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quench the parched Indian's thirst, and Persians drink the Rhine and Elbe."* But is it so? Did ever colony of Indians settle in the Upper Asia? Are Persians to be found upon the banks of the Elbe or the Rhine? What said the patriarch? Just the reverse; and that reverse proves true. Tartars from the north of Asia hold possession of Shem's Indian territory, and Japhet's Europe drinks the Ganges!

Was it accident-was it an effect of mechanical causes, that Japhet's sons, when they had been sunk for ages in the abominations of idolatry, were reclaimed at last by the emissaries of that divine teacher who arose among Shem's descendants, and thus settled, according to the patriarch's prediction, in Shem's tabernacles? Was it chance-was it nature—was it fate, that a prophecy like that before us, applicable to events of various sorts,-to propagation-conquest-trade-religion, hath received an accomplishment in every sense in which the words can be taken?-and this notwithstanding that each sense hath such limitations as no less require a certain determination of the course of the world, for the verification of the prediction, than if each sense had respected one individual fact? I would not indeed deny, that without any superintendance of the world by Providence, events might sometimes so fall out as to correspond with a random conjecture of the human mind, or with the forged predictions of an impostor. But if the impostor's words should carry two meanings, the probability that they should be verified in one meaning or the other would indeed be much greater; but that they should prove true in both, the probability would be much less, than that of the accomplishment of a prediction of a single mean

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ing. If the words, instead of two, should carry a variety of meanings, the improbability that they should prove true in all, would be heightened in a much greater proportion than any who are not versed in computation may easily be brought to apprehend. But the phenome. non which Noah's prophecy presents, if it be not a real prophecy brought by Providence to its completion, is that of a prediction of an immense extent and variety of meaning, which hath had the wonderful good fortune to be verified in every branch. If this cannot be supposed to have happened without Providence, in the single instance of this prophecy, how much less in all the instances of prophecies of this sort which occur in holy writ? And if this could be conceived of all those prophecies, so far as they concern secular. events, yet, let me ask, do ve not find in every one of them, or at least in the far greater part, that some event of the Messiah's reign, or something characteristic of his time or person, makes one, and for the most part the most obvious of the various meanings ? And is this too casual,--that such a variety of predictions as we find of this sort in the Bible, delivered in different ages, upon very different occasions, should be so framed, as all to bear upon one great object, the last of a succession, or the chief of an assortment of events, to which the images of each prediction are adapted with such wonderful art, that every one of them hath passed in its turn for the accomplishment? Should you see the rays of the sun reflected from a system of polished planes, and transmitted through a variety of refractive surfaces, collect at last in a burning point, and there by their united action melt down the stubborn metal which resists the chemist's furnace, would you refer the wonderful effect to chance, rather than to an exquisite polish-to an accurate conformation and a just arrangement of the mirrors and the glasses? Would you not suppose that the skill

of many artists had concurred to exccute the different parts of the machine, under the direction of some man of far superior knowledge, by whom the properties of light and the laws of its reflections and refractions were understood, and by whom the effect which you had seen produced was originally intended? And can you sup. pose that it hath happened without design and contriv. ance, that the rays of the prophetic light are concentrated in a single point to illuminate a single object ?

You will now recollect and apply the observation with which we entered upon this discussion,--that accident being once excluded from any share in the accomplishment, the evidence of a providence which these multi

a form prophecies afford is of the highest kind.

SERMON XVIII.

2 PETER i. 20, 21.

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is

of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not at any time by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

FROM the digression which closed my last discourse, I now return to my principal subject; and shall imme. diately proceed to the last general topic I proposed to treat,-namely, to show that this same text of the apostle, which is so sure a guide to the sense of the prophecies, will also furnish a satisfactory answer to the most

a specious objection which the adversaries of our most holy faith have ever been able to produce against that particular evidence of the truth of our Lord's preten. sions, which arises from the supposed completion of the prophecies of the Old Testament in him and in his doctrines.

The objection, indeed, is nothing less than this,--that although the divine inspiration of the Jewish prophets be admitted, their prophecies will afford no support to our Lord's pretensions; for this reason, that in the application of these prophecies to him, and to the propagation of his doctrine, they are drawn by the writers of the New Testament to a sense in which they were never understood by the prophets themselves who delivered .them: and since the true sense of any writing can be no

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other than that which the author intended to convey, and which was understood by him to be contained in the expressions which he thought proper to employ, an application of a prophecy in a sense not intended by the prophet must be a misinterpretation.

The assertion upon which this objection is founded, " that the first preachers of Christianity understood prophecies in one sense which were uttered in another," cannot altogether be denied; and, unless it could be denied in every instance, it is to little purpose to refute it, which might easily be done, in some: for if a single instance should remain, in which the apostles and evangelists should seem to have been guilty of a wilful misinterpretation of prophecy, or of an erroneous application of it, the credit of their doctrine would be greatly shaken, since a single instance of a fraud would fasten on them the imputation of dishonesty, and a single instance of mistake concerning the sense of the ancient Scriptures would invalidate their claim to inspiration. The truth, however, is, that though the fact upon which this objection is founded were as universally alleged, which is not the case, -yet, were it so, we have in this text of the apostle a double answer to the adversary's argument, which is inconclusive, for two reasons; first, because the assumption is false, that the prophets were the authors of their prophecies, “ for the prophecy came not at any time by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost ;” and, secondly, were the assumption true, still the conclusion might not stand,“ because no prophecy of holy writ is its own interpreter.” I will endeavour to make you understand the propriety of both these answers, which at first perhaps may not strike you.

First, then, I say we deny the adversary's rash con. clusion, though in part we grant his premises, because his assumption is false, that the prophets were the au.

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