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"spoken, but the prophet hath spoken prefumptuously. Thou shalt not be afraid of "him." And on this fubject it is that Jehovah challenges the gods of the heathens, in Ifaiah xli. 21, "Produce your caufe, faith "the Lord; bring forth your ftrong reafons, "faith the God of Jacob. Let them bring "them forth, and fhew us what fhall happen. Let them fhew former things what "they be, that we may confider them, and "know the latter end of them, or declare

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"us things for to come. Shew the things "that are to come hereafter, that we may "know that ye are gods." This is what no heathen oracle or prophet could do. But the fcriptures abound with prophecies which have indisputably been verified by the events, and in fome cafes at a great distance from the time. of their delivery.

There are few prophecies more remarkable than those of Mofes, which extend even to the present times, and indeed far beyond them. When his nation was in a ftate little better than that of the wild Arabs wandering in the wilderness, he not only looked forward to their certainly taking poffeffion of the land

up

of Canaan, then inhabited by a warlike people, who had horfes and chariots of iron, and whofe cities are faid to have been fenced to heaven, and who had many years notice of the intended attack upon them, when none of the Ifraelites had feen war, when they were poorly provided with weapons, and could only fight on foot, and must have been wholly unacquainted with the method of attacking fortified places; but he foretold their apostacy from their religion, their confequent expulfion from the land of Canaan, their dispersion into all the most distant parts of the world, their cruel fufferings, and contemptuous treatment, in those countries, of which we, near three thousand years after the prediction, are now witneffes; their fubfifting, notwithstanding this, as a separate people, of which also we are witneffes; and likewife their final reftoration and refettlement in their own country, when they are to be the most distinguished of all nations. But I do not enlarge on this fubject, because I have done it already, in a difcourse which is before the public.

There is no nation bordering on the land of Canaan whofe future destiny was not fore

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told

told by fome of the Hebrew prophets, and there is no pretence for faying that the predictions were written after the events. For the accomplishment of feveral of them is quite recent; whereas the books have been extant between two and three thousand years. I shall confine myself to those concerning Egypt, Babylon, and Tyre, with fome observations on the prophecies of Daniel.

1. The Egyptians were the first nation that rose to any great degree of power, and they continued in the first rank of warlike people till they were conquered by Nebuchadnezzar. But feveral years before that conqueft, viz. in the tenth year of the captivity. of Jehoiakim, three years before he undertook the fiege of Tyre, and fourteen before his invafion of Egypt, the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel, as we read Ezek. xxix. 1, &c. faying, Son of man, fet thy face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophely against him, and against all Egypt. Speak and fay, Thus faith the Lord God, Behold I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, who has faid, My river is my own, and I have made it for

myfelf. But I will put books in thy jaws, and I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers. And I will leave thee thrown into the wilderness. I have given thee for meat to the beafts of the field, and to the fowls of heaven, and all the inhabitants of Egypt fhall know that I am the Lord, because they have been a ftaff of reed to the house of Ifrael. Thus faith the Lord God, I will bring a fword upon thee, and cut off man and beaft out of thee, and the land of Egypt fhall be defolate and wafte, and they fhall know that I am the Lord. He then foretels a state of defolation, which was to continue in Egypt forty years; after which he fays, v. 14, 15, they fhall be a base kingdom. It shall be the bafeft of the kingdoms, neither fhall it exalt itself any more above the nations, for I will diminish them, that they fhall no more rule over the nations.

A fhort time before Nebuchadnezzar's expedition, Ezekiel again prophefied as follows, chap. xxx, 10, I will also make the multitude

*This king of Egypt, Pharaoh Hophra, (called Apries by Herodotus) was remarkable for his pride and impiety. According to this hiftorian, he boasted that it was not in the power of the gods to dethrone him.

of

him.

of Egypt to cease by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, he and his people with The terrible of the nations fhall be brought to deftroy the land, and they shall draw their fwords against Egypt, and fill the land with the flain; and I will make the river dry*, and fell the land into the hand of the wicked; and I will make the land waste, and all that is therein by the hand of ftrangers. I the Lord have fpoken it. Thus faith the Lord God, I will also deftroy the idols, and I will cause their images to cease out of Noph, and there shall be no more prince of the land of Egypt, and I will put a fear in the land of Egypt.

The history of Egypt, from that time to the present, which is more than two thoufand years, correfponds in a remarkable manner to this prediction; that country having been ever fince under the dominion of foreigners, viz. the Babylonians, Persians, Macedonians, Romans, Saracens, Mamluks, and Turks. And, judging from appearances, it

*This is a figurative expreffion, denoting probably that the river, of which this king made fo great a boast, fhould not avail him when he was invaded by his enemy. It should be as easily paffed, as if its channel had been dry.