prophecies concerning him, were deceived by their traditions, and found only a stone of stumbling, where, if they had searched their Scriptures aright, they would have discovered an evidence of the Messiah. "Is not this the carpenter's son; is not this the son of Mary? said they, and they were offended at him." His riding in humble triumph into Jerusalem; his being betrayed for thirty pieces of silver, and scourged, and buffeted, and spit upon; the piercing of his hands and of his feet; the last offered draught of vinegar and gall; the parting of his raiment, and casting lots upon his vesture; the manner of his death and of his burial, and his rising again without seeing corruption, -were all expressly predicted, and all these predictions were literally fulfilled. If all these prophecies admit of any application to the events of the life of any individual, it can only be to that of the author of Christianity. And what other religion can produce a single fact which was actually foretold of its founder? Though the personal appearance or moral condition of the Messiah was represented by the Jewish prophets, such as to bespeak no grandeur, his personal character is described as of a higher order than that of the sons of men. 66 Righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. He hath done no violence, neither was there any deceit in his lips. The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd; he a Zech. ix. 9; xi. 12. xxii. 18. Isa. liii. 9. Isa. 1. 6. Psal. xxii. 16; Ixix. 21; Psal, xvi. 10. shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom. A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench. Behold, thy king cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass. He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; he was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheek to them that plucked off the hair: I did not hide my face from shame and spitting. The Lord God hath opened mine ear that I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. The Lord will help me, therefore shall I not be confounded; therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed."b How many virtues are thus represented in the prophecies, as characteristic of the Messiah; and how applicable are they all to Christ alone, and how clearly embodied in his character! His wisdom and knowledge-his speaking as never man spake-the general meekness of his manner and mildness of his conversation—his perfect candour and unsullied purity-his righteousness-his kindness and compassion-his genuine humility-his peaceable disposition-his unrepining patience his invincible courage-his more than heroic resolution, and more than human forbearancehis unfaltering trust in God, and complete resignation to his will, are all portrayed in the liveliest, the most affecting, and expressive terms; and among all who ever breathed the breath of life, they can be applied to Christ alone. b Isaiah xi. 2, 5; xl. 11; 1. 4-7; xlii. 2, 3; liii. 7, 9. Zech. ix. 9. • See Barrow on the Creed, p. 19. Mahomet pretended to receive a divine warrant to sanction his past impurities and to license his future crimes. How different is the appeal of Jesus to earth and to heaven: "If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not.-Search the Scriptures, for these are they which testify of me." They did testify of the coming of a Messiah, and of the superhuman excellence of his moral character. And if the life of Jesus was wonderful and unparalleled of itself, how miraculous does it appear, when all his actions develop the prophetic character of the promised Saviour! The internal and external evidence are here combined at ence; and while the life of Christ proved that he was a righteous person, it proved also, as testified of by the prophets, that he was the Son of God. In describing the blessings of the reign of the Messiah, the prophet Isaiah foretold the greatness and the benignity of his miracles:-"The eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped: the lame man shall leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing." The history of Jesus shews how such acts of mercy formed the frequent exercise of his power: at his word the blind received their sight, the lame walked, the deaf heard, and the dumb spake. d The death of Christ was as unparalleled as his life; and the prophecies are as minutely descriptive of his sufferings as of his virtues. Not only did the paschal lamb, which was to be killed every year in all the families of Israel-which was to be taken out of the flock, to be without blemish-to be eaten with bitter herbs-to have its blood sprinkled, and to be kept whole that not a bone of it should be broken-not only did the offering up of Isaac, and the lifting up of the brazen serpent in the wilderness, by looking e Matt. ix. 33; xi. 5. Isa. xxxv. 5, 6. · upon which the people were healed, and many ritual observances of the Jews,-prefigure the manner of Christ's death, and the sacrifice which was to be made for sin; but many express declarations abound in the prophecies, that Christ was indeed to suffer. Exclusive of the repeated declarations in the Psalms, of afflictions which apply literally to him, and are interwoven with allusions to the Messiah's kingdom, the prophet Daniel, in limiting the time of his coming, directly affirms that the Messiah was to be cut off; and in the same manifest allusion, Zechariah uses these emphatic words: "Awake, O sword, against my Shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts: smite the Shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered. I will pour upon the house of David, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications; and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him."h But Isaiah, who describes with eloquence worthy of a prophet, the glories of the kingdom that was to come, characterizes, with the accuracy of an historian, the humiliation, the trials, and the agonies which were to precede the triumphs of the Redeemer of a world; and the history of Christ forms, to the very letter, the commentary and the completion of his every prediction. In a single passage, -the connexion of which is uninterrupted, its antiquity indisputable, and its application obvious,-the sufferings of the servant of God (who, under the same denomination, is previously described as he who was to be the light of the Gentiles, the salvation of God to the ends of the earth, and the elect of God in whom his soul delighted)< f Psal. ii. xxii. 1, 6, 7, 16, 18; xxxv. 7, 11, 12; lxix. 20, cix. 2, 3, 5, 25; cxviii. 12. 21; g Dan. ix. 26. h Zech. xiii. 7; xii. 10. i Isa. lii. 13-15, and chap. liii. are so minutely foretold that no illustration is requisite to shew that they testify of Jesus. Of the multitude of parallel passages in the New Testament, a few shall be selected and subjoined to the prophecy. He is despised and rejected of men. "He came unto his own, and his own received him not; he had not where to lay his head; they derided him." A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. Jesus wept at the grave of Lazarus; he mourned over Jerusalem; he felt the ingratitude and the cruelty of men; he bore the contradiction of sinners against himself: and these are expressions of sorrow which were peculiarly his own: "Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me; but for this end came I into the world. My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me ?" We hid, as it were, our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. "All his disciples forsook him, and fled. Not this man, but Barabbas: now Barabbas was a robber. The soldiers mocked him, and bowed the knee before him in derision." The catalogue of his sufferings is continued in the words of the prophecy: We did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. He was wounded, he was oppressed, he was afflicted, he was brought as a lamb to the slaughter. He was taken away by distress and by judgment. And to this general description is united the detail of minuter incidents, which fixes the fact of their application to Jesus. was cut off out of the land of the living. He was crucified in the flower of his age. They (the people) made his grave with the wicked, but he was with the rich after his death. Joseph of Arimathea, a rich man, went and begged the body of Jesus, and laid it in his own new tomb. He was numbered with the transgressors. He was crucified between two thieves. His visage was so marred, more than any He |