the limits of the Mahometan conquests. "He shall be a wild man," says the word of prophecy, "his hand shall be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren." And yet, adds the same prophetic spirit, "I will make him fruitful, and multiply him exceedingly, and I will make him a great nation." Well may a sensible writer observe, that the continuance of this acute and active people, in their pristine fierceness, though surrounded for ages by polished and luxurious nations-for the Arabian is still found, from his earliest to his latest time, a wild man," unsubdued and unchangeable, and “dwelling in the presence of all his brethren," as we may truly term the nations around him-is indeed a standing miracle."

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But doth the present state of the Egyptians less distinctly confirm the ancient prophecies ? "It shall be the basest of kingdoms, neither shall it exalt itself any more among the nations; there shall be no prince of the land of Egypt; the sceptre of Egypt shall pass away." Such was the voice of the divine oracle, uttered at a time when Egypt was one of the mightiest

11 Porter ap. Keith.