I will now adduce a few passages from the Old Testament, in which some of the most remarkable circumstances of Messiah's first advent are foretold. The time of his appearance was fixed: "From the going forth of the commandment to restore Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks.... and after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself." A prophet, in the spirit and power of Elias, was to prepare his way: "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet... and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the children to their fatherst." He was to be miraculously

*Dan. ix, 25, 26,

+ Mal. iv. 5, 6, and iii. 1, compared with Luke, i. 17.

conceived: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel*" His birth-place was to be Bethlehem: "Thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israelt." He was to be a mean and dishonoured man: "He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief: and we hid, as it were, our faces from him; he was despised and we esteemed him not‡." He was to be sold for a stipulated price;

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They weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver§." He was to be put to an igno

* Is. vii. 14.

+ Mic. v. 2.

‡ Is. liii. 3.

§ Zach. xi. 12.

minious death, which yet he was to bear patiently: "He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth: he was taken from prison and from judgment; and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken*." His body was to be pierced, yet not a bone was to be broken : They shall look upon me whom they have pierced +." "He keepeth all his bones: not one of them is brokent." His burial was to be

* Is. liii. 7, 8.

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+ Zach. xii. 10, with Psalm xxii. 16.

Psalm xxxiv. 20.

distinguished: "He made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death *."

Let any one take the history of our Lord as narrated by the evangelists, and see how exactly these predictions were accomplished. And they are precisely what a person could not accomplish for himself. This remark I think important. The prophecies respecting Jesus were not, for the most part, such as he could, had he been a common man, have voluntarily fulfilled. To explain more clearly my

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meaning. That, rejoice greatly, O

daughter of Zion; shout O daughter of Jerusalem: behold thy king cometh...

* Is. liii. 9.

lowly and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass*," was of this nature. A man might resolve to fulfil it, and might easily procure some kind of fulfilment of it. But what man could predetermine the place of his birth, or provide for a marvel in his conception? And the sufferings and death inflicted upon Jesus, were by no procurement of his they were the work of wicked men, who indulged their own ungodly lusts, and knew not, neither had it in their heart to accomplish, the prophetic word. All this is additional evidence that the ancient prophecies were dictated by that Eternal Spirit who alone"searcheth" and revealeth to men

Zach. ix. 9.