showeth his handiwork. But the law, also, of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The heavens are our witnesses; earth is full of our depositaries; truth must spring up where the Creator hath sown it; and philosophers at last must be its tributaries. The Christian may well rejoice in the progress of science, and gladly give it a free and unfettered course. Knowledge shall be the stability of the times of the Messiah; and the mind of man, enlightened in the knowledge of the word and works of God, shall be freed from the nebulosity which enshrouds it, and the light shall be divided from the darkness. And then shall the greatness of his works be seen, and the truth of his word be made manifest. But although, compared to that full flood of light, only the first flush of dawn may seem to be arising now over all the subject before us, whence, we ask, came this light, were it far fainter than it is? Is it not enough to scare away the children of darkness from the field which they have assumed as their own? What invention of man ever bore a similitude to truths ever previously unknown and only newly discovered, like that very record which skepties have assailed? And how are all imaginative cosmogonies of former ages swallowed up by that of Moses, as were the rods of the Egyptian magicians by that of Aaron? Can our great calculators tell what is the sum of the improbabilities that such an analogy, if not founded on fact, would have subsisted or could be traced from first to last between the observations of Sir W. Herschel, the opinions of La Place, the accumulated and classified discoveries of geologists, and the short and simple record of Moses? Before Herschel handled a telescope, or La Place had studied the laws of planetary motion, or Cuvier had touched a fossil bone, what Vulcanist, or Neptunist (combating whether the crust of the earth was of aqueous or igneous origin), or other uninspired mortal, could have described the order of succession, in the creation of the heavens and of the earth, and marked in six successive periods the rank of each, in so close conformity with the recent discoveries both of astronomy and geology, when the name of science can be attached to these words, like the man who, three thousand years ago, could humanly know nothing of either from the mud of the Nile or from the sands of the desert? What man on earth, from the beginning of the creation, ever recorded its history with such conformity to existing observations and discoveries, as did He of whom the scripture saith, God made known his ways unto Moses? And has not this word its visible illustration in the first page of the Pentateuch, as well as in every prophecy which he uttered? And may we not finally ask whether the testimony, borne by the fate of the Jews and by the desolation of Judea, that Moses was a prophet of the Highest, be not repeated by the record of the creation, and also, most slightly as we have glanced at either, by the whole Mosaic history and dispensation? In contending for the faith on any ground to which our adversaries bring us, it is not enough that our cause pass scatheless. When Nebuchadnezzar cast the faithful servants of the Lord into the seven-times heated fiery furnace because they would not worship a golden image, and when they came out uninjured by the fire that slew those who touched them, the king's word was indeed changed; and he blessed the God of Israel, and issued a decree that none should speak anything against their God, "because there is no other God that could deliver after this sort." And when the scriptures come forth uninjured from the fire which slays those who touched them, may not the words of those be changed who speak against the Bible? may it not be received where before it was ridiculed, and be studied where formerly it was slighted? And may not every golden idol be abandoned for the worship and service of the Creator of Heaven and of earth, as whose word the Bible is approved; not only because it has passed unhurt through the firey ordeal to which the idolaters of blinded reason subjected it, but because it is thus manifest that no uninspired man could have written after this sort, as Moses wrote; and that no other God but the Lord by whom he spake created the heavens and the earth, as it hath THUS been told from the beginning? On the whole, even from the limited and imperfect view contained in the preceding pages, it may be seen that the seal of God is demonstrably affixed to the Old Testament. Every country, and city, and spot on which the word of the Lord lighted, bears its vivid impression by a realized judgment and while these speak in a language universally intelligible, the Jews are living witnesses of "the divine legation of Moses" in every country under heaven: and the Bible is thus "the Book of the Lord," in which those things are written that God alone could have revealed. Universal tradition supplies its concurring testimony to some of the earliest historical events recorded by Moses; and others are corroborated by new discoveries, and even by pictorial representations. Cities by their names bore the inscription of scriptural facts, which is yet as legible as ever in their ruins. And to name the patriarchs and primogenitors of the Hebrew race is virtually to repeat facts, thus consigned from the beginning to everlasting remembrance. Positive institutions were ordained for memorials in all generations; and from their prophetic as well as commemorative nature, they set a mark upon the Jews to show what they were and what they shall be; and constitute them the witnesses of wonders wrought in Israel of old, and "the prisoners of hope," who look to Zion yet. Though, as Moses foretold, they now grope at noonday as the blind gropeth in darkness, of old they were set apart in another manner from the nations; and the Mosaic dispensation, ere a better covenant appeared, stood alone for many ages before the law was made void by traditions, as the sole witness and the sole word of the one living and true God, and was singularly and gloriously distinguished from all the debasements and abominations of