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order of God's moral government of his rational and accountable creatures. Man could not have comprehended the mighty plan, and much less have fitly executed it.

On the other hand, if too dark a gloom had shrouded the divine predictions; if the time, and persons, and age, and place on which the fulfilments were to fall, had not been marked, and marked definitely and clearly, the whole argument would have lost its force.

Further, it pleased God to appoint that four thousand years should elapse between the fall of man and the advent of the Messiah; that the advance of light and grace from the first dawn to the meridian day should be gradual, through successive measures of communication, under different dispensations; that the temporal condition of the ancient church should be exposed to enemies and dangers, and be more than once brought to apparent destruction by oppression and captivity.

Now to meet all these various exigencies was a task which only God himself could accomplish in a prophetical revelation. And it is accomplished in a manner which it is impossible for the human mind sufficiently to admire. There is an intermixture of clear and obscure predictions; there are topics of consolation plentifully scattered throughout the prophetic revelations; there is a gradual development of the person and kingdom of the future Messiah; there is an adaptation of the different sets of prophecies to the several dispensations of God's will; and there are intermediate and partial accomplishments of them in temporal and civil deliverances granted to the Jewish people, which attested the truth of their prophecies to successive ages.

All this bears the very image and impress of a heavenly wisdom. "The prophecy came not of old time by the will of man ;" nor does it admit "of any private interpretation"from the fancy of an individual, or the opinions of the prophet himself, or the mere letter of the prediction apart from the system to which it belongs. Every prophecy has its own precise and determinate meaning, fixed by the wisdom of that presiding Spirit by whom it was dictated, and to be gathered from a comparison of all the parts of the great scheme with each other, and with the corresponding events of Providence. A few prophecies, indeed, are unveiled minutely, and at once direct us to the precise occurrences or persons in which they are accomplished. The duration of the captivity in Babylon,

the name of Cyrus, the deliverer; the precise time of the advent of Messiah, and many particulars as to his birth and sufferings, are described with the minuteness of historical narrative. But the prophecies generally were tempered with less clear predictions; were composed partly of temporal and partly of spiritual blessings; looked forward, through intermediate accomplishments, to their ultimate and most complete design; stopped sometimes on their march to console the church with instant assurances, and then directed their course onward to distant and more spiritual blessings; communicated, in a word, near and urgent benefits as pledges of remote and eternal ones.

Thus the promise of Canaan made to Abraham was a pledge of the prophetic seed "in whom all nations were to be blessed;" and when accomplished, lighted up the hopes of the faithful in expecting that seed. Thus Moses was a figure of that greater Prophet, whose grace was to supersede his economy. The kingdom of David was thus a figure of the dominion of the eternal Son of David. The deliverances from Egypt and Babylon were types of spiritual redemption: and the judicial destruction of Jerusalem and of the Jewish polity, a symbol of the final judgment.*

In this way the prophetic scheme, in its progress, illustrates itself, and its parts prepare for and sustain each other. The fulfilment of the civil and temporal predictions were the pledges and credentials of the accomplishment of the spiritual, in the first coming of the Messiah; whilst, again, these last support the credit of those which relate to his second advent. In this manner the prophecies were so far veiled, as to disappoint a vain curiosity before their accomplishment; and so far clear as to be perfectly unambiguous afterwards; whilst the several particulars are so scattered over the sacred canon, as to reward the humble and diligent student, and him only, with the most satisfactory conviction of the divine intention pervading the whole.

And this is the explanation of what has been very properly termed the double sense of prophecy, that is, of predictions bearing a temporary and near, as well as a spiritual and remote, import and accomplishment. This twofold applica tion marks a divine contrivance. They are not ambiguous

* Vetus Testamentum rectè sentientibus, prophetia est Novi Teata menti. Austin, contr. Faust. I. xv. in Hurd,

or fanciful meanings, the private interpretations of men; but both descriptions of blessings were in the design of the Almighty, and the one was intended as the type and vehicle of the other. "These are," as Lord Bacon finely speaks, "the springing and germinant accomplishments, throughout many ages; though the light and fulness of them refer to some one age."

"For these ends," observes Bishop Hurd, "the use of symbolical language (the ordinary poetical style of the eastern nations) was peculiarly adapted. The successive scheme of Providence could only be signified together, in a mode of language that contracted or enlarged itself as the occasion required. A figurative style is so proper to that end, that we can scarcely conceive how it could be accomplished by any other. For none but this hath fold and drapery enough, if I may so speak, to invest the greater subject; while yet (so complying is the texture of this expression) it readily adapts itself to the less considerable, which it ennobles only, not disfigures. It is the ordinary, accustomed dress of the one; and the robe of state for the other."

And if the double sense and the symbolical style serve also to cast an intentional obscurity over much of the prophecies, (that very obscurity which the immensity of the plan, the nature of the subject, and the moral genius of the revelation to which prophecy belongs, rendered expedient,) this still further marks a foresight inimitable by human art or prudence.

That many branches of the prophetic scriptures, and much of its general scope, are sufficiently perspicuous even to the world at large, is manifest from the indignation which the bitterest adversaries of Christianity have betrayed. The objections of the modern Jew admit all our chief predictions to be applicable to the Messiah, though they deny that our Jesus was he; that is, they admit the predictions to be sufficiently intelligible. The prophecies concerning the four empires of the world, and that of the destruction of Jerusalem, were so well understood by Porphyry and Julian the apostate, in the third and fourth century of the Christian era, as to induce them to make different, but equally resolute, attempts to weaken and overturn their authority. The hardy assertions of modern unbelievers,* that parts of the prophecies were composed after the events, are the most striking con*Bolingbroke, Voltaire, &c.

cessions which adversaries can make. These involuntary witnesses admit the prophetic inspiration; and at once silence all objections on the ground of their obscurity.

On the other hand, the rash and eager curiosity of too many persons in every age to pry into unfulfilled predictions, and the gross follies into which they have been betrayed, serve to show that if much larger measures of light had been thrown over the contexture of them, all the evils and confusion which we before adverted to would have arisen. These opposite testimonies proclaim, with a loud voice, the infinite wisdom and contrivance of the divine system.

V. Nor is THE CHARACTER OF THE PROPHETS themselves a consideration of small moment.

We observed, when we were speaking of the evidence derived from miracles, that they were performed by persons who had every other sign of a divine commission. A similar observation may be made here.

Our sacred prophets were not, like the heathen priests, the creatures of a base polytheism, driving a gainful trade, and communicating their oracles only occasionally, and upon the inducement of large gifts, without any holy doctrine, any connected purpose, or any one sign of a divine authority, either in themselves or in the religion which they supported. No. The characters of Abraham and Jacob; of Moses and Samuel; of Isaiah and Jeremiah; and of the prophets of the succeeding age, proved that they were "holy men of God, who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."

1. They had a solemn mission and call, known by all the nation. "The word of the Lord came" to them. They were set apart to the prophetical function, The mantle of the dying seer fell on the survivor.

2. They were men of sincere and elevated personal piety, Their holy lives became their office, and gave assurance of the inspiration with which they spake. Balaam and Caiaphas were, indeed, of a different character; but they are branded with the divine reprobation; and leave the sincere devotion of Samuel, and Moses, and David, and the other prophets, the more illustrious.

3. Their prophecies were but a small part of their general instructions; the great body of their doctrine was designed to teach the people all the practical parts of a divine religion

-a religion the most pure, the most elevated, the most benefi

cent-as far above all other instructions ever given by man, as the Lord whom they served was superior to the idols of the heathen. They proclaimed the being and providence of God; they exposed the pretensions of the pagan deities; they put the truth of their mission on the footing of their declarations, and dared the false prophets to the prediction of futurity; they called men to repentance, conversion and newness of heart; and they proffered the merciful promises of pardon and grace. In the midst of this course of doctrine, and in order to encourage the people to yield to it, they delivered their sacred oracles of a Saviour to come.

4. Moreover, their messages were often of the most distressing nature to their personal feelings, and the most obnoxious to the kings and princes of Israel and Judah. They were the pastors, and monitors, and reprovers of the great and powerful. "Lamentation, and mourning, and wo were often written within and without" the prophetic scroll. The offices of Nathan, and Gad, and Elijah, and Jeremiah, and Amos, compelled them to denounce the most unwelcome truths, under the most trying circumstances.

5. They also gave every sign of integrity, by suffering even unto death in the cause for which they pleaded. Frequently had the prophets to meet, not only the ordinary enmity of the human heart, but all the force of the secular arm, all the irritation of monarchs and princes, roused by false prophets. They were martyrs to the words which they delivered:"Thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee," was the reproach addressed to Jerusalem by our Lord.

6. Then they record minutely all the circumstances which might seem at first sight to make against them: they conceal not their own errors. Thrice doth Moses record his exclusion from Canaan on account of his unadvised expressions. The false prophets, who opposed the servants of God, with their places and characters, are faithfully described; and the world is left to judge between them. Nothing is concealed: admonitions are expressly given against unauthorized prophecy, and rules laid down for distinguishing between the true and false. The attempts made by the opponents of Micaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, are carefully described. Even the arts of wizards and diviners-of Elymas, for instance, and Simon Magus, in the New Testament, and of the Egyptian sorcerers

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