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XIII. The Prophecies of Zechariah and Mala

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chi.

310

XIV. From Malachi, to the opening of the Mission of Christ.

334

XV. From the opening of the Mission of
Christ, to the descent of the Holy
Ghost on the Apostles.

XVI. From the descent of the Holy Ghost, to
the conclusion of the Apostolic age.

XVII. From the conclusion of the Apostolic age, to the establishment of Christianity by hunan laws, under Constantine the

Great.

XVIII. Conclusion.

ERRATUM.
Page 88, line 3, for Prophecies read Psalms.

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350

361

384

REDEMPTION, &c.

CHAPTER I.

Prophecies relating to the Messiah, from the Creation to the Death of Abrahäm.

IN the following Treatise it is not intended to endeavour to prove, any of the controverted points of Divinity; nor to establish by abstract reasoning, the certainty of those truths, which are by Christians universally acknowledged. That there is a God, just, good, wise, and powerful, needs not to be proved, because without such belief, there can be no religion at all: that he sent his only-begotten Son into the world, to be the Saviour of mankind, is also the peculiar persuasion of those who profess the christian religion in particular. These are facts, therefore, which will be B taken

apen

taken for granted, as already established the most conclusive evidence; and upon the same principle, without entering into any controversy, concerning the genuineness of particular parts of the Bible, the whole of it (the Apocrypha excepted) will be considered, as dictated by inspiration, and containing the interesting and important history of man, from his fall in the first Adam, to his salvation in the second.

It is the Bible therefore, which as far as it goes, will furnish the chief materials of this work; and it is hoped, that nothing will be found in it, which may not be proved from that holy Book, either by the text itself, or by plain, easy, and obvious deduction from it.

Now the first principle of all religion is, that there is a God; the supreme Being, the first cause of all things, who has existed from all eternity, and will exist for ever. This God must be powerful, or he could not have created, and governed the universe; he must be wise, or he could not have contrived, and planned it so admirably;

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admirably; he must be good, or he would' not have created the world, and filled it with creatures all capable of happiness in their respective situations. And from the union of these attributes of power, wisdom, and goodness, it follows, that he must also be just. For justice is the doing that which is right towards all; and a Being powerful, wise, and good, must always necessarily do that which is right*,

At the time which seemed best to his own wisdom, this Almighty Lord determined to create a world, stored with creatures capable of various degrees of happiness, among whom, one superior to them all, was designed for everlasting bliss. This was man, who was made in the image of God, and after his likeness; that is, not

It is not meant by this, that there are any abstract principles of right, by which God is governed, for that would be to set up a law, independent of him who established it, and to oppose our bounded faculties to the will of him who gave them. Religion has no solid foun dation, without believing that whatever God wills is right, and whatever he forbids is wrong, though in our present state, we may not always be able to understand his ways.

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with respect to his person, for no man hatḥ seen God at any time, but with regard to his intellectual faculties, and the moral qualities of his soul, by which he resem bles his Creator, though in a degree infinitely inferior. To this being, so highly favored, was given dominion over all the rest, and the first man and woman were placed in the earthly Paradise, called the Garden of Eden. The situation of Paradise is at present unknown; and though it is indeed now of little consequence to us, the learned have taken great pains to diseover it. Certainly after the Deluge every trace of it must have been lost; and the rivers mentioned in the second chapter of Genesis, which are supposed to point out its situation, either no longer existed, or perhaps ran in very different channels and other directions*..

It

*It is indeed argued by some, that Moses speaks of the places watered by the four rivers, as then existing and well known; but it is probable that he only meant to give 2 general geographical idea of the scite of the garden; for the river which watered it was not divided into four streams,

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