idolatrous paganism. And, finally, exclusive of manifold strong confirmations besides, whether Moses in the first words of the Bible recorded the creation of the heavens and the earth, as their construction and formation are at last scientifically deduced from existing phenomena, or Malachi, in closing the vision and prophecy, foretold that the land of Judea would be smitten with a curse which is yet unrepealed, the Old Testament Scriptures, from first to last, are not left without a witness that they are the Word of God. If the eyes of men be closed against visible facts, and if the truth and inspiration of the Old Testament Scriptures be denied, farther inquiry would be alike unavailing, and all reason would be lost on the inveterate enemies of faith. Could demonstration of a revealed word be stronger than that the Lord hath done the very things which he said? and may it not in all truth and soberness be affirmed, that if men do not believe Moses and the prophets, neither would they be persuaded though one arose from the dead. The latter would tell of judgments to come, but the former tell also of judgments that are seen. God has accredited the fact that he spake by them, as none but the Omniscient could have spoken. He has shown the interposition of his power according to their word: and he has thus manifested and magnified that word as his own. And appealing to the understanding and senses of men, his controversy with gainsayers is whether they will believe or not; whether they will close their ears against the truth and their eyes against the light; whether any evidence will convince them; or whether, when the wrongs of reason shall be avenged, they shall see at last that they themselves had good cause to "lay their hands upon their hearts," and say that these are hardened in unbelief and steeled against conviction, till the experience of judgment-not others', but their own-be finally the resistless reason of a hopeless faith. But "if the heart be capable of comprehending the language of argumentation ;" and if truths that present themselves to the sight be seen, and belief in the inspired word of God be thus substantiated in every mind opened to con 66 viction by the Spirit of Truth, then our task may happily approach to its close before it be seemingly begun, as the demonstration of the truth of the Christian religion follows hard on the demonstration of the inspiration of the prophets. In passing from the existing proofs of the inspiration of the prophets, and of the authenticity of the Old Testament, to the consideration of the credibility of the New, the way of the Lord is prepared, and the highway of our God is made straight by testimony not human, but Divine. Jesus himself said unto the unbelieving Jews, "Do not think that I accuse you to the Father; there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me; for he wrote of me." Moses," says Paul, "verily was faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after." He who revealed the fate of the Jews to this day, and wrote the history of the world from the beginning of the creation, accuseth those before God who believe not in Jesus. The Author of the Christian religion and his apostles appeal to the scriptures as testifying of him. And as mercy rejoiceth over judgment, so the predicted judgments that have fallen on guilty nations are the ratified credentials of those prophets who, as witnesses of God, bear testimony of Messiah the Saviour, as they testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. CHAPTER IV. TESTIMONY OF THE PROPHETS TO THE COMING OF A MESSIAH; AND CONSEQUENT EXPECTATION OF HIS COMING AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA. THAT the Old Testament Scriptures, authenticated as prophetically an inspired record and as historically true, contain promises and prophecies concerning a coming Saviour which gradually develop the anticipated history of the Messiah and of his kingdom, a selection of such prophecies, to be afterward more fully adduced, may serve as an ample demonstration. And I will put enmity between thee (the serpent) and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.* And I will make of thee (Abraham) a great nation, and I will bless thee, and * Genesis iii., 15. make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.* And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.† And in thy seed (Isaac's) shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. And the Lord said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac; the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed: and thy (Jacob's) seed shall be as the dust of the earth; and thou shalt spread abroad to the west and to the east, and to the north and to the south; and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. I shall see him, but not now; I shall behold him, but not nigh; there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Seth. I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren like unto thee (Moses), and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words, which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.** And thine (David's) house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee thy throne shall be established for ever.†† I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant, thy seed will I establish for ever, and build up thy throne to all generations. Then thou spakest in vision to thy Holy One, and saidst, I have laid help upon one that is mighty; I have exalted one chosen out of the people. I have found David my servant; with my holy oil I have anointed him; I will set his hand also in the sea, and his right hand in the rivers; also I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David. His seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before me. It shall be established for ever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven.‡‡ Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his Anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us: Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall * Genesis xii., 2, 3. + Ib. xxii., 18. Ib. xlix., 10. Ib. xxvi., 4. |