not be prolonged.”—Isaiah, xiii. "I will rise up against them, saith the Lord of Hosts, and cut off from Babylon the name, and remnant, and son, and nephew, saith the Lord; I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water; and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of Hosts."-Isaiah, xiv. 22, 23. That great and good man, Rollin, in whose history a greater degree of piety has been united with talent, than we find in any other of our modern historians, has interwoven the particulars of the prophecy with the thread of his history, and with great force marked their accomplishment.*

Tyre, once the grand emporium of the nations, was another of those ancient cities that were decidedly hostile to the people of God. The Tyrians, during the distress of the Israelites, had exposed them to sale, like cattle, in their markets, and when Jerusalem was taken by Nebuchadnezzar, they insulted her afflictions, and triumphed over her fall.-Joel, iii. 5; and Jeremiah, xxvi. 2, 3. Ezekiel prophesied that her insolence and tyranny should bring down on her own head the most exemplary vengeance. "I will make thee like the top of a rock, thou shalt be a place to spread nets upon; thou shalt be built no more, for I the Lord have spoken it, saith the Lord God."-xxvi. 14. A modern traveller, (Maundrell,) observes, "On the north side, it has an old Turkish ungarrisoned castle; besides which, you see nothing here but a mere Babel of broken walls, pillars, vaults, &c. there being not so much as one entire house left; its present inhabitants are only a few poor wretches, harbouring themselves

• Ancient History, Vol. 11, Book Iv, Chap. 1.

in the vaults, and subsisting chiefly upon fishing, who seem to be preserved by Divine Providence, as a visible argument, how God has fulfilled his word concerning Tyre, viz. that it should be as the top of a rock, a place for fishers to dry their nets on.”* The celebrated traveller, Mr. Bruce, tells us, that when he entered the place, he saw some fishermen in the act of spreading their nets; and though that gentleman entertained no superstitious veneration for the scriptures, he appears to have been wonderfully struck with the circumstance, as a demonstration of the truth of this prophecy.

Egypt, the most ancient of the enemies of the Israelites, had its doom particularly fixed by the prophecy of Ezekiel. "It shall be the basest of kingdoms; neither shall it exalt itself any more above the nations: for I will diminish them that they shall no more rule over the nations."xxix. 15. "And there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt."-xxx. 13. Such is the prophecy, and its accomplishment has been most exact. Egypt, though the first of the kingdoms of the world, has successively been subject to the Babylonians, the Persians, the Macedonians, the Romans, the Saracens, the Mamalucs, and last of all, to the Turks, of whose empire it is now a province, and is governed by rulers called Beys, who are justly considered as the refuse of mankind, having risen from the condition of slaves to squeeze and oppress an abject people.

The Old Testament scriptures have always been received by the Jews, not only as authentic records, but as composed by men who were inspired by the Spirit of God. In

* Page 49.

the same manner, their claim is admitted and sanctioned by the testimony of our Saviour and his Apostles. Our Saviour teaches their inspiration and infallibility, when he tells the Jews, that the scripture cannot be broken; and his own disciples, that all things which were written of him in them must be accomplished. The apostles call the scriptures of the Old Testament the Oracles of God. Stephen, who was himself full of the Holy Ghost, calls them the lively Oracles. He, therefore, who believes in Jesus, and in the inspiration of his Apostles, must needs believe in the divine authority of the Old Testament. As our Saviour and his Apostles quoted these records, in the state in which the Jews possessed them, they sufficiently vindicated that people from the charge of having altered or corrupted them.

Of the doctrines taught by the Law and the Prophets, that of the Unity forms a prominent, and an essential part. But it is the Unity of essence, and not the Unity of a person; an Unity in opposition to a plurality of Gods, but not in opposition to a plurality of persons, in the same Godhead. The modern Jews, indeed, contend for a personal Unity, and deny that according to their prophecies Messiah was to be a Divine Person. Their evident intention in denying the Divinity of the Messiah, is to elude the charge of their having been the murderers of the Prince of Life. But their own prophecies present irrefragable evidences, that their Messiah was to be the Son of God. Such he is particularly declared to be in the second psalm, "I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee."-7. And again, "Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way."-12. It is absurd to apply this description to David, as the Jews now generally do.

Kissing was an act of religious worship. Those who worshipped Baal performed their devotions, by kissing him. ---I Kings, xix. 18; and those who worshipped the golden calves, shewed their adoration by the same act.-Hosea, xiii. 2. To suppose that God invited the Jews to worship David, is too absurd a position to require confutation. In the hundred and tenth psalm we have the address of one Divine Person to another, "The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool."—1. Again, "The Lord hath sworn and will not repent. Thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchisadek."-4. Human ingenuity is inadequate to show how this can apply to David, or to any other character than him who was to be “a priest upon his throne."-Zech. vi. 13. In the forty-fifth psalm we find this address, "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever, the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre. Thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness." The words that follow show that the address is to Messiah; "Therefore God, thy God hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows."-7, 8. The prophet Isaiah prophesied, "Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call his name Immanuel." Or as it is in Bishop Lowth's translation, "Behold the Virgin conceiveth, and beareth a Son; and she shall call his name Immanuel.”. vii. 14. "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace." Bishop Lowth thus translates, "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the Father of the everlasting

age, the Prince of Peace."-ix. 5. A child to be born to whom these titles were justly applicable, it is impossible to conceive on any other supposition than that the Messiah was to be the Son of God, and a Divine Person. The incommunicable name of Jehovah is often in the Old Testament applied to Messiah. To pass over all the arguments that might be brought from the names given to Messiah, as the Word and Wisdom of God, we shall only further observe, that the person, who in the Old Testament is called "The Angel of the Lord," is certainly a Divine Person, because he uses language with respect to himself, which can apply only to God. "The Angel of the Lord spake--saying I am the God of Bethel, &c."-Gen. xxxi. 11, 13. To this Angel Jacob afterwards ascribes his salvation, which is sufficient to show that the Angel of the Lord spoke in his own name. "The Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the Lord." Of the Angel with whom Jacob wrestled, he afterwards said, "I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.”—Gen. xxxii. 30. The Angel who appeared to Moses in the burning bush, spoke precisely the same language.—Exod. iii. passim. Instances of a similar kind are very numerous in the historical books of the Old Testament. The same Angel appeared to Abraham, to Joshua, to Gideon, to Manoah, &c. and in all these appearances, he speaks in a language which it would be blasphemous for a mere creature to use. It is therefore sufficiently evident that the Old Testament recognizes two Divine Persons.

The distinct personality of the Holy Ghost certainly does not appear from the Old Testament, with the same force and evidence, as the Divinity of Christ. But even the phrase, "the spirit of God," seems strongly to implicate the doctrine. "The spirit of a man, is a mode of expres