ples to be removed from their places. They were neither acts of feverity nor punishment. His miracles were without oftentation, and benevolent in their effects; such as Ifaiah had predicted for feveral ages paft. Maladies, before incurable, disappeared at his command; the eyes of the blind were opened; the lame walked; children, deprived of life, were restored to their disconsolate parents. His difciples, when angry, breathed nothing but revenge; but he would not, at their folicitation, call down fire from heaven upon a town, whose inhabitants had treated him with contempt. The pharifees and fadducees, who were profeffed enemics to every religion, experienced not the avenging power of him, whom they had blafphemed. Thefe miracles were a proof of his modefty, as well as his humanity. He required no recompence for the favours he had conferred; he would fcarcely permit thofe perfons, whom he had relieved from diftrefs, to offer him the merited tribute of thanksgiving. He refused to hear himself praised, by thofe whom he had miraculously delivered from their infirmities; and when the people were defirous to proclaim him their king, he prevented them by a speedy

retreat.

Haller's Letters.

SECTION III.

The Evidence for the Truth of Christianity, arifing from Prophecy, and its Fulfilment.

ance.

ONE

NE of the ftrongest proofs of the truth of the chriftian religion, arises from the series of prophecies preferved in the Old and New Teftament. And we find, that "No argument made a stronger impreffion on the minds of the learned pagan converts of the three first centuries, than the predictions relating to our Saviour, in those old prophetic writings, which were depofited among the hands of the greatest enemies of chriftianity, and owned by them to have been extant many ages before his appearThe learned heathen converts were aftonifhed, to fee the whole hiftory of their Saviour's life published before he was born, and to find that the evangelifts and prophets, in their accounts of the Meffiah, differed only in point of time, the one foretelling what should happen to him, and the other defcribing thefe very particulars, as what had actually happened. This our Saviour himself was pleased to make use of, as the strongest argument of his being the promised Meffiah, and without it, would hardly have reconciled his difciples to the ignominy of his death, as in that remarkable paffage, which mentions his converfation with the two difciples, on the day of his refurrection. St. Luke xxiv. 13. to the end.

The argument for the truth of chriftianity, which is derived from prophecy, is a progreffive and accumulated ev

idence, which fhines with increafing luftre, as time advances in its courfe, and collects ftrength from each fucceeding age. The following extracts on this important fubject, are felected from writers eminently diftinguished for genius and learning.*

If the legiflator of nature, not fatisfied with employing the language of figns,† which spoke chiefly to the fenfes, had alfo foretold, at fundry times and in diverfe manners, the miffion of his delegate, this would furely be a new and ftriking proof of the truth of that miffion.

This proof would strike me much more, if by a particular difpenfation of fupreme wisdom, the oracles of which I am speaking, had been committed to the care of the very adverfaries of the delegate, and his disciples; and if thefe firft and most obftinate adverfaries had conftantly profeffed to apply thefe oracles to that divine messenger, who was to come.

I therefore open the Old Teftament, which to this day is held forth as authentic and divine, by the defcendants, in a direct line, of those very men, who have crucified the Meffenger of Heaven, and perfecuted his minifters and first disciples. 1 peruse this book, and meet with a paffage in it, which excites in me the greatest astonishment; I think I am reading an anticipated and circumftantial hiftory of Chrift; I discover all the features of his character,

* See Addifon's Evidences.

+ Miracles.

Ifaiah liii-This prophet was of the royal race, and the first of the great prophets; he prophecied about feven centuries before the chriftian æra. It has been faid, and with reafon, of this prophet, that he was in fome fort a fifth evangelift,

and the principal particulars of his life; in a word, I think I am reading the very evidence of the witneffes themselves.

I cannot withdraw my attention from this furprifing portrait; what features! what colouring! what agreement with facts! how juft, how natural are the emblems! emblems, did I fay? Is it not the emblematical portrait of a very diftant futurity? It is a faithful representation of fomething present, and that which is not yet in being, is painted as if it were. See Ifaiah liii.*

He who defcribed thus to future ages the day fpring from on high, could he alfo proclaim the time of its rifing? I can scarcely give credit to my fenfes, when I read, in another part of the fame book, that admirable prediction, which almost seems a chronology, compofed after the event. See Danicl ix. Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people, and upon thy holy city, to finish the tranfgreffion, and to make an end of fins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteoufnefs, and to feal up the vifion and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy. See also 25, 26, and 27th verfes.+

1 know that these weeks of the prophecy are weeks of years, each of feven years. The inspired writer is therefore speaking of an event, which was not to take place till 490 years afterwards.

By history, I am informed of the time of the coming of that Chrift, which the prophecy foretells. I therefore go

* The reader is defired attentively to perufe this chapter.

Daniel was the last of the four great prophets, and was born 616 years before Chrift; he was led captive to Babylon towards 606, and instructed in all the sciences of the Chaldeans; he was raised towards the first dignities of the empire, and died towards the end of the reign of Cyrus, aged 90,

back from this Chrift, as far as 490 years; for the event will be the most faithful interpreter of the prophecy.

I therefore arrive at the reign of Artaxerxes, L. M.* from whom came the laft edi&t for the reestablishment of the nation, held captive within the dominions of that prince; and it is from the hands of that very nation itself, that I receive this prediction, which is the moft powerful proof and conviction of their incredulity.

Shall I doubt the authenticity of writings, which contain fuch predictions as these? But the nation to whofe care they have been conftantly committed, has never entertained the smallest doubt on that head. What then fhall I oppose to fo antient, fo conftant, fo formal a teftimony ? I cannot imagine this nation to have fabricated these writings; how abfurd would such a supposition be! Would not the prophecies themselves confute it? Would it not further be contradicted by fo many paffages, which load that nation with ignominy, and the strongest reproaches for its diforders and crimes? That nation therefore has neither counterfeited, altered, nor fuppreffed any thing, fince it has preserved these records, so humiliating to itself, and fo favourable to the great fociety of which Chrift was the founder.

Bonnet's Philofophical Inquiries concerning Christianity.

* Towards the twentieth year of his reign, according to fome chro nologists, and the feventh, according to Prideaux. This celebrated writer has shown, that if the feventy weeks are calculated with beginning with the feventh year of the reign of Artaxerxes L. M. or dated from the edict of that prince, granted to Efdras, the feventy weeks, or 490 years, are found month by month, from that edict, until the death of Chrift.