And this circumstance, the confessed ignorance of the prophets concerning the issue of their prophecies, is that which gives the testimony that prophecy affords of the wise and powerful providence of God its peculiar weight; for the evidence of prophecy lies in these two particulars,--that events have been predicted which were not within human foresight; and the accomplish, ments of predictions have been brought about, which much surpass human power and contrivance. The prediction, therefore, was not from man's sagacity, nor the event from man's will and design; and then the good. ness of the end, and the intricacy of the contrivance, complete the proof that the whole is of God. But, if it appeared that the events had been foreseen by the

prophets, a very important branch of the argument, the exclusion of human foresight, would be rendered very precarious. The infidel, in that case, would have said, “ The plain fact is, that these events were foreseen by men. You tell us, indeed,” he would say to the advocates of revelation, “ that this foresight came from a preternatural illumination of their minds; but this is a mere hypothesis of your own, which you set up be. cause it best serves your purpose. All that appears is, that these men did foresee these events. On what principle their power of foresight might depend, is matter of doubtful inquiry. Why should it rather be referred to some inexplicable intercourse of a superior mind with the human, than to a certain faculty originally inherent in the minds of those particular men, the use of which might be no less easy and natural to them than the use of a more limited faculty of foresight, and the ordinary talent of conjecture, is to you? Are not men very unequal in all their endowments? And this being once allowed, is it not reasonable to suppose of any faculty or power which a man is secn to exercise, that

he possesses it as his own, in that degree in which he is seen to exercise it? The prophet's foresight, therefore, of the things he did foresee, was natural to him. And why,” the infidel would add, “ why should it be doubted but that man hath powers to effect what the human mind hath power to prognosticate ?” To such objections, the evidence from prophecy would indeed have been obnoxious, had the prophets shown a clear foreknowledge of the full intent and meaning of their prophecies; but the case being the reverse,--since the events which best correspond with the prophecies, and put the system of prophecy most in harmony with itself, were neither fore. seen by the prophets nor by any other men till they had actually taken place, or till such things had taken place as at the same time brought these accomplishments within the reach of human foresight and put it beyond the reach of human power to prevent them, there can be no ground for these extravagant claims in favour of man's sagacity to predict, or of his power to accomplish. Had the case been otherwise, the divine inspiration of the prophets might still, indeed, have been an object of probable opinion and rational faith ; but it becomes as much more certain, when the ignorance of the prophet notoriously appears, as the consequence of a known fact or self-evident truth is more certain than any conclusion from the most plausible hypothesis.

I have now discussed the various points of doctrine that my text suggested. You have seen that it confutes those vain pretensions to an infallible authority of interpretation, which its meaning hath been perverted to sup. port. You have seen that it furnishes rules by which the private Christian may be enabled to interpret the prophecies of Scripture for himself. You have seen that these rules are of extensive use, and ready application. You have seen, that, by virtue of that peculiar structure

which brings them under these rules of interpretation, the most multiform of the Scripture prophecies do equally with the most simple afford a positive evidence of God's providential government of the world. And, lastly, you have seen, that, from this same text of the apostle, the most specious objection which infidels have ever been able to produce against the argument from prophecy in support of the Christian revelation, receives a double answer,--one from the fact upon which the apostle builds his maxim of interpretation, the other from the maxim itself, the first defeating the objector's argument, the other establishing the opposite of his con. clusion. Nothing now remains, but briefly to obviate a question which many who have attended to these discourses may, perhaps with the best intentions, wish to put,-whether these rules of interpretation, which we have taken so much pains to explain and to establish, are sufficient to clear the prophetic writings, to popular apprehension, of all obscurity. Length of time, by the changes which it makes in the customs and manners of mankind, on which the figures of speech depend, and by various other means, brings an obscurity on the most perspicuous writings. Among all the books now extant, none hath suffered more from this cause, in its original perspicuity, than the Bible; nor hath any part of the Bible suffered equally with the prophetic books, in particular passages : but, notwithstanding the great and confessed obscurity of particular parts of the prophecies, those which immediately concern the Christian church are for the most part, so far at least as they are already accomplished, abundantly perspicuous, or incumbered with no other difficulty than the apostle's rules of exposition will remove; nor does the obscurity of other parts at all lessen the certainty of the evidence which these afford. The obscurity, therefore, of the prophecies, great as it is in certain parts, is not such, upon the whole, as should discourage the Christian laic from the study of them, nor such as will excuse him under the neglect of it. Let him remember, that it is not mine, .

; but the apostle's admonition, who would not enjoin an useless or impracticable task, to give heed to the prophetic word.”

SERMON XIX.

MATTHEW xvi. 21.

From that time forth, began Jesus to show unto his dis

ciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders, and chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.

THE saying of the prophet, that " the ways and thoughts of God are not like those of men,” was never more remarkably verified than in that great event which we this day commemorate, the death and passion of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. “Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness !” Wonderful in every part, but chiefly in the last acts of it, was the scheme of man's redemption! That the author of life should himself be made subject unto death-that the Lord of glory should be clothed with shame that the Son of God's love should become a curse for sinful man that his sufferings and humiliation should be made the mani. festation of his glory--that by stooping to death he should conquer death—that the cross should lift him to his throne that the height of human malice should but accomplish the purposes of God's mercy--that the Devil, in the persecutions he raised against our Lord, should be the instrument of his own final ruin,—these were mysteries in the doctrine of the cross, so contrary to the confirmed prejudices of the Jewish people, and so far above the reach of philosophical investigation, that