It must not be imagined that the Prophets were always under the influence of the divine Spirit, or exempt from the common frailties and infirmities of human nature; but it may be affirmed, that there was not one in this long series of 1000 years, whose character does not justly command our veneration. Piety, obedience to the commands of God, indifference to the pleasures and sufferings of this life, as far as they related to themselves, united with the keenest fenfibility to the misery or the happiness of their country, and the most ardent and activę zeal in executing the facred but often painful duties of their office, appear eminently, though not equally confpicuous in them all. They were the established oracles of their country, and confulted upon all occafions when it was neceffary to collect the divine will on any civil or religious queftion: and we hear of no fchifms or divifions while they flourished. They even condescended to inform the people of common concerns in trivial cafes, in order to preclude them from all pretence or excufe for reforting to idolatrous practices and heathen divinations; and they were always furnifhed with fome prefcribed mode of con fulting God, or obtained revelation by prayer. Sometimes the Holy Spirit fuggefted the

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matter and not the words to the Prophetsfometimes by an audible voice dictated every word and expreffion fometimes the Prophets were left to describe in their own language the hieroglyphical dreams and visions, which they beheld; and hence is the style of every Prophet more or lefs perfpicuous, according to the nature and clearness of the Revelation imparted to him, and likewise characterized with peculiar difcriminations refulting from education, and particular intercourfe and habits of life. But fometimes they were inftructed in the very expreffions they should ufe; and when writing under the influence of that infpiration, they understood not always the full importance and extent of them; writing for the advantage of those that were to come after, and to furnish evidence in fupport of a future difpenfation, they might not perceive the full fcope, nor foresee diftinctly the fpiritual accomplishment of the Prophecies they recorded."

We find them conftantly appealing to well known facts, for the fulfilment of many of their predictions, and perfectly consistent in their communications of the divine will. As

VOL. I.

f Gray's Key, p. 329, &c.

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their number increased, the truth of their declarations was established by the course of events; and there was an accumulation of evidence to prove, that, in the emphatic language of Scripture, Holy men fpake as they were taught of God." Influenced by the guidance of the fame fpirit, they united in the most perfect harmony of defign; they delivered the fame precepts to be observed, the fame punishments to be avoided, and the fame bleffings to be hoped for. Confidered feparately, every one of them was a burning and a fhining light, ordained to beam upon the dark generation, in which he lived: and, confidered collectively, they form one bright and glorious affemblage, to enlighten and imprefs the world with admiration of the power, the wisdom, and the goodness of God.

The writings of but few of these numerous Prophets have been preferved in the Jewish Canon. Some of the earlier Prophets feem, indeed, to have been appointed for the peculiar fervice of the Children of Ifrael, and as the means of preferving them distinct from other nations: but the later Prophets were to be of more general and extensive fervice, as they approached nearer to that great

event, in which both Jews and Gentiles were equally interested.

We have not merely as good reason to believe that "the Prophecies were delivered at the time, and by the perfons, to whom they are commonly affigned," as to believe that Cicero wrote and pronounced his orations against Cataline and Antony, in the century before Christ, and that Virgil wrote his poems in the reign of Anguftus; but we have a regular fucceffion of teftimony to the truth of this propofition, which the Jews have brought down to the present times. And the univerfally high estimation, in which these writings appear from various hiftorical evidence to have been held, from nearly the time of their delivery, will affuredly establish the other propofitions ftated in p. 6, in the mind of an impartial enquirer.

I shall only observe further, that they were tranflated into Chaldee about the year before Chrift 420, and into Greek, the language then most generally understood, in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus; an era remarkable for investigation and science, and which being after the predictions, and before many of the events which have fince fulfilled them, clearly prove

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prove these writings to have been handed down to us, without alteration. Efpecially when we confider, that the multiplicity of copies, which were fpread into all nations by the Jewish colonies, from the time of the captivity, were conftantly read in all the fynagogues, and open to the perufal of all people-were tranflated into many different languages-quoted by many hiftorians — and their truth doubted by none, till within a very recent period.

I shall now ftate very shortly as much of the biftory, and the nature and use of Prophecy, as will put the reader in fair poffeffion of the fubject he is called upon to confider. A believer in the Scriptures conceives that fome memory of God, and fome knowledge of the difpenfations of his Providence having been preserved traditionally from Adam (confirmed probably by other occafional · communications of the divine will), through the antediluvian world, the few who kept up in their lives any juft fenfe of his providence were by means of Prophecy, and the miraculous interpofition of their Maker, saved out of the general wreck of the deluge - That after a time, the impreffion of even that awful leffon wearing out of the mind of the greatest