present state of both Nineveh and Babylon, that their exact situation cannot be ascertained.Their very ruins have been ruined." And we know that for the last 1600 years they have lain in this state, from the testimony of Lucian, a heathen, who was born near the spot in the second century.

TYRE is now as it is described in Ezekiel xxvi. 4, 5; though, at the time he wrote, in the greatest commercial grandeur. See chap. xxvii. and Isaiah xxiii. 3, 8. Tyre is now a hovel for fishermen. Her pride sealed her doom, and called forth the voice of prophecy to proclaim it. (Isa. xxiii. 9; Ezek. xxvii. 32. xxviii. 5.)

EGYPT, once the greatest and the most fertile, is now the basest of kingdoms; according to Ezekiel's prophecy (chap. xxix. 14, 15), not having had, for the last 2000 years, a prince of her own to govern it. It was conquered by the Babylonians, afterwards by the Persians, then by the Macedonians, then by the Romans. After its capture by the Romans it became subject to the Saracens, then to the Mamalukes, and is now a province of the Turkish empire, which is the most degraded of all the kingdoms of Europe.

The Preservation of the Jews as a separate people.

But there is a still more wonderful prophecy fulfilling ; that is, the prophecy of Moses, and others of the sacred writers, respecting the present state of the Jews. Not to mention the various details of their history, which prophecy had distinctly marked, as to the manner in which that state should be brought about, their preservation is altogether opposed to general experience. That a nation should exist, as the Jews have done, for 3300 years; able to trace their origin from one individual, and without mingling with any other nation, is altogether opposed to experience. The Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Greeks, the Romans, though once claiming universal empire, have not a single representative upon earth. Our own nation is made up of Britons, Romans, Saxons, Normans, &c.; but, though not one thousand years have passed away, yet are we so blended into one people, that these several parts can no longer be distinguished; and the remark applies generally. We find the exception, the only exception, where we should have least expected it. For consider,

1. The ancestor of the Jews. Abraham was not a law

giver, a philosopher, a conqueror.

He built no city. (Heb. xi. 9.) He left but one son, from whom this people descended. When he died, he had not a foot of land but the cave in which to bury him. (Acts vii.)

2. The state of the Jews at the time the prophecies respecting their being preserved a separate people were delivered. Moses's remarkable prophecy (Deut. xxviii.; Levit. xxvi. 44.) was written when they were wanderers in the Wilderness, which had been the premature grave of all the men among them who entered it. They were surrounded with nations greater and mightier than they, and who combined to attempt their destruction, but whom they were commanded to extirpate. Jeremiah's prophecy (chap. xlvi. 28) was when their utter destruction was threatened by their captivity in Babylon, and ten of their twelve tribes already had disappeared.

3. Their peculiar afflictions as a nation. "Wars, battles, sieges, fires, famines, pestilences, rebellions, massacres, persecutions, captivity, slavery, misery, mark their whole history." Bishop Newton. (Luke xix. 41, &c.) At the last destruction of their city by Titus, 1,100,000 perished, 97,000 were taken prisoners. In the rebellion that followed, 580,000 were destroyed in public combat, besides an innumerable company that, in other places, killed themselves, or perished through famine, banishment, or other miseries. Fifty fortified castles were plundered and burnt, and 985 towns flourishing and populous; and so general was the massacre of the inhabitants, that all Judea was in some measure left desolate, and converted into a desert.

4. Their present state of suffering and dispersion. Ever since that event, i. e. for more than 1700 years, their land trodden under foot of the Gentiles; they driven from their country; scattered over the face of the whole earth; all distinction of tribe confounded; without even the form of a civil government; their temple and priesthood destroyed: and without the means, therefore, of uniting in one act of public worship; for who shall offer their sacrifice? yet they exist; unbelievers in Christianity, and yet the guardians of those very prophecies which prove the unreasonableness of their unbelief; mingled among, but distinct from, those around them; the wonder and scorn of the world; bush on fire and not consumed."

as a

And 2000, 3000 years ago, was this pointed out by different writers of the Bible, each confirming or throwing some additional light on what the other had declared. See Isaiah x. 21; Ezek. vi. 8; Luke xxi. 22, 24; Rom. xi. 25. Can we then doubt that such writers spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost?

The Extent of Prophecy.

But the prophecies respecting Nineveh, Babylon, Tyre, Egypt, and the preservation of the Jews as a separate people, form but a very small part of the prophecies contained in this wonderful book. "In the heart of the captivity, in the abyss of the Babylonian bondage, Daniel weighed and numbered the kingdoms of the earth." (See Davison on Prophecy.)

The prophecies of the Bible form a sketch, by anticipation, of the history of the world; not of its politics, as such; but of its history as connected with the progress of religion. (See Butler's Analogy, Part ii. chap. vii. p. 360.)

Prophecy foretold the overthrow of the Persian empire by Alexander (Dan. xi. 2, 4), and at the moment it was rising into fame; particularly noticing the rapidity of his conquests, comparing him to the panther, or leopard, which is remarkable for the impetuosity with which it seizes its prey (Dan. vii. 6); and we know, that in the short space of 12 years, Alexander extended his conquests to the very banks of the Ganges. Prophecy foretold the fourfold division of his empire, and particularly the wars and internal commotions of Egypt and Syria, from his death to the time of Antiochus Epiphanes.

Prophecy foretold by Moses the rise of the Roman empire, 800 years before its existence. (See Deut. xxviii. 49, 50.) Prophecy foretold not only the propagation of Christianity, but of its corruptions; particularly one form of Antichrist, emphatically the man of sin; distinguished by its spirit of persecution, its pretence to the power of working miracles, its worship of the dead, its abstinence from meats, its forbidding to marry, and blasphemous assumption of Divine honours. Compare Dan. vii. 25, with 2 Thess. ii. 9; 1 Tim. iv. 1, 2; Rev. xiii. 11, 18. To which, of all the corruptions of religion, that of the Roman Catholics bears the nearest resemblance. (See Bishops Hurd and Newton

on the Prophecies, and Bishop Jewell's Apology, and his exposition of the Epistle of Paul to the Thessalonians.)

Prophecy foretold the ravages of the Saracens coming from the south, and of the Turks from the north (Dan. xi. 40, 41); entering into the most remarkable details respecting the nature and extent of their conquests; specifying what countries should escape, and what fall under their power. (See Newton on the Prophecies.)

Prophecies, uttered between two and three thousand years ago, describe the present state, not only, as we have seen, of the Jews, Egyptians, &c., but of the Africans, Arabians, of Europe, Asia, and we may say of America also.

The Prophecy of Noah.

When the earth was re-peopled by the descendants of the three sons of Noah, Asia was principally peopled by the descendants of Shem; Africa, by those of Ham; Europe and the northern part of Asia, by those of Japheth. We see now, as foretold more than 3000 years ago by Noah, Japheth enlarged, dwelling also in the tents of Shem (Gen. ix. 27). At this moment not a single spot in Europe or America is the colony or property of any of the nations whom the Scriptures represent as the descendants of Shem; while the extent of the British dominions alone, over parts of Asia, includes nearly one hundred millions of people. We now see slavery yet lingering over the descendants of Ham: in North and South America, and the foreign West India Islands, they are still the servants of servants (Gen. ix. 25-27). While, in striking contrast to the descendants of Ham, (showing the discrimination of prophecy,) appears the posterity of Ishmael. (See Keith on the Prophecies.)

Ishmael, and his descendants the Arabians.

The Arabians, alone unconquered of all the nations of the earth, though Sesostris, Cyrus, Pompey, Trajan, and the Turks in the height of their power, attempted it, once exercising for 300 years a dominion over the most civilized and fertile portions of the earth, yet a striking contrast to what usually follows, (as for instance, with the conquerors of Rome,) their own habits unaffected, uncivilized in the midst

of the civilized world; they dwell, as Prophecy foretold three thousand years ago, wild and free, in the presence of their enemies; their hand against every man, and every man's hand against them (Gen. xvi. 10-12; xvii. 20). The children of the bondwoman free; the children of promise, descendants of a common ancestor, conquered and outcast. How opposed to what the Prophets themselves must have thought probable at the time they wrote these predictions! Whence such knowledge of the future but from God? what the book that contains them, but the Book of God?

The present state not only of Nineveh, Babylon, Tyre, and Egypt, but of Judea (its present desolation contrasted with its former fertility, Lev. xxvi.; Jer. iv.): and so of Ammon (Ezek. xxv. 2. 5. 7. 10; xxi. 32; Jer. xlix. 2; Zeph. ii. 9); Moab (Jer. xlviii.); Idumea (Jer. xlix. 7; Isa. xxxiv.; Ezek. xxxv.; Obad.); Philistia (Ezek. xxv.; Jer. xlvii. 5; Amos i.; Zeph. ii.; Zech. ix.); Lebanon (Isa. x. 19; xxxiii. 9, &c.); has been described by prophecy.

From the beginning of the world, prophecy, as it is found in the Bible, has been in a continued course of fulfilment; accumulating its evidence as time advances; affording to those who (as we) have not seen the miracles of Moses, Elijah, Elisha, of our blessed Lord or of his Apostles, a standing miracle, a light like the sun, shining more and more unto the perfect day.

The peculiar value of Prophecy, as an evidence that the Bible is the Word of God.

But, strong as is the evidence arising from a consideration of the prophecies of the Bible considered separately (as shewing a foreknowledge which could come only from God), their great value is in this, that all these wonderful prophecies are parts of one system of prophecy; unfolding to us prophecy as a part of a great scheme of Infinite Love. "The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy" (Rev. xix. 10; 2 Pet. i. 20). Nineveh, Babylon, Tyre, Egypt, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Jews, &c., became the subjects of prophecy, because, and only so far as, their history touched upon the subject of His kingdom. In the history of His kingdom on earth, the Bible presents two