tionably entitled among the evidences of the Chriftian Religion. The friend of facred Infpiration will furely hesitate, before he confents to affign to the prophetic teftimony fo degrading a fituation. The forefight, with which the ancient Prophets were endowed, was eminently more than human, and was alone. abundantly fufficient to eftablish the certainty of a divine miffion. The frequent display of a distant and unerring prescience, at which the unaffifted mind of man can never arrive, is a decifive proof of inspiration, and bears upon it the feal of divinity. Miracles and Prophecy are the two great preternatural teftimonies, by which the truth of Revelation has been fanctioned. And we may justly contend, that it would be difficult to fhew in what refpects a series of Prophecies, all of which are acknowledged to be accomplished, is inferior in its effects upon the mind to a feries of Miracles, all of which are acknowledged to have been performed. They were both employed in the fame holy and momentous caufe; they both demonftrate a fupernatural interpofition: and when we have once confeffedly ad C 2 advanced beyond the limits of human ability, we furely muft not venture to affix different degrees of credibility to different difplays of Omnipotence. We must bow down with equal adoration before the fupreme Being, whether he attefts his divine perfection, by discovering a prefcience of diftant events, which exceeds the knowledge of man; or by performing those wonderful works, which exceed the powers of man. We cannot decifively acknowledge his interference in the one inftance, and hefitate equally to acknowledge it in the other. Far be it from me to infinuate, what our injudicious friends and infidious. adverfaries have not unfrequently in former times afferted, that the truth of Chriftianity rests folely, or chiefly, upon the evidence, which it will be my object in these Lectures to confirm. While, on the one hand, it is fuppofed, that the series of predictions, which we poffefs, is alone fufficient to establish the certainty of a divine Revelation; it may truly be declared, that, had it pleafed almighty Wisdom not to. have fanctioned his Religion by Prophecy, had not a fingle inftance of divine prefcience been admitted into the system of Revela ६ Revelation, the Gofpel of Chrift would still have been fupported by a weight of preternatural evidence, from which no candid enquirer could withhold his affent. But in unfolding that wonderful fcheme, which has afforded the means of immortality and final happiness to the whole human race, our Maker has graciously doubled the proofs of divinity, and multiplied the fources of conviction. Different minds are influenced by different modes of perfuafion. He, ior whom Miracles may have been wrought in vain, may be converted by the fure word of Prophecy. Inftances have not been wanting in these later ages, in which the dying profligate has been reclaimed from a state of the most stubborn Infidelity, by the authority of the ancient Prophets. And circumstances will fully warrant the fuppofition, that, in the days of our Saviour, the Jewish people, though they beheld without conviction his wonderful fufpenfion of the regular courfe of nature, would have proftrated themselves in dutiful fubmiffion before their Lord and their God, could they once have been perfuaded, that in his divine Perfon the long train of their national Oracles had received a full completion. upon It may not be improper, before I enter the investigation of this evidence, to exhort the younger part of my hearers, to endeavour folely in the first inftance to arrive at a firm conviction of the reality of a preternatural foreknowledge in the Prophets. When this conviction has once been deeply fixed in the mind, it ought to be allowed constantly to operate with its entire force. We ought frequently to recal to our recollection the principal circumftances, by which it was originally produced, as fure prefervatives against the effects of the fluctuation of human opinion, the allurements of novel doctrines, the infidious obtrufion of real or pretended difficulties, and the prejudicial influence of the want of extenfive information in all the branches of the fubject. Against the force of fuch a perfuafion, rationally produced, it is not unreasonable to expect, that no fubordinate confiderations will be able effectually to prevail. It cannot be denied, that the Chriftian may fometimes encounter very ferious difficulties, in confequence of minute refearches into the inferior parts of the subject. And, unfortunately for the cause of truth, truth, the fuperficial enquirer too often entangles himself with thofe perplexities, before he has difcovered the fundamental principles, upon which the certainty of the evidence depends. But if, in the most important parts, facred Prophecy indifputably rifes above the power of the unaffifted human mind, no circumstance of inferior confideration can deftroy or weaken the proof of its divinity. Revelation will admit of no compromife. There can be no fellowship between light and darkness. If Prophecy be not in all its parts human, it must be divine. And if the evidence of its celestial origin is really incontrovertible, and irrefiftibly commands our affent, we are bound, by the common dictates of reafon, to repress all fufpicion, and to distrust the fufficiency of our own judgments on those points, which may appear unfatisfactory, and may really occafion perplexity. The obfcure and unintelligible nature of fome parts of fome Prophecies cannot weaken the force of thofe, which may be clearly understood. The parts, which, from the peculiar nature of the dispensation, are involved in obfcurity, or, at present, are really C 4 |