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more embarrassed with the selection and arrangement of them, than doubtful of their import and accomplishment. To a superficial observer, they may seem to be without order or connection; but, to a well-informed mind, they are all disposed in such a mode and succession as to form a regular system, all the parts of which harmonise in one amazing and consistent plan, which runs parallel with the history of mankind, past, present, and to come; and furnishes a perfect moral demonstration, that the book which contains such predictive information is indeed divine. The prophecies contained in the Scriptures may be referred to four classes, viz. Prophecies relating to the Jewish nation in particular, -Prophecies relating to the neighbouring nations or empires, - Prophecies directly announcing the Messiah, and Prophecies delivered by Jesus Christ and his apostles.

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CLASS I.

Prophecies relating to the Jewish nation in particular.

1. We begin with Abraham, the great progenitor of the Jews. At a time when he had no child, and was greatly advanced in years, it was foretold that his posterity should be exceedingly multiplied above that of other nations. The chief of these predictions are to be found in Gen. xii. 1—3. xlvi. 3. Exod. xxxii. 13. Gen. xiii. 16. xv. 5. xvii. 2. 4—6. xxii. 17. xxvi. 4. xxviii. 14. xxxii. 12. xxxv. 11. These are the plain prophecies relating to this point: and their fulfilment will be found as it respects the Jews (to omit the vast increase of Abraham's other posterity,) in Exod. i. 7. 9. 12. Numb. xxiii. 10. Deut. i. 10. x. 22. Ezek. xvi. 7. Heb. vi. 12. In less than five hundred years after the first of the above predictions was delivered, the number of the Israelites amounted to six hundred thousand men, besides women and children: and the Scripture accounts of their numbers are so confirmed by the testimonies of profane authors, that no doubt can arise as to the exactness of the completion.

2. Ishmael's name and fortune were announced before he was born; particularly, that his descendants should be very numerous, and that he should beget twelve princes. The whole came to pass precisely as it was foretold. Compare Gen. xvi. 10—12. xvii. 20. and xxv. 12-18. I will make him a great nation, said Jehovah to Abraham (Gen. xvii. 20.): and this prediction was accomplished as soon as it could be in the regular course of nature. From Ishmael proceeded the various tribes of Arabs (also called Saracens, by Christian writers,) who antiently were, and still continue to be, a very powerful people. They might, indeed, be emphatically styled a great nation, when the Saracens made their rapid and extensive conquests during the middle ages, and erected one of the largest empires that ever were in the world. He will be a wild man (Gen. xvi. 12.) literally a wild ass-man, that is, as wild as a wild ass and the account of that animal, in Job xxxix. 5-8. affords the best possible description of the wandering, lawless, and free-booting lives and manners of the Arabs. Who hath sent out the wild ass free? or who

hath loosed the bands of the wild ass? Whose house I have made the wilderness, and the barren land his dwellings. He scorneth the multitude of the city, neither regardeth he the crying of the driver. The range of the mountains is his pasture, and he searcheth after every green thing. God himself has sent them out free, and has loosed them from all political restraint. The same wilderness, in which their ancestor, Ishmael, dwelt more than three thousand seven hundred years ago, is still their habitation, and in the barren land, where no other human beings could live, they have their dwellings. They scorn the city, and therefore have no fixed habitations. For their multitude, they are not afraid. When they make depredations on cities, towns, or caravans, they retire into the desert with such precipitancy, that all pursuit is eluded; and in this respect, the crying of the driver is disregarded. They may be said to have no lands, and yet the range of the mountains is their pasture; they pitch their tents and feed their flocks wherever they please; and they search after every green thing, are continually looking after prey, and seize every kind of property that comes in their way. It was further foretold that Ishmael's hand should be against every man, and every man's hand against him. Sesostris, Cyrus, Pompey, Trajan, and other antient sovereigns and potentates, vainly attempted to subjugate the wandering Arabs though they had temporary triumphs over some tribes, they were ultimately unsuccessful. From the commencement of the Ishmaelites to the present day, they have maintained their independency and if there were no other argument to evince the divine origin of the Pentateuch, the account of Ishmael and the prophecy concerning his descendants, collated with their history and manner of life during a period of nearly four thousand years, would be sufficient: it may indeed, be pronounced absolutely demonstrative.1

