C. If so, you must suppose that the Jews had it from their own Prophets. And this will be a strong confirmation that the time of the Messiah's coming was plainly told in the Prophets.

D. What say the Jews to this? imagine how they can get off of it..

For I cannot

C. Some of them say, that the Messiah put off his coming at the appointed time, because of their sins. Others say, he did come at the time, but has concealed himself ever since.

Do they pretend

D. These are mere excuses. any prophecy for this? But to what purpose? For these excuses show, that prophecies are no proofs, because, if they may be thus put off, they can never be known. And they may be put off and put off to the end of the world.

C. But now, Sir, as to your point. If this general expectation, both east and west, of the great King of the Jews to be born about that very time that he did come, was occasioned by the Jewish tradition of it, strengthens the truth of the Holy Scriptures, whence the Jews had it. But otherwise, if God, we know not how, did send such a notion into the minds of men, all over the world, at that particular time, and never the like, either before or since, then the miracle will be greater, and the attestation to the coming of Christ stronger, and, as you said, it will be more wonderful and more convincing to you than the star was to the wise men in the East.

D. I must take time to answer this. I made nothing at all of this of the Magi, and the star, and of Herod's slaying the infants upon it. I thought it a ridiculous story, and to have no foundation in the

world. But when I see Suetonius telling us of the decree of the senate of Rome to destroy all the children born that year, and for the same reason, for fear of this great King that was then to be born; I must think there was a strange chiming in of things here, one to answer the other. I know not how it happened. By chance, or how?

C. You cannot imagine there could be any concert in this matter. That the Chaldeans, and Romans, and Jews, should all agree upon the point, and hit it so exactly, without any one of them discovering the contrivance! especially when it was so terrible to both the Romans and the Jews, that they took such desperate methods to prevent it as to destroy their own children!

D. It is ridiculous to talk of a concert. I will

not put my cause upon that. Would they concert what they thought their own destruction? Besides, the Jews and Romans were then enemies; and the Chaldeans were far off, and had little correspondence with either of them. And such a universal notion could not be concerted.

Whole nations could

And if they all kept

not be trusted with a secret. it, and against their own interest too, it would be as great a miracle as any in your Bible.

C. How much more impossible is it to suppose, that there should be a concert between different ages, between all the ages from Adam downwards, in all those prophecies of the coming of the Messiah! How should they know it but by revelation? And would they have all agreed so exactly as to the time, place, manner, and other circumstances, if it had been a forgery contrived by different persons and in different ages?

This is an argument which St. Peter thought stronger than the conviction even of our outward senses; for having set down what he and the other two Apostles had both seen and heard upon the holy mount, he adds, "We have yet a more sure word (that is, a stronger proof) of prophecy, whereunto ye do well to take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the daystar arise in your hearts," 2 Pet. i. 19.-And he enforceth it thus: "For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."

D. I will grant his argument so far, that it is easier to suppose the senses of three men, or of all the men in the world, to be imposed upon, than that Adam, Abraham, and I had concerted together. But I will not give you my answer yet. Have you any more to say upon this head of prophecy?

C. I need say no more till your answer comes. For you have granted that this proof is stronger than what we see with our eyes.

But that your answer may take in all together, I will give you something further. I have set down already some of the great prophecies of the coming of Christ, his sufferings, death, and resurrection. But there are others which reach to several minute circumstances, such as cannot be applied to any other fact that ever yet happened, and which could not have been foreseen by any but God; nor were known by the actors who did them, else they had not done them. For they would not have fulfilled the prophecies that went before of Christ, in applying them to him whom they crucified as a false Christ.

See then how literally several of these prophecies

were fulfilled.

As

Psal. lxix. 21.-" They gave me gall to eat and vinegar to drink." Then read Matt. xxvii. 34. "They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall." It is said, Psal. xxii. 16, 17, 18. "They pierced my hands and my feet-They stand staring and looking upon me. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture." As if it had been written after John xix. 23, 24. It was merely accidental in the soldiers; they would not tear his coat, because it was woven and without seam, therefore they cast lots for it; thus fulfilling this Scripture, without any knowledge of theirs, for they were Roman soldiers, and knew nothing of the Scripture. Again it is said, Psal. xxii. 7, 8. "All they that see me, laugh me to scorn: they shoot out their lips and shake their heads, saying, He trusted in God that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, if he will have him." Compare this with Matt. xxvii. 39, 41, 42, 43. "And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads, and saying-Come down from the cross. Likewise also the chief priests, mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said, He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him; for he said, I am the Son of God." It is said again, Zech. xii. 10.

"They shall look upon me whom they have pierced." His very price was foretold, and how the money should be disposed of, Zech. xi. 13. fulfilled Matt. xxvii. 6, 7. And his riding into Jerusalem upon an ass, Zech ix. 9. which the learned Rabbi Saadia expounds of the Messiah. That he should suffer, with malefactors, Isaiah liii. 12. That his body should not lie so long in the grave as to see corruption, Psal. xvi. 10.

Many other circumstances are told which cannot be applied to any but to Christ. I have set down these few, that you may take them into consideration when you think fit to give your answer as to this head of prophecies. And you are to take care to find some other fact guarded with prophecies like this. Or else you must confess that there is no other fact that has such evidence as this.

But before I leave this head, I must mention the prophecies in our Bible, of things yet to come to the end of the world, and of the new heavens and new earth that shall succeed.

D. These can be no proofs here, because we cannot see the fulfilling of them.

C. You may believe what is to come, by the fulfilling you have seen of what is past. But I bring this now to show you, that there is no other law or history in the world that so much as pretends to this, or to know what is to come. This is peculiar to the Holy Bible, as being written from the mouth of God.

You have seen how the current of the prophecies of the Old Testament did point at and centre in that great event, the coming of the Messiah. When he was come, then he told us more plainly of what was to come after him, even to the consummation of all things. And by what we have seen exactly fulfilled of all he told us to this time, we must believe what remains yet to come.

How particularly did he foretel the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, Matt. xxiv. And that that age should not pass till it should be fulfilled? And his very expression was literally fulfilled. That