1000 years, whose character does not justly command our veneration. Piety, obedience to the commands of God, indifference to the pleasures and fufferings of this life, as far as they related to themselves, united with the keeneft fenfibility to the mifery or the happiness of their country, and the most ardent and active zeal in executing the facred but often painful duties of their office, appear eminently, though not equally confpicuous in them all. 66 They were the established oracles of their country, and confulted upon all occafions when it was neceffary to collect the divine will on any civil or religious queftion; and we hear of no fchifms or divifions while they flourished. They even condescended to inform the people of common concerns in trivial cafes, in order to preclude them from all pretence or excuse for reforting to idolatrous practices and heathen divinations; and they were always furnished with fome prescribed mode of confulting God, or obtained re

velation

vélation by prayer. Sometimes the Holy Spirit fuggefted the matter and not the words to the Prophets-fometimes by an audible voice dictated every word and expreffion-fometimes the Prophets were left to defcribe in their own language the hieroglyphical dreams and vifions, which they beheld; and hence is the ftyle of every Prophet more or less perfpicuous, according to the nature and clearness of the Revelation imparted to him, and likewife characterized with peculiar difcriminations refulting from education, and particular intercourse and habits of life. But fometimes they were inftructed in the very expreffions they should use; and when writing under the influence of that infpiration, they understood not always the full importance and extent of them; writing for the advantage of those that were to come after, and to furnish evidence in fupport of a future difpenfation, they might not perceive the full scope, nor forefee distinctly

the

the spiritual accomplishment of the Prophecies they recorded."-We find them conftantly appealing to well known facts, for the fulfilment of many of their predictions, and perfectly confiftent in their communications of the divine will. As their number increased, the truth of their declarations was established by the course of events; and there was an accumulation of evidence to prove, that, in the emphatic language of Scripture, "Holy men fpake as they were taught of God." Influenced by the guidance of the fame fpirit, they united in the moft perfect harmony of defign; they delivered the fame precepts to be obferved, the fame punishments to be avoided, and the fame bleffings to be hoped for. Confidered feparately, every one of them was a burning and a thining light, ordained to beam upon the dark generation, in which he lived: and, confidered collectively, they form one

bright and glorious affemblage, to enlighten and imprefs the world with admiration of the power, the wifdom, and the goodness of God.

The writings of but few of these numerous Prophets have been preserved in the Jewish Canon. Some of the earlier Prophets feem, indeed, to have been appointed for the peculiar fervice of the Children of Ifrael, and as the means of preferving them distinct from other nations but the later Prophets were to be of more general and extensive service, as they approached nearer to that great event, in which both Jews and Gentiles were equally interested.

We have not merely as good reafon to believe that "the Prophecies were delivered at the time, and by the persons, to whom they are commonly affigned,' as to believe that Cicero wrote and pronounced his orations against Catiline and Antony,

Antony, in the century before Chrift, and that Virgil wrote his poems in the reign of Auguftus; but we have a regu lar fucceffion of teftimony to the truth of this propofition, which the Jews have brought down to the prefent times.And the univerfally high estimation, in which thefe writings appear from various hiftorical evidence to have been held, from nearly the time of their delivery, will affuredly establish the other Propofitions ftated in p. 8. in the mind. of an impartial inquirer.

I fhall only observe further, that they were tranflated into Chaldee about the year before Christ 420, and into Greek, the language then most generally underftood, in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus; an era remarkable for investigation and science, and which being after the predictions, and before many of the -events which have fince fulfilled them, clearly prove thefe writings to have been