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person of Christ, and confirm, beyond all hesitation, the claim resting on the circumstances of the time of his birth, his descent, and the messenger who preceded him.

iii. But more than this. Not only were these numerous events predicted which infallibly mark out our Lord as the true Messiah; but also such other events were foretold, as constituted of themselves independent proofs of a divine mission. The miracles of Christ were, as I have before observed, the object of divine prophecy. The lame that walked, the blind that received their sight, the lepers that were cleansed, the dead that were raised to life-miracles in themselves, original marks of a divine commission-were foretold of the Messiah. When Christ cometh, will he do greater things than these? was the remark of the multitude when witnessing our Lord's mighty works.

The doctrine also which Christ taught, the gospel addressed to the poor, the consolation and peace infused into the breasts of the brokenhearted, were objects of prediction. The sermon preached at Nazareth, had been delivered before by the prophet Isaiah.27

The agreement of the prophecy with the event, in such instances has an additional force, 27 Isai. lxi. 1-3; Luke iv. 16-29.

because these miracles conjoined with the doctrine, were of themselves credentials of a divine authority.

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iv. Further, such particulars were foretold of the Messiah as constituted, in connexion with those already considered, a character of the most peculiar kind, and uniting qualities and attributes apparently the most contradictory; and therefore, if found in the person of our Lord, proving his Messiahship in a still more decisive manner. For, besides his sufferings already noticed, he was to be a branch from the root of Jesse, to grow up as a tender plant, and a root out of a dry ground; to be rejected and despised of men, to be oppressed and afflicted, 29 to be a worm, and no man, to be the servant of rulers," to be a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, to have no form nor comeliness, to be hated without a cause,3 to endure shame and reproach, 34 to be accused by false witnesses, 35 to have his visage marred more than any man; 36 in a word, to be emphatically the Son of man, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. 38

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29 Isa. liii. 2, 3,
32 Isa. viii. 14.
35 Ps. xxxv. 11, 20.
38 Isa. liii. 3.

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30 Ps. xxii. 6. 33 Ps. Ixix. 4. 36 Isa. lii. 14.

X

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And yet, on the other hand, the Messiah was to be the Son of God, 39 the Shiloh, 40 the Star out of Jacob," the Redeemer, the Living One, the chief corner-stone, the Lord of David," the Ruler and King of Israel, Emmanuel, God with us; 46 Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the Father or Possessor of eternity; whose goings forth were of old from everlasting; 48 the supreme God," Jehovah, 50—in a word, the object of adoration, hope, devotion, confidence, love, and religious homage; the eternal and immutable Being, "2 the Creator of all things. 53

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It is hardly necessary to observe, that these high, and yet humiliating descriptions; these prophecies of depressed mortality and exalted glory; these names of manhood and of deity; of frailty and of power; of the creature and the Creator; were all fulfilled, and fulfilled clearly and plenarily in the person and character of Christ; and fix by the apparent contradictions which they involve, the identity of his person.

39 Ps. ii. 7, 12.
41 Numb. xxiv. 17.
43 Isa. xxviii. 16.

45 Isa. vi. 1-3.

47 Isa. ix. 5, 6.

49 Isa. xlv. 21-25.

5 Ps. ii. 12; xcvii. 7.

40 Gen. xlix. 10.
42 Job xix. 23-27.
44 Ps cx. 1.

46 Isa. vii. 14