from the accumulated riches of the divine glory apparent in it. I ask whether, if you contemplate the character and scheme of it, in its extent, the union of all its parts in the divine person and glory of our Lord, the infinite wisdom and contrivance of those parts, the characters of the prophets themselves, and the high and important moral ends to which it was and is subservient, it do not bear the impress of the prescience and power of God. I ask again, whether the divine faithfulness and truth apparent in its accomplishment -the events of nations and empires bowing to its designsthe annals of six thousand years proclaiming the hand of Providence engaged in its inspiration and its fulfilment—I ask any unprejudiced person, whether such an exhibition of infinite foresight and omnipotent power, which is now going on and accumulating its effects in every age, do not prove the truth of that religion of which it is a prominent part. I ask, whether the correspondence which has been shown between the scheme of prophecy detailed in the last Lecture, and the fulfilment of its several parts, as we have been considering it now, do not put a seal, as it were, to the divine origin of both.

And when the evidence from this whole prophetical inspiration is added to that from palpable miraculous powers

when we consider that the same persons perform the mighty works who predict the improbable and often remote eventsthat the same lips of Moses and the prophets, of Christ and his apostles, which uttered the several prophetical declarations, and ventured their cause on the accomplishment of them in distant ages, were those which proclaimed the doctrines of religion, and then performed the supernatural deeds which were the instant and undeniable credentials of their mission ;—when all this is considered, I know not what excuse men can offer if they continue in doubt and hesitation on the truth of Christianity. The same divine glory which, in the wonders of creation, spreads before the eyes of men the proofs of "his eternal power and Godhead," is apparent in exhibiting to them more convincing and direct evidences of his will, with like profusion, and variety, and magnificence, in the book of revelation, and the accomplishment of prophecy in the events of the world. The demonstration is as complete in its kind to prove the mercy of God in the incarnation of a Saviour, as is that by which his existence, and wisdom, and power are proved by the order and arrangement of

the material world. It is as little needful that Jesus should now repeat his miracles, or deliver again his prophecies, as that the world should be a second time created.* The proof continues in each case; and, as to Christianity, increases. The miracles of the first ages of the Jewish and Christian dispensation are, in fact, propagated in the fulfilment of prophecy in every succeeding one. Men sometimes are disposed to think that if they could see a miracle wrought in their own sight, they would believe the gospel without delay, and obey it unreservedly.† They know not their own hearts. "If they believe not Moses and the prophets, neither would they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." But in the whole range of prophecy now fulfilling before their eyes, they have, in fact, a series of divine interpositions, not precisely of the nature of miracles, in the sense of brief, and instant, and visible suspensions of the laws of nature; but evidently so, in the sense of supernatural interference in the rise and fall of cities, and nations, and empires, in the arrangement of times and circumstances, in that wonderful display of infinite foreknowledge and infinite power apparent in the control of the wills of unnumbered free and accountable agents to a certain result.

I ask, for example, whether the present state of the Jews be not, in the sense I have stated, a miracle, nay, the most striking of miracles, to the considerate mind—a miracle, not transient, and ceasing with the life of the individuals who are its subjects, but permanent, and protracted already through the course of above fifty generations—a miracle not delivered only on the report of others, and recorded in authentic historical documents-satisfactory as this would be-but extant before their own eyes, and subject to their own inspection and examination—a miracle not wrought in one nation of the earth, and confined to a certain number of witnesses, but open to the observation, and presented to the deliberate and repeated scrutiny of all mankind.

In truth, prophecy forms the grand and abiding moral demonstration to a reasonable and accountable world, of the divine original of the Scriptures. On this evidence it is that the Almighty himself is pleased to rest the weight of the argument. The prophets under the Old Testament, and our Lord and his apostles under the New, in their addresses to the Jews, who admitted the sacred writings, appeal to the + Bishop Newton.

* Franks.

accomplishment of the ancient predictions. The prophets especially challenge the false priests and deities to the foretelling of distant events. They place the truth of their mission on the accomplishment of prophecy. The Almighty, in the text of the present discourse, demands of the idolatrous people, as the evidence of the existence of the gods they worshipped, the declaration of futurity. He bids them expound former things or predict future. He challenges them. to order events of good or evil according to their denunciations. He exhorts them to infuse, if they can, dismay into his own servants, by establishing their pretensions. And he concludes, by condemning their gods as vanities and things of nought" Produce your cause, saith the Lord; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob. Let them bring them forth, and show us what shall happen; let them show the former things, what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare us things for to come. Show the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods: yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold it together. Behold, ye are of nothing, and your work of nought: an abomination is he that chooseth you."

It is the same still. I need not say that no religion but the Christian has ever stood on this ground. We made a similar remark in closing the argument from miracles. Other religions had professed to work occasional miracles, but no one, except the Christian, had ever been established, in the first instance, by clear miraculous operations. With regard to the palpable prediction of distinct events, the field is yet more completely void of pretenders. Neither in the origin nor the progress of any other religion has any series of predictions of future events, been delivered or appealed to. The oracles of paganism were petty and impotent mockeries of a prescience which they did not possess, and could not imitate. Mahometanism is unsupported by a single prediction. The apostate western church has claimed the power of miracles -vainly indeed-but it has claimed it; but to prophecy it has never put in a pretence and the wretched attempts of occasional enthusiasts, in modern times, have only served, by their discomfiture, to mark out more clearly the boundaries between human folly and divine foreknowledge.

Here, then, the Almighty proposes to every one of us the

All that argu

most powerful external means of conviction. ment can effect on the judgment of men is in vain, if the prophetical word fail to persuade. And yet, be it well remembered, it will fail to persuade, if the heart be not sincere and humble in the investigation. A certain state of mind is, as I must again and again remind you, essential to a consideration of the Christian question. In a humble and teachable spirit, the blaze of glory bursting forth from the word of prophecy penetrates and convinces the soul-the awakened heart trembles at its former obduracy—the greatness and the wisdom of God shine forth in every step of the investigation -the person and grace of the divine Redeemer are illustrated by every fulfilment of his word. But to the prejudiced and unwilling student, to the objector and the sophist, to the immoral and the proud, to the presumptuous and self-confident, prophecy speaks in vain. The eye will hover round the dark and obscure parts, and close its view to the bright and luminous. The prophetic word especially requires that candid temper, that simplicity which our Saviour enjoins, where ho says, "If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light;" which he illustrates, as I have before noted, by the example of children; and commends in the person of the guileless Nathanael; and which is mentioned, as a characteristic of the first Christian converts under the expression of" singleness of heart." They who apply themselves with such a disposition, are in that state of mind in which only they correspond with the economy of grace. In such persons the "prophetic word," whether written in the Scriptures, or indicated by the events of mankind, will "have free course, and be glorified."

Let us, then, learn more and more of this heavenly temper. Let us look forward to that last solemn judgment, of which many of the divine prophecies are adumbrations and pledges,* with solemn preparation, with jealous watchfulness, with holy awe; and let us anticipate those glorious triumphs-and, as it were, advance and bring them on-which are to close the whole scheme of fulfilled prediction on earth, and to introduce and fall into, the unbroken peace and glory of the eternal abodes of heaven.

*Especially the prophecies of the destruction of Jerusalem, and of the fall of the western apostacy.

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LECTURE X.

THE PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY.

1 COR. I. 19-21, and 27-29.

For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, I will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound things that are mighty. And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen; yea, and things that are not, to bring to nought things that are; that no flesh should glory in his presence.

HAVING considered the arguments for the divine authority of the Christian religion, derived from the performance of undeniable miracles, and the numerous prophecies now fulfilling before our eyes, in the events of the world, we come next to contemplate the manifest interference of Almighty God, in the establishment of Christianity, and its subsequent continuance to the present day.

This subject may be considered in the facts themselves which it embraces-and in the agreement of these facts with the predictions of our Lord and the prophets under the preceding dispensation.

The propagation and preservation of Christianity are, in themselves, proofs of divine authority; but when considered. as the accomplishment of a long train of previous predictions, they have a still more convincing force.

The power of God engaged in favor of Christianity will appear, if we consider THE PROPAGATION ITSELF THE OB