the very dictates of God, and that the end proposed by their predictions was such as become the truth, the wisdom, and goodness of God, to promote.

Let us now apply these observations, the truth and justness of which no one in his senses can dispute, to the prophecies concerning Christ, delivered before his incarnation, and to such also, as he and his apostles uttered in relation to events subsequent to his appearance in the flesh. I do not intend to instance them all, which would be a work of several days; but only to take notice of a few, that answer, as you will presently see, the particular design of this Dis

course.

The reign of Augustus, in which our Saviour was born, and that of Tiberius, in which he was put to death, happened, by common computation, at the distance of about four thousand years from the creation of the world. Malachi, whom some make the same with Ezra, though the latest of the prophets that foretold the coming of our Saviour, lived and published his predictions near four hundred years before the Christian era. The other prophets, whom I shall have occasion to quote, lived considerably earlier, and David in particular, about a thousand years before the birth of Christ.

At so great a distance of time did these prophets foretell such things of Christ, as not only depended on the freedom of those who were to perform them, but appear to be contrary, incompatible, and, to common apprehension, impossible; and yet the time of his coming is fairly fixed by Daniel, in the ninth chapter of his prophecies; and the place of his birth, by Micah, in the fifth of his. At this very time, and in this very place, did our Saviour appear, and afterward performed all the amazing things that had been predicted of him. You will quickly see why I call them amazing.

It was predicted, that his own familiar friend, in whom he trusted, who did eat of his bread, should lift up his heel against him, and betray him,' Psal. xli. 9; that he should be despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief,' Isa. liii. 3; that he should give his back to the smiters or scourgers, his cheeks to them that plucked off the hair, and his face to shame and spitting,' İsa. 1.6; that he should be wounded,' Isa. liii. 5, ' oppressed,

and afflicted,' ver. 7, and cut off out of the land of the living,'ver. 8, and Dan. ix. 26.

How contrary to this, in all appearance, are the other predictions, which speak of him as a happy king, as a prosperous and triumphant conqueror! Behold,' saith Isa. xxxii. 1, speaking of Christ, a king shall reign in righte ousness. Behold,' saith the Lord, Jer. xxiii. 5, the days come that I will raise unto David a righteous branch, and a king shall reign and prosper, and shall execute justice and judgment in the earth and this is his name whereby he shall be called, The Lord our righteousness.' Thus God speaks to his Son, in the second Psalm, and that by the name of Christ,' Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron, thou shalt dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel.' The forty-fifth Psalm is one entire hymn to Christ, wherein the psalmist says, My heart is inditing a good matter: I speak of the things which I have made unto the King. Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O thou most Mighty, with thy glory and with thy majesty. And in thy majesty ride prosperously because of truth, of meekness, and righteousness; and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things. Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever, and the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre.' The rest of the Psalm is laid out in describing the happiness and glory of Christ as a King.

This opposition in the predictions concerning our Saviour's success in the world descends even to those which characterize his person. Thou art fairer than the children of men,' saith David in the Psalm just now quoted. He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him,' saith Isaiah in his fifty-third chapter.

Now, all this, so seemingly contradictory, was exactly verified in our Saviour. To the generality of the Jews, neither he, nor his doctrine, appeared to have any thing amiable in them. He was despised; he was afflicted; he was persecuted; he was scourged, spit upon, and crucified. On the other side, the pleasure of the Lord,' as Isaiah said, prospered in his hands; his doctrine spread; mankind

were brought under his laws; the kingdom of the world submitted to his. He is esteemed fairer than the children of men ;' and, as such, he is beloved, obeyed, adored. Nay, what the Jews, blinded by pride and ambition, could not see, we have now seen; namely, his humiliation and sufferings, according to the prophecies, made the means of his exaltation and success; for it hath happened exactly according to the prediction of Isa. liii. 11, 12, Because of the travail of his soul, he hath seen his desire, and hath been satisfied. Therefore hath God divided him a portion with the great, and he hath shared the spoil with the strong; because he poured out his soul unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors.' What human wisdom could have foreseen, that one of these seeming opposites should have been made the very means and reason of the other? The Jews, who could not foresee it, because they did not understand this prophecy, persecuted him, put him to death, and did all they could to destroy his kingdom in its infancy; but by these very means they proved him to be the Messiah, procured him success with the world, and both ways verified. the seemingly contradictory predictions, in him and themselves.

I mention themselves; because this leads me to another seeming opposition between the prophecies that foretell the strength and happiness of Christ's people, and those that predict their misery and ruin. No terms can be stronger, nor plainer, than those in which both are foretold by the prophets, and both foretold as attendants on Christ's pearing in the world.

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You may see the miseries threatened by Almighty God to his people in the sixty-fifth chapter of Isaiah. 'Ye are they that forsake the Lord, that forget my holy mountain,' ver. 11; Therefore will I number you to the sword, and ye shall all bow down to the slaughter; because when I called, ye did not answer; when I spake, ye did not hear,' ver. 12. Therefore thus saith the Lord God-Ye shall cry for sorrow of heart, and howl for vexation of spirit. leave your name for a curse unto my chosen; for the Lord God shall slay thee, and call his servants by another name,' ver. 14, 15. The angel Gabriel acquaints Daniel with the precise time of this calamity, which having pointed out by

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the famous prophecy of seventy weeks, he says, people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city [Jerusalem] and the sanctuary, and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. And he shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease; and for the overspreading of abominations, he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate, Dan. ix. 26, 27. This dreadful destruction, according to the prophecy, is soon to follow the cutting off, or murder, of the Messiah. The prophet Malachi sets this alarming event in a yet stronger light, and affixes it to the time of the Messiah. Behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea and all they that do wickedly, shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch,' iv. 1. But lest his people should not be apprized of the time when these calamities were to befall them, God says, 'Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord,' ver. 5.

Directly opposite to these judgments are the blessings promised by Almighty God to his people on the coming of Christ. In his days,' that is, in the days of the Messiah, saith God by Jer. xxiii. 6, Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely. They shall sit every man under his vine, and under his fig-tree, and none shall make them afraid,' Micah. iv. 4. 'I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen,' Hos. i. 7. The Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob,' Isa. lix. 20. He will make a covenant of peace with them, an everlasting covenant. He will place his tabernacle also with them yea, he will be their God, and they shall be his people,' Ezek. xxxvii. 26, 27. In those days, nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more,' Isa. ii. 4. 'And it shall come to pass, that I will hear, saith the Lord; I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth; and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil, and they shall hear Jezreel,' Hos. ii. 21, 22. Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that the

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