deified, after their death, who had been subject to the greatest vices, and who had been the oppressors of their fellow-men; when the most shocking rites were practised as acts of religion; when the most enlightened among the nations of the earth erected an altar to the "unknown God," and set no limit to the number of their deities; when one of the greatest of the heathen philosophers, and the best of their moralists, despairing of the clear discovery of the truth by human means, could merely express a wish for a divine revelation, as the only safe and certain guide; when slaves were far more numerous than freemen even where liberty prevailed the most; and when there was no earthly hope of redemption from temporal bondage or spiritual slavery ;-even at such a time the voice of prophecy was uplifted in the land of Judea, and it spoke of a brighter day that was to dawn upon the world. It was indeed a light shining in a dark place. And from whence could that light have emanated but from heaven? A Messiah was promised, a prince of peace was to appear, a stone was to be cut without hands, that should break in pieces and consume all other kingdoms. And the spiritual reign of a Saviour is foretold in terms that define its duration and extent, as well as describe its nature :—“ I behold him, but not now; I see him, but not nigh. His name shall endure for ever; his name shall be continued as long as the sun; and men shall be blessed in him: all nations shall call him blessed. He shall have dominion from sea to sea; and from the river unto the ends of the earth. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord; and all kindreds of the Plato in Phædone et in Alcibiade ii. nations shall worship before thee. I will give thee for a light of the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation to the ends of the earth. The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. a The Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations. He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth; and the isles shall wait for his law. He will destroy the face of the covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations. I am sought of them found of them that e that asked not for me; I am sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name." d It shall come to pass, in the last days," say both Isaiah and Micah in the same words, "that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it. In the place where it was said, Ye are not my people, it shall be said, Ye are the sons of the living God. The abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee; the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee.g Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud; for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife (more Gentiles than Jews). Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords; for thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left, and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles: for thy Maker is thy husband; the Lord of hosts is his name; the Lord of the whole earth shall he be called. The wilderness and • Isa. xxv. 7. z Psal. lxxii. 8, 17; ii. 8; xxii. 27. a Isa. xlix. 6; xl. 5. d Isa. lxv. 1. g Isa. lx. 5. the solitary place shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose." i These prophecies all refer to the extent of the Messiah's kingdom; and clear and copious though they be, they form but a small number of the predictions of the same auspicious import ;-and we have not merely to consider what part of them may yet remain to be fulfilled, but how much has already been accomplished, of which no surmise could have been formed, and of which all the wisdom of short-sighted mortals could not have warranted a thought. All of them were delivered many ages before the existence of that religion whose progress they minutely describe; and, when we compare the present state of any country where the gospel is professed in its purity, with its state at that period when the Sun of righteousness began to arise upon it, we see light pervading the region of darkness, and ignorance and barbarism yielding to knowledge and moral cultivation. In opposition to all human probability, and to human wisdom and power, the gospel of Jesus, propagated at first by a few fishermen of Galilee, has razed every heathen temple from its foundation, has overthrown before it every impure altar, has displaced, from every palace and every cottage which it has reached, the worship of every false god; the whole civilized world acknowledges its authority; it has prevailed from the first to the last in defiance of persecution, of opposition the most powerful and violent, of the direct attacks of avowed, and the insidious designs of disguised enemies;-and combating, as it ever has been combating, with all the evil passions of men that impel them to resist or to pervert it, the lapse of eighteen centuries confirms every ancient prediction, and verifies, to this hour, the declaration of its author, Isaiah xxxv. 1, "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." How is it possible that it could have been conceived that such a religion would have been characterized in all its parts-would have been instituted-opposed-established-propagated throughout the world-embraced by so many nations-protected at last by princes and kings-and received as the rule of faith and the will of God? How could all these things, and many more respecting it, have been foretold, as they unquestionably were, many centuries before the author of Christianity appeared, if these prophecies be not an attestation from on high that every prediction and its completion is the work of God and not of man? What uninspired mortal could have described the nature, the effect, and the progress of the Christian religion, when none could have entertained an idea of its existence? for paganism consisted in external rites and cruel sacrifices, and in pretended mysteries. Its toleration, indeed, has been commended, and not undeservedly; for in religion it tolerated whatever was absurd and impious, in morals it tolerated all that was impure and almost all that was vicious. But the Jewish prophets, when the world was in darkness, and could supply no light to lead them to such knowledge, predicted the rise of a religion which could boast of no such toleration, but which was to reveal the will and inculcate the worship of the one living and true God; which was to consist in moral obedience, to enjoin reformation of life and purity of heart, to abolish all sacrifice by revealing a better mean of reconciliation for iniquity, to be understood by all from the simplicity of its precepts, and to tolerate no manner of evil; a religion in every respect the reverse of paganism, and of which they could not have been furnished with any semblance upon earth. They saw nothing among the surrounding nations but the worship of a multiplicity of deities and of idols; if they had traversed the whole world they would have witnessed only the same spiritual degradation, and yet they predicted the final abolition and extinction both of polytheism and of idolatry. The Jewish dispensation was local, and Jews prophesied of a religion beginning from Jerusalem, which was to extend to the uttermost parts of the earth. So utterly unlikely and incredible were the prophecies either to have been foretold by human wisdom, or to have been fulfilled by human power; and when both these wonders are united, they convey an assurance of the truth. As a matter of history, the progress of Christianity is at least astonishing; as the fulfilment of many prophecies, it is evidently miraculous. k The prophesied success and extension of the gospel is not less obvious in the New Testament than in the Old. A single instance may suffice :- "I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people." These are the words of a banished man, secluded in a small island from which he could not remove; a believer in a new religion everywhere spoken against and persecuted. They were uttered at a time when their truth could not possibly have been realized to the degree which it actually is at * Were it even to be conceded, as it never will in reason be, that the causes assigned by Gibbon for the rapid extension of Christianity were adequate and true, one difficulty, great as it is, would only be removed for the substitution of a greater. For what human ingenuity, though gifted with the utmost reach of discrimination, can ever attempt the solution of the question, how were all these occult causes, (for hidden they must then have been,) which the genius of Gibbon first discovered, foreseen, their combination known, and all their wonderful effects distinctly described for many centuries prior to their existence, or to the commencement of the period of their alleged operation? |