ploughman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine,' Amos ix. 13. For the happiness of the blessed state under the Messiah, the prophets proclaim a jubilee to the whole world. Sing, O heavens,' saith Isaiah, and be ' joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains; for the Lord hath comforted his people,' Isa. xlix. 13. 'Sing, O ye heavens; for the Lord hath done it; shout, ye lower parts of the earth; break forth into singing, ye mountains, O forest, and every tree therein; for the Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and glorified himself in Israel,' xliv. 23.

Here now are misery and destruction threatened, happiness and salvation promised, to God's people, and both at the coming of the Messiah. Before he did come, who could have reconciled these things, or pointed out a possibility of completion to prophecies so directly contrary?

The Jews dwelt only on the promises, and understood them in no other than a gross and carnal sense. The generality of them were not to be disabused of this mistake. In them was fulfilled the prophecy of Isaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive; for these people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them;' Isaiah vi. 9, 10. This our Saviour quotes and applies, Matt. xiii. and St. Paul, Acts xxviii. On this account Christ'beheld the city of Jerusalem, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace!--but now are they hid from thine eyes: for the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation,' Luke xix. 42—44.

Accordingly, the Jews, not knowing the time of their visitation by Christ, though so clearly pointed out by the angel in Daniel, treated their heavenly visitor with con

tempt, persecuted him, crucified him, and praying that his 'blood might fall on their heads, and the heads of their children,' were soon after visited by the most dreadful calamities, and extirpated by the most exemplary destruction, that ever befel any nation under heaven. Thus were the prophetic threatenings verified, on the one side; while, on the other, the promises were no less signally made good to such Jews, and Gentiles also, as believed in Christ, and, by virtue of the new covenant, became the people of God. These, warned by their master, fled to Pella, a little city beyond the Jordan, and so escaped the calamity. Here they lived in peace and plenty, while the unbelievers were tearing and eating one another in the besieged city; and thus the prophecy by Isaiah was literally fulfilled: "Thus saith the Lord, Behold, my servants shall eat; but ye shall be hungry behold, my servants shall drink; but ye shall be thirsty behold, my servants shall rejoice; but ye shall be ashamed: behold, my servants shall sing for joy of heart; but ye shall cry for sorrow of heart, and shall howl for vexation of spirit,' Isa. lxv. 13, 14. Never was there on earth so happy a people as the Christians. They were sometimes persecuted indeed; but in that they rejoiced, and gloried; because it was for the sake of him who had bought them with his blood. There were none poor or distressed among them; for they enjoyed all things in common, and, as occasion required, sent relief to one another from distant countries. They were all brothers and sisters in love, all saints in piety and integrity. Among them, ' mercy and truth had met together; righteousness and peace had kissed each other.' How happy must a people be, who, in all their intercourse, were governed by such principles! But they were still infinitely happier in their expectations, founded on the true spiritual construction of the prophecies and promises. They then saw where their beautiful Canaan, and glorious Jerusalem lay. They counted it a thing of little consequence to them, how they fared in this world; because they exulted in the sure and certain hope of a resurrection to eternal life. Here lay their happy abiding place; and hither they hastened with all the speed an innocent and holy life could give them. The prophetic promises were more than fulfilled in the consolations of the Holy Spirit.

Those foretold plenty of corn, wine, and oil, and temporal peace; these conferred inspirations, miracles, virtues, and ensured eternal peace and happiness. Those were the shadows; these the substance. Those were given to minds yet carnal; these to the regenerate and spiritual.

There was another thing prophesied of our Saviour, which it was much more improbable he should perform, than that the seeming opposites, already mentioned, should be reconciled in him; which was, that he should work miracles. The pretended prophet who tells the world, a divine person, not to be born for five or six hundred years after him, shall, at a certain period, spring from a particular family, and work the most stupendous miracles, must take it for granted, that when the period predicted shall arrive, the whole world will take him for an impudent impostor; because he can have no hope, that God will enable any one to fulfil his prediction, and he knows none but God can. That prophet may have some chance for a completion, who foretells a natural event, though ever so uncommon or strange; but he who foretells a miracle, must either do it on a full assurance, that God speaks by him, or take it for granted, that time will prove him a deceiver. But if a prediction of this kind. actually finds its completion in the event foretold, it is then as evident, the prophet spoke by divine wisdom, as it is, that the performer of the miracle acted by divine power; and the truth and goodness of that purpose, be it what it will, for which the one was wrought, and the other pronounced, are doubly demonstrated. We cannot conceive a possibility of higher evidence than this; yet this hath been amply given to our holy religion. God, speaking by Isaiah, xxix. 18, 19, and xxxv. 5, 6, saith, 'In that day,' in the days of Christ, shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity, and out of darkness. The meek also shall increase their joy in the Lord, the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.' He also saith, xxvi. 19, The dead men shall live.' To this prophecy, and the completion of it, our blessed Saviour

made one and the same appeal, when John sent his disciples to inquire of him, whether he were the Messiah or no.' He dismissed the messengers, after they had seen him work several miracles, with this answer; Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see; the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.' Now, if this prophecy is genuine, and Christ did actually work the miracles therein predicted, the proof in favour of him and his religion, resulting from both, is the highest proof can possibly be offered to the understanding of man. But, that the prophecy was published by Isaiah seven-hundred years before the birth of our Saviour, we have the Jews, our adversaries, for witnesses; and that the miracles were really wrought, those eye-witnesses, who sealed their testimony with their blood, give unquestionable evidence.

Such proof for the truth of our religion meets the eyes of him, who candidly looks backward at the prophecies, that were published concerning Christ, long before he came into the world. He will meet with equal evidence, if he looks forward at those which our Saviour and his apostles delivered in relation to events then future, but since brought to pass, some of them by a supernatural power, and others by the voluntary uncompelled elections of men, who had nothing less in view than to verify these predictions. Which ever way the understanding turns itself, light and demonstration pour in irresistibly upon it.

Our Saviour had, by David, Psal. xvi. 10, foretold his own resurrection in these words; 'Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.' Before he was put to death, he so openly predicted the same event, that not only his disciples, but also his enemies, were fully apprized of it. These latter, after having crucified him, and pierced his very heart with a spear, said to Pilate, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, after three days I will rise again. Command, therefore, that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night, and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead; and so the last error shall be worse than the first.' On this,

Pilate having given the necessary directions, they went and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone and setting a watch,' Matt. xxvii. 62-66. Yet, either he was seen alive again by his disciples, or those disciples did a thing to the full as wonderful as his resurrection could have been; that is, although they had no reason to believe he came to life again, which is the same as to believe he was still dead, they all nevertheless preached up his resurrection, and faced every danger, every terror, death itself not excepted, rather than even stifle in silence the amazing completion of this prediction.

Now, let any one fairly weigh the force of this proof given to confirm the truth of our religion, and he will find it by far the strongest that ever was given for any fact since the creation of the world. The stupendous event is foretold one thousand years before. He who was to rise again, lest his enemies should mistake, or forget the prophecy, as the time set for its completion approached, gave them fair warning, and after they had crucified him, he would rise again from the dead the third day. Here they had every thing in their power requisite to prove him an impostor, could that have been done. Had they not put him to death, this must have proved him such; for they knew he had foretold his murder, as well as his resurrection. But, as their malice would not suffer them to take this course, wherein perhaps consisted what they, on second thoughts, called 'the first error,' Matt. xxvii. 64. Why did they suffer him, if he was but an impostor, to get out of their hands, before they had cut him to pieces? Or, why did they leave his disciples a possibility of recovering his corpse? When he was condemned, they could do with him what they pleased. When he was dead, if he was no more than another man, his working pretended miracles was then at an end, so that he could not possibly help himself. The truth is, they did every thing that could be done. They knew he was really dead, and they made it a thing impossible for his disciples to carry off his body. Yet they had not that body to produce, on the third day, nor any time after, when his followers proclaimed his resurrection.

The next prophecy I shall take notice of is that wherein our Saviour foretells his own ascension. No event could be