CHAP. V.

THE PROPHECIES.

F the legislator of nature, not satisfied

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with employing that language of signs,* which spoke chiefly to the senses, had also foretold, at sundry times and in divers manners, the mission of his Delegate; this would surely be a new and striking proof of the truth of that mission, and a proof which would greatly increase the assemblage of probabilities, already so considerable, which I have brought together in support of the doctrine of immortality.

This proof would strike me much more, if, by a particular dispensation of supreme wisdom, the oracles of which I am speaking had been committed to the care of the

* The miracles, Chap. iv. Part xvi. Phil. Paleng. Chap. i. ii. Book i. of these Inquiries.

very adversaries of the DELEGATE, and his disciples; and if these first and most obstinate adversaries had constantly professed to apply these oracles to that divine Messenger who was to come.

I therefore open this book*, which to this day is held forth as authentic and divine, by the descendants, in a direct line of those very men who have crucified the MESSENGER OF HEAVEN, and persecuted his ministers and first disciples. I peruse this book, and I meet with a passage in it† which excites in me the greatest astonishment; I think I am reading an anticipated and circumstantial history of Christ; I discover all the features of his character, and the principal particulars of his life; in a word I think I am reading the very evidence of the witnesses themselves.

I cannot withdraw my attention from this surprising portrait: what features! what

*The Old Testament.

+ Isaiah, liii.—This prophet was of the royal race, and the first of the great prophets; he prophesied about seven centuries before the Christian era. It has been said, and with reason, of this prophet, that he was in some sort a fifth evangelist.

colouring! what agreement with facts! How just, how natural are the emblems! Emblems, did I say? It is not the emblematical portrait of a very distant futurity; it is a faithful representation of something present, and that which is not yet in being, is painted as though it were.

For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: be bath no form or comeliness: and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

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 ; be was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

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.

And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied; by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.

Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and be shall divide the spoil with the strong: because be

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poured out bis soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and be bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

He shall be exalted, and

extolled and be very high.

As many were astonished at thee; (his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men) !

HE, who described thus to future ages the Day-spring from on high; could he also proclaim the time of its rising? I can scarcely give credit to my senses, when I read, in another part of the same book, that admirable prediction, which almost seems a chronology composed after the event.

*Seventy weeks are determined upon thy

Daniel, ix.-He was the last of the four great prophets; and was born 616 years before Christ: he was led captive to Babylon towards 606, and instructed in all the sciences of the Chaldeans; he was raised to the first dignities of the empire, and died towards the end of the reign of Cyrus, aged 90.

It is well known, that the prophecies of Daniel are those which have chiefly exercised the sagacity and learning of the ablest commentators; I might add too of the most skilful astro homers. One of these, well known to me, and whose premature