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once for all, and being done, can never be repeated. A prophecy thus definite in its general purport, conveyed in images of a fixed and constant meaning, and corresponding to an event in its nature single-a sudden and universal revolution of the religious opinions and practices of all the civilized nations of the known world,— such a prophecy, so accomplished, must be allowed to be a proof that the whole work and counsel was of God, if in any case it be allowed that the nature of the cause may be known by the effect.

I mean hereafter to apply the apostle's rules to instances of prophecy of another kind, in which we find neither the same settled signification in the imagery, nor the same singularity of completion!

SERMON XVII.

2 PETER i. 20.

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation.

I PROCEED in the task I have undertaken, to exemplify the use of those rules of interpretation which the maxim of my text contains; which are these two,-to refer particular predictions to the system, and to compare prophecies with events. In my last discourse, I showed you with what certainty and facility they lead to the explication of the first prophecy that was ever given--that which was uttered by the voice of God himself, in the form of a curse upon the serpent, the adviser of Adam's disobedience. I shall now try them in an instance of a very different kind, where the occasion of the prediction does not so clearly ascertain its general purport,—where the images employed are less fixed to one constant meaning,—and where, among the events that have happened since the prophecy was given, a variety may be found to correspond with it, all in such exactness, that every one of the number may seem to have a right to pass for the intended completion.

The first prophecy uttered by the voice of God, furnished an example of a prediction in which the general meaning was from the first certain, and the imagery of the diction simple, and of which the accomplishment hath been single. The earliest prophecy recorded in the

sacred volume, of those which were uttered by men, furnishes the example that we now seek, of a prediction originally doubtful in its general meaning, comprehensive in its imagery, various in its completion. Such was the prophecy in which Noah, awakened from his wine, and inflamed with resentment at the irreverent levity of his younger son, denounced the heavy curse on his posterity, and described the future fortunes of the three general branches of mankind. "Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. Blessed be Jehovah, God of Shem!-and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japhet, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant."

The only explicit part of this prophecy is the curse upon Canaan, Ham's youngest son; of whose descendants it is openly foretold that they should live in a state of the lowest subjection to nations which should issue from the two other sons of Noah. And yet here we find some obscurity; for how was Canaan to be in slavery both to Shem and Japhet? The evangelic maxim, “ that no man can serve two masters," seems applicable here in a literal sense. This difficulty, the apostle's maxim, of applying for the explication of the sacred oracles to the occurrences of the world, readily removes. It appears from sacred history, that so early as in the time of Abraham, the Canaanites were governed by petty princes of their own, who were the tributary vassals of the As.syrian monarchy, then newly arisen under princes of the family of Ashur, Shem's second son. And from prophane history we learn, that when the Canaanites fled from the victorious arms of Joshua, and when the remainder of them were expelled by David, they settled in those parts of Africa which first fell under the dominion of the Romans, the undoubted descendants of Japhet. Thus Canaan in early ages was the slave of Shem, and in later times of Japhet,

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But this is neither the most difficult nor the most interesting part of the prophecy. Let us turn our attention to the blessings pronounced upon the two other branches. And we will first consider Japhet's part, because it seems of the two the most explicit. "God shall enlarge Japhet, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem." The most obvious meaning of the words, I think, is this,— that the gracious purpose of Providence was to bless Japhet with a numerous progeny, which should spread over an ample tract of country; and that, not satisfied, or not sufficiently accommodated with their own territory, they would be apt to encroach upon Shem's descendants, and make settlements within their borders. And as this is the most obvious sense of the words, so it is justified by the apostle's rules; for history supports it. The whole of Europe, and a considerable part of Asia, was originally peopled, and hath been ever occupied by Japhet's offspring, who, not contented with these vast demesnes, have been from time to time repeatedly making encroachments on the sons of Shem; as was notoriously the case, when Alexander the Great, with a European army, attacked and overthrew the Persian monarchy-when the Romans subjugated a great part of the East, and still more notoriously, when the Tartar conquerors of the race of Genghis Khan demolished the great empire of the Caliphs, took possession of their country, and made settlements and erected kingdoms in all parts of Asia and the East-and again, when Tamerlane settled his Moguls, another branch of Japhet's progeny, in Indostan, whose descendants gradually got possession of that immense country, a part of Shem's original inheritance, which forms the present empire of the Great Mogul. These events, not to mention other less remarkable incursions of Scythians into Shem's parts of Asia, may well be deemed an accomplishment of the patriarch's prophetic benediction; not only because they

answer to the natural import of the terms of it, but because every one of them had great consequences upon the state of the true religion, and the condition of its professors in various parts of the world, and some of them have been the subjects of later prophecies. So that, in this interpretation, we find the two circumstances which, according to the apostle, are the best characteristics of a true interpretation,-an agreement with the truth of history, and a connection of this particular prediction with the system of the prophetic word.

It may seem, however, that some amicable intercourse between certain branches of the two families-some peaceable settlements of descendants of Japhet in nations arisen from the other stock, may be no less conveniently denoted, by the expression of "Japhet's dwelling in the tents of Shem," than the violent encroachments of conquerors of the line of Japhet. And this interpretation does not ill agree with history, or, to speak more properly, with the present state of the two families. The settlements of Portuguese, English, Dutch, and French -all of us descended from the loins of Japhet, made within the three last centuries in different parts of India -all of it a part of Shem's inheritance, have given the prophecy in this sense a striking accomplishment. Nor, in this interpretation, is the necessary connection wanting of this particular prediction with the prophetic system; for consequences cannot but arise, although they have not yet appeared, of great moment to the interests of the true religion, from such numerous and extensive settlements of professed Christians, in countries where the light of the gospel hath for many ages been extinguished.

Thus you see, history leads us to two senses of this prophecy, of which each may contain an unlimited va-t riety of particular accomplishments; since every settlement of Europeans or of Asiatic Tartars in the lower

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