3. It was foretold that the posterity of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, should possess the land of Canaan; so that, though they should be expelled thence for their sins, yet their title should endure, and they should be resettled in it, and there continue in peace to the end of the world. (See Gen. xii. 7. xiii. 14, 15. 17. xv. 18, 19, 20, 21. Exod. iii. 8. 17. Gen. xvii. 7, 8.) In unison also with these original promises, are the predictions, that this land of Canaan should be to the children of Israel an everlasting possession. (See Deut. xxx. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Jer. xxx. 3.) The completion of these predictions has been as remarkable and exact as the predictions themselves. (See Numb. xxi. Deut. ii. and Josh. iii.) The Israelites enjoyed this land for above a thousand years; and, when for their wickedness, God sent the tribes of Judah and Benjamin into captivity, he declared it should be but for seventy years, which accordingly was true; and they continued six hundred years together, till by their rejection and murder of the Messiah they were again doomed to a more lasting captivity, begun by Titus Vespasian, and continued to this day. And though the ten tribes carried away captive by Shalmaneser, and the 1 For a full account and exposition of the prophecies concerning Ishmael, see Bp. Newton's second Dissertation.

body of the two tribes by Titus, are not now in Canaan; yet since the period of their final restoration is not yet come, their present case is so far from being an objection against these antient prophecies before us, that it would be a great one against the others, if it were so. And he who considers that the prediction, now under consideration, has hitherto been exactly fulfilled in all the periods already past, cannot doubt of the fulfilling of what remains to come in its proper season, and will not question but that God will ultimately and completely, as he promised, give to the seed of Abraham all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession. See Ezek. xxxvii. 25.

4. The twenty-eighth chapter of the book of Deuteronomy contains a series of most striking predictions relative to the Jews, which are fulfilling to this very day. Bp. Newton and Dr. Graves have shown its accomplishment at great length. Some of its leading features only can be here noticed. The great lawgiver of the Jews foretold that they should be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth, -scattered among all people, from one end of the earth, even unto the other,find no ease or rest, be oppressed and crushed always — be left few in number among the heathen, — pine away in their iniquity in their enemies' land, and become an astonishment, a proverb, and a bye-word unto all nations. These predictions were literally fulfilled during their subjection to the Chaldæans and Romans; and, in later times, in all nations where they have been dispersed. Moses foretold that their enemies would besiege and take their cities; and this prophecy was fulfilled by Shishak king of Egypt, Shalmaneser king of Assyria, Nebuchadnezzar, Antiochus Epiphanes, Sosius and Herod, and finally by Titus. Moses foretold that such grievous famines should prevail during those sieges, that they should eat the flesh of their sons and daughters. This prediction was fulfilled about six hundred years after the time of Moses, among the Israelites, when Samaria was besieged by the king of Syria; again, about nine hundred years after Moses, among the Jews, during the siege of Jerusalem before the Babylonish captivity; and finally, fifteen hundred years after his time, during the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans. Though the Hebrews were to be as the stars of heaven for multitude, Moses predicted that they should be few in number, and his prophecy was fulfilled for, in the last siege of Jerusalem, Josephus tells us that an infinite multitude perished by famine; and he computes the total number who perished by it and by the war in Jerusalem, and other parts of Judæa, at one million two hundred and forty thousand four hundred and ninety, besides ninety-nine thousand two hundred who were made prisoners, and sold unto their enemies for bondmen and bondwomen: and, after their last overthrow by Hadrian, many thousands of them were sold; and those, for whom purchasers could not be found (Moses had foretold that no man would buy them) were transported into Egypt, where they perished by shipwreck or fa

1 Bp. Newton on the Prophecies, vol. i. diss. vii. Dr. Graves on the Pentateuch, vol. ii. pp. 417-443. See also Mr. Kett's History, the Interpreter of Prophecy, vol. i. pp.

87-122.

mine, or were massacred by the inhabitants. Since the destruction of Jerusalem, they have been scattered among all nations, among whom they have found no ease, nor have the soles of their feet had rest; they have been oppressed and spoiled evermore, especially in the east, where the tyranny exercised over them is so severe, as to afford a literal fulfilment of the prediction of Moses, that thy life shall hang in doubt before thee, and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt HAVE NONE assurance of thy life. (Deut. xxviii. 66.) Yet, notwithstanding all their oppressions, they have still continued a separate people, without incorporating with the natives; and they have become an astonishment and a bye-word among all the nations, whither they have been carried, since their punishment has been inflicted. The very name of a Jew has been used as a term of peculiar reproach and infamy. Finally, it was foretold that their plagues should be wonderful, even great plagues, and of long continuance. And have not their plagues continued more than seventeen hundred years? In comparison of them, their former captivities were very short: during their captivity in Chaldæa, Ezekiel and Daniel prophesied ; but now they have no true prophet to foretel the end of their calamities. What nation has suffered so much, and yet endured so long? What nation has subsisted as a distinct people in their own country, so long as the Jews have done, in their dispersion into all countries? And what a standing miracle is thus exhibited to the world, in the fulfilment, at this very time, of prophecies delivered considerably more than three thousand years ago! What a permanent attestation is it to the divine legation of Moses!

5. Josiah was prophetically announced, by name, three hundred and sixty-one years before the event (1 Kings xiii. 2.) by a prophet, who came out of Judah on purpose to denounce the judgments of God upon the priests of the altar, and upon the altar itself, which Jeroboam had then recently erected at Bethel. The delivery of this prediction was accompanied with two miracles; - one wrought upon Jeroboam, by the drying up of his hand, which he had raised against

1 The Rev. Mr. Jowett, speaking of the actual state of the Jews in the east, relates the following circumstances, (on the authority of a gentleman, who had for some years been the British consul at Tripoli,) which strikingly illustrate the accomplishment of prophecy, as well as the state of degradation in which the Jews there live. "The life of a man seems to be there valued no more than the life of a moth. If the Bey has a fear or jealousy of any man, he sends some one to put a pistol to his head and shoot him. If it happens to be a Christian, remonstrance is made by the consul of his nation: the Bey is quite ready to give satisfaction: he sends some one to shoot the first agent of his cruelty; and then, with an air of great regret, asks the consul if he is satisfied: if not, he is ready to give him satisfaction still further. But if the object of his wrath be a Jew, no one would think of demanding satisfaction for His death. This people feel the curse in full, that, among the nations where they are scattered, they should find no ease, and have none assurance of their life. They are known, by their being compelled to wear a particular dress, which they sometimes change IN THEIR OWN HOUSES, On occasion of their merry-makings: but even in these they are not free, the Moors exercising the privilege of free ingress at any time. When a vessel comes into port, the merchant (a Mahomedan) compels every Jew, whom he meets by the way, to come and help in unlading, carrying, &c.; nor do they dare to resist." Jowett's Christian Researches in the Mediterranean, p. 231. London, 1822. 8vo.

the prophet, at whose prayer it was restored to him again; the other miracle was performed upon the altar by rending it and pouring the ashes from it. The fulfilment of this prophecy was no less remarkable, plainly showing it to be, not from man, but from God. (2 Kings xxxiii. 15.)

6. Isaiah predicted the utter subversion of idolatry among the Jews (ii. 18-21.) and on their return from the Babylonish captivity, more than two hundred years afterwards, they were perfectly cured of this strange infatuation. The same prophet foretold, that general distress and ruin would befal the Jewish people, on account of their extreme wickedness: and within two hundred years afterwards, the calamities denounced overtook them. (Isa. iii. 1-14. compared with 2 Chron. xxxvi.) On the capture, however, of Jerusalem by the Chaldæans, a few poor persons were left to till the land, precisely as Isaiah had prophesied. (Isa. xxiv. 13, 14. compared with Jer. xxxix. 10.)

7. Jeremiah foretold the conquests of Nebuchadnezzar, and the captivity of the Jews by him, in so remarkable and solemn a manner, that it was notorious to all the neighbouring nations: for, according to the custom of delivering prophecies by visible signs, as well as words, he sent bonds and yokes" to the kings of Edom, Moab, the Ammonites, Tyre, and Zidon, by the hand of the messengers which came to Jerusalem (from these several kings) unto Zedekiah king of Judah ;" and foretold, "that all these nations should serve Nebuchadnezzar, and his son, and his son's son." (xxvii. 3—7.) — And the Jews put him in prison for this prophecy; where he was kept, when Nebuchadnezzar took the city, and set him at liberty. (xxxix. 11-14.) This prophet was opposed and contradicted by several false prophets, who prophesied deceitful and flattering delusions to the people, persuading them that no evil should come upon them; of whom Jeremiah foretold, that Hananiah should die that same year in which he uttered his false prophecies (Jer. xxviii. 16, 17.), and that Ahab the son of Kolaiah, and Zedekiah the son of Maaseiah should be taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar, and slain in the sight of the people of Judah, and roasted in the fire (xxix. 21, 22.) — And thus distinctly foretelling the time and manner of the death of those false prophets, he vindicated his own prophecies, which were at first so unwillingly believed, beyond all contradiction.

But that which seemed most strange, and was most objected against, in the prophecies of Jeremiah, was his prediction concerning the death of Zedekiah; in which he and Ezekiel were thought to contradict each other. Jeremiah prophesied in Jerusalem, at the same time when Ezekiel prophesied in Babylon, and concerning the same things; and Jeremiah's prophecy was sent to the captives in Babylon, and Ezekiel's to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Now these two prophets, writing of the captivity of Zedekiah, enumerate all the circumstances of it between them, in such a manner, that they were believed to contradict each other; and thus the expectation and attention of the people was the more excited to observe the fulfilment of their

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