which would of course, have been contradicted by some of the individuals so disgracefully concerned in it, if the fact of their arrival, and the consequent massacre of the infants in and about Bethlehem, had not been fresh in every one's memory; by them, for instance, who afterward suborned false witnesses against Christ, and gave large sums of money to the soldiers, to conceal (if possible) the event of his resurrection; or them, who in still later days, every where zealously spoke against the tenets and practices of this rising church.

In addition to the above general predictions of the coming, life, death, and resurrection of Christ, there are others which foretell, still more strikingly, several particular 61. incidents of the gospel narrative; incidents unparalleled in the whole range of history, and which could have been foreseen by God alone. They were certainly not foreseen by the human agents concerned in their execution, or they would never have contributed to the fulfilment of prophecies referred even by themselves to the Messiah, and therefore verifying the divine mission of Him, whom they crucified as an imposter.

Observe, then, how literally many of these

predictions were fulfilled. For example, read Ps. lxix. 21: "They gave me gall to eat, and vinegar to drink;" and compare Matt. xxvii. 34, "They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall." Again it is said, Ps. xxii. 16-18, "They pierced my hands and my feet; they stand staring and looking upon me. They part my garments among them, and cast lots for my vesture," as if it had been written after John xix. 23, 24. It is said likewise, Zech. xi. 10, "They shall look upon me whom they pierced;" and we are told, John xix. 34, "that one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side," &c. Compare further, Ps. xxii. 7, 8, with Mat. xxvii. 39. 41. 43. Zech. xi. 13, with Mat. id. 6, 7. Zech. ix. 9 with Mat. xxi. 9. Lastly, Isa. liii. 9 with Mat. xxvii. 38. 57.

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Thus do the prophecies of the Old Testament, which had been constantly in the keeping of these bitter enemies of Christianity, the Jews, distinctly and harmoniously refer to the person and character of Christ. His own 62. predictions in the New Testament demand a few brief observations.

Those relating to the destruction of Jeru

salem, which specified that it should be "laid even with the ground," and not "one stone left upon another" (Luke xix. 44) before" that generation passed," (Mat. xxiv. 34,) were fulfilled in a most surprisingly literal manner, the very foundations of the temple being ploughed up by Turnus Rufus. In another remarkable prophecy, He announced the many false Messiahs that should come after Him, and the ruin in which their followers should be involved; (Mat. xxiv. 25, 26;) and that great numbers actually assumed that holy character before the final fall of the city, and led the people into the wilderness to their destruction, we learn from Josephus. (Antiq. Jud. xviii. xx.) Nay, such was their wretched infatuation, that under this delusion they rejected the offers of Titus, who courted them to peace. (B. J. vii. 12.)

7. But the seventh mark is still more pe- 63. culiar (if possible) to Christ, than even that of prophecy for no heathen oracle ever pretended to prefigure future events by types or resemblances of the fact. These types, in the instance of Christ, were of a two-fold nature, circumstantial and personal. Of the

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former kind, (not to notice the general rite of sacrifice,) may be produced as examples

1. The passover, appointed in memory of 65. that great night when the destroying angel "slew all the first-born of Egypt," passed over those houses upon whose door the blood of the Pascal Lamb was sprinkled, and directed to be eaten with (what the apostle, 1 Cor. v. 7, 8, calls) the "unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”

2. The annual expiation, in two respects; first, as the High Priest entered into the holy of holies, representing heaven, (Exod. xxv. 40; Wisd. ix. 8; Heb. ix. 24,) with the blood of the sacrifice, whose body was burnt without the camp; "wherefore Jesus, also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate;" (Heb. xiii. 12;) and, "after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down on the right hand of God:" (x. 12 :) and, secondly, as "all the iniquities of the children of Israel were put upon the head" of the scape-goat. (Lev. xvi. 21.)

3. The brazen serpent, by looking up to which the people were healed of the stings of

the fiery serpents, and whose "lifting up" was by Christ himself interpreted as emblematical of his being lifted up on the cross; (John iii. 14;) and other examples, for which consult the Pleiad. p. 62.

Of personal types, we shall confine ourselves to such as are so considered in the New Testament. 1. Adam, between whom and Christ a striking series of relations is marked: (Rom. v. 12, to the end; 1 Cor. xv. 45-49.) 2. Noah: (1 Pet. iii. 20, 21 :) 3. Melchisedec: (Heb. vii. 3.) 4. Abraham: (Rom. iv. 13.) 5. Isaac: (Heb. xi. 19:) &c. (See Pleiad. p. 64.)

8. The eighth and last mark is, that 66. the facts of Christianity are such as to make it impossible for either the relators or the hearers to believe them if false, without supposing an universal deception of the senses of mankind.

For they are related by the doers, or by eye-witnesses, to those who themselves, likewise, either were, or might have been, present (and undoubtedly knew many that were present) at their performance: to this circumstance, indeed, both Christ and his apostles often appeal. And they were of such a

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