have attempted in vain to institute a comparison between the impostors of former times and the Author of Christianity. Porphyry, who was a native of Tyre, and a bitter enemy to the Christian religion, from his anxiety to depreciate it, and to retard the rapid progress which it was every where making through a belief in the miracles of Christ and his apostles, published a life of Pythagoras, which, like the life of Apollonius by Philostratus, was intended to show that the miracles of Jesus Christ were equalled by those of certain heathen philosophers. Pythagoras, who had been dead almost eight hundred years, and concerning whom scarcely any thing had been recorded by any credible historian, was represented as having wrought miracles, and as having imparted the same power to Epedocles and others.-Philostratus, who taught oratory at Rome, undertook, at the request of Julia Severa, the wife of the Emperor Severus, to write the life of the celebrated impostor Apollonius of Tyana, with the design of depreciating the evidences for Christianity. But both Porphyry and Philostratus, by their efforts to oppose the gospel, have become, in consequence of these very efforts, unwilling witnesses to the fact, that in their day Jesus Christ and his apostles were universally acknowledged to have wrought miracles. The extracts from Celsus, who wrote against Christianity in the latter end of the second century, as preserved in the work of Origen against him, furnish valuable testimonies in confirmation of the same truth.

7. But it has been asked, Why have not miracles been continued to afford to every age the same evidence in support of Christianity with which the apostolic age was favoured? The answer to this inquiry has often been given, and is obvious. If we reflect on the design of miracles, we must be satisfied that the power of working them could not, consistently with this design, have been continued long after the completion of the canon of divine revelation. They are intended, as appropriate evidence,

to attest a supernatural communication from Heaven. Miracles, and a revelation of the will of God, are cotemporaneous. If Christ and his apostles had made known only a part of the religious truth which was designed for the world, there would be nothing incongruous in the supposition, that until such knowledge should be complete, individuals in the church from time to time, or a regular succession of persons, should have been inspired, and enabled to work miracles in proof of their inspiration.

8. But it may be alleged, that though the Mosaic revelation was established by miracles, miracles did not cease with the death of Moses and Aaron, or even with that of their immediate successors. The reply to this is, that the revelation of the Mosaic dispensation was gradual and progressive; and that until it was completed, four hundred years before the Christian era, the prophets who were employed from time to time in making additions to it, wrought miracles in attestation of their divine mission and inspiration. Besides, the peculiarity of that dispensation, arising from God's being the temporal sovereign of the Israelites, rendered miraculous interpositions proper and necessary. But we should have deemed it unnecessary, and even strange, that the apostles should have performed miracles to attest the miracles of Moses or Isaiah. Equally unnecessary and strange would it be, under any circumstances, for a preacher of the gospel in modern times to be able to furnish miraculous testimony in support of the apostolic ministry. The volume of divine revelation has been closed and sealed. Miraculous interposition now would indicate that something is still required to be added to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. Such interpositions were intended, not for the preservation, but for authenticating and establishing Christianity, and therefore their continuance would be utterly superfluous.

9. It is proper to remark, in conclusion, that the mira culous interpositions in attestation of the Scriptures of the

Old Testament and of the New, ought to be regarded, not as a series of unconnected facts, but as one great continuous miracle to which, until its final completion, "generation after generation of eyewitnesses bore their successive but really concurrent testimony." As Christianity is only a continuation and consummation of the system of supernatural interposition, which, on the supposition of the truth of the books of the Old Testament, was in operation from the beginning of the world, it was to be expected that the last and most perfect dispensation should have been signalized by evidences of the same character as attested the earlier and less perfect dispensations. But this end having been attained, it was proper that miracles should cease-first, for the reason mentioned above, namely, that the canon of divine revelation was closed, and fully authenticated: Secondly, because the church is no longer confined to one particular nation, as among the Jews, but is dispersed through the whole world: and, thirdly, because miraculous interpositions would cease to bear that character if they were continued from age to age. They would become common events.

CHAPTER VII.

ON THE ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY.

1. I HAVE deferred entering on the consideration of the argument from prophecy until now, that I might present it to the view of the reader at once. It is almost unne cessary to say, that the evidence furnished by prophecy is applicable to the whole of divine revelation, and forms an attestation of the truth of the Old Testament, as complete and powerful as it brings to bear on that of the New. But the nature and effect of the argument will be more

advantageously contemplated by placing it before our view in unbroken continuity.

2. The scheme of prophecy, as contained in divine re velation, extends from the beginning of time till the consummation of all things. It relates, either directly or indirectly, to a person of unequalled dignity and glory, who was to make this world the theatre on which he was to perform his mighty works. "The declared purpose for which the Messiah, prefigured by so long a train of prophecy, came into the world, corresponds to all the rest of the representation. It was not to deliver an oppressed nation from civil tyranny, or to achieve one of those acts which history accounts most heroic. It was another and far sublimer purpose which he came to accomplish; a purpose in comparison of which all our policies are poor and little, and all the performances of men as nothing. It was to deliver a world from ruin; to abolish sin and death; to purify and immortalize human nature: and thus, in the most exalted sense of the words, to be the Saviour of all men, and the blessing of all nations. A spirit of prophecy pervading all time; characterizing one person of the highest dignity; and proclaiming the accomplishment of one purpose, the most beneficent, the most divine, that imagination itself can project. Such is the Scriptural delineation, whether we will receive it or no, of that economy, which we call prophetic."*

3. That the knowledge of futurity can belong only to Him who is at once omniscient and omnipresent, is unquestioned. He only who made and who sustains all things, can know the capabilities of the creatures which he has formed, and all the possible tendencies and results of that course of nature which he himself has established. He only, therefore, can reveal to the subjects of his moral government, should it please him so to do, the train of future events. This, accordingly, he claims as

* Bishop Hurd's Introduction to the Study of the Prophecies. Sermon ii.

his peculiar prerogative. "To whom will ye liken me, and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be like. Remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is none else: I am God, and there is none like; declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure."

4. To disclose events which are distant and future is a miraculous interposition of omniscience, and is as much beyond the agency of mortals as the performance of works which are characteristic of omnipotence. It furnishes an argument, the most convincing and irrefragable for the inspiration and divine authority of the Holy Scriptures. It is so admirably adapted to the nature of man, and to the circumstances of the human race, that the lapse of ages serves only to strengthen the evidence which is derived from the completion of prophecy.

5. But as there have existed false pretensions to prophecy, it is important for us to ascertain by what principles genuine prophetic oracles are distinguished. "The prophet which shall presume to speak a word in my name, says the God of Israel, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods; even that prophet shall die. And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken; but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously. Thou shalt not be afraid of him." It is indispensable, therefore, that the following circumstances unite in regard to any declaration, in order to prove it to be truly prophetic. First, that it be indubitably manifest that the prophecy was promulgated and recorded before the event which it describes. Secondly, that the agreement between the prediction and the event in which it is said to receive its fulfilment be clear and palpable; and, thirdly, that the