This method of combining a common or national blessing in the same prediction with its genuine Medium, was an effectual course for the misdeeming and untractable race for which it was so particularly designed: it was certainly a way to bind the demagogues in chains, and the aristocrats with links of iron (Ps. cxlix. 8): it was such a dilemma as they can never fairly get out of. And considering all things, it may strike any one likewise as a great anomaly in the history of mankind, for a subject of that kind, or of any other indeed, to be pourtrayed, as this was, to the life, before he was born; and not only himself, but the part that he had to sustain in life with the remotest as well as more immediate consequences of his performance. It was,

not, prophesying herein as unconsciously perhaps as Caiaphas himself (John xi. 51),—his part, however, added to that of Micah above cited, will make together the most flattering prophecy for Israel that is extant, and not more flattering either, perhaps, than just and consistent; A TOTAL REFORMATION of manners and sentiments, being at the same time uniformly supposed for them. St. Paul's explication of the Mystery, as he calls it, especially is so much in point, and so congenial with the spirit of the predictions above cited, that it may be received almost as a counterpart of the same, and ought to be subjoined.

“For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this Mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness IN PART is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and TURN AWAY UNGODLINESs from Jacob" (Rom. xi. 25, 26).

Whence it appears, that the apostle himself was actually in expectation of the Deliverer at that time, as much as any of his countrymen can be at present, all the while that he knew him to be both come and gone; expecting him again after the dispersion of Israel consequent upon his first rejection: which is the general tenour of the prophecies respecting him.

The second coming of Messiah will be the period of the great gathering for Israel: but too late a period indeed for many :--when "many shall come from the East and West; and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the Kingdom of Heaven: but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness :-there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matt. viii. 11, 12).

2 That is, not individually, but generally; the grafted and indigenous, or "root and branches", as it is said :---one as well as the other.

As above.

however, the will of Providence, that there should be believers in Christ before as well as after his birth; for whose information and encouragement this lively portraiture was intended, as it might have been the portraiture of an absent sovereign, or the map of a distant province for those who were to enjoy the protection of the one, or estates in the other.

And if the information thus conveyed to the fathers seeing the promises afar off (Heb. xi. 13) was important, it was important also, that the same should be well authenticated accordingly they who prophesied of the Subject, and some of them long before his coming, were not only convinced themselves by supernatural means, but also furnished with the means of convincing others, of their countrymen especially, on these matters which were so essential both to their private and public welfare: among which means are reckoned the power of working miracles, looking into futurity, and also into the secrets of the present; whereby a growing expectation was fostered in the church, in "the Israel of God", from age to age, increasing continually both in ardour and popularity to the period of fruition: a dispensation that has been mentioned before our time and in better terms than any of us can find, by St. Paul in his first epistle to the Corinthians, v. g., " Moreover, brethren, I would not have you ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and did all eat the same spiritual meat, and did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that Spiritual Rock that followed them; and that Rock was Christ" (Cor. I. x. 1, &c.).

The essence of that Spiritual Rock consisting in righteousness and the substance in atonement, its expectation was not peculiar to the fathers, nor yet to Israel, but common to all the nations of the earth who have any traditional worship in some fashion or degree. One thing however is peculiar in this dispensation, that although

many among different nations have pretended to be sons and prophets of God, and even human sacrifices have been too common among the nations in both hemispheres ; although oracles too, or the coming of the Word direct as well as indirectly by prophets and signs are claimed by other nations as well as Israel: yet in Israel alone is there, or was there ever pretended to be enjoyed and reveredthe Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world, and the Incarnate Word by which it is enlightened. To this extensive benefit, to this compound blessing, all that is truly predicted of Messiah must have some reference, and to the dispensation with promise: wherefore, to shew that Jesus was such Messiah in all that is recorded of Jesus, there must be enough to shew that such predictions were substantially verified in him.

2, This is the part of prophecies more particularly applying to the person of the Subject; in respect of which it was necessary, that the mediate or indirect evidence should be still more abundant than the direct, and also very prolix, as well as minute, with predictions applying to every point whether essential or characteristic, incidental or constituent. For though satisfied by a double assurance, the divine counsel and engagement aforesaid, of the fulfilling of the divine dispensation by the promised Messiah, we might still wish to be informed, and indeed it was necessary that we should in so great a case, concerning not only the nature or order, but the nation, tribe and very individual in whom this dispensation with promise, and consequently desirable dispensation, is to be fulfilled. It was generally intimated indeed in the promise itself on which we rely, 1, that the blessing should be effected by human agency (Gen. iii. 15); 2, more specifically by a seed of Abraham (Ib. xxii. 18); still more and more specifically, by a seed of Isaac, and not of Ishmael (Ib. xxi. 12); of Jacob and not of Esau (Ib. xxviii. 14); of Judah, and not of one of his brethren (Ib. xlix. 8, &c.); and of king David especially beyond all

.

us;

others of the house of Judah (Sam. II. vii. 12); coming from Bethlehem, as we have seen, above all the towns, whether little or great, in Judah's territory. Here the light of the promise, being a more direct evidence, begins to fail and for more than this we must be indebted to the light of history mingling with that of prophecy, if by their joint information we can discover, who among the descendants of David in so many ages may be that auspicious Seed in which all the nations of the earth are blessed, and the throne of his father David shall be established for ever (Luke i. 32, 33). For one ray of light, or one single prediction, will not suffice to give a clear apprehension of the subject on account of its natural obscurity.

ample,

For ex

-1, If we are apprized that the Subject, being the Second Mediate of the Kingdom, the Son of God and the promised Messiah should be a descendant of Abraham in the line of David, yet there will be nothing in a descent from David only, to characterize either his quality or station; as any man may derogate from the virtue of his ancestors; " and who knoweth, whether he shall be a wise man, (not to say, one wiser than men) or a fool?" (Eccles. ii. 19). Add to which; as kings' sons are not always kings, a descendant of David might either be a king, or he might perchance be lower than David, when "he was taken away from the sheepfolds, as he followed the ewes great with young, that he might feed the people of God" (Ps. lxxviii. 71, 72). Therefore the force of this single prediction is very indistinct: and so will the force of each of the abovementioned and of many others be separately, in which the mission of the sacred Subject and his consequent fate are announced. For we know by experience that missions are not necessarily characteristic of those who deserve them, nor holy orders of holy men and we know likewise, as Solomon observes again, that "all things come alike to all" (Eccles. ix. 2); so that we cannot find any cided characteristic of the Subject in this sort of fortune

de

or fate. But still, general and inconclusive as these evidences are singly in themselves, we may find a sufficient coincidence perhaps among the same and others that have necessarily been mentioned to make out a precise case; and if on comparing this with what is described in the history of Jesus, we can find a clear correspondence between the two, it may be almost enough to establish the identity of the Subject. Or,

-2, If it should still be thought, that the facts were not sufficient, and that so general a prediction as that which is usually considered in reference to the said Subject were likely enough to be verified continually, let who would be the writer or reporter; also, that Moses, the Psalmist, and other prophets foretold from time to time a deliverer merely with a politic view to keep up the spirit of the nation, and encourage their struggle for freedom, this sort of reasoning and suspicion may be obviated by several considerations: as first, by a consideration of the universal and individual redemption foretold, as above, equally and more decidedly than a political restoration, like that in Job for example before cited, "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he (MY Redeemer, gentile Job's) shall stand at the latter day upon the earth": 2, of the humble as well as lofty birth and other circumstances predicted of the Subject; which do not correspond either with the supposed triteness of the case, or with the supposition of that single and insincere purpose. A single purpose there was no doubt of exhibiting in such predictions, a character becoming divinity; which is well borne out in the record. And what lends a degree of authenticity to the record, is

-3, That solitary instance of perfection which the record affords in the Subject, narrating at the same time with admirable candour the faults of such favourites as David in the Old Testament, and St. Peter in the New; as if on purpose to shew, that of all mankind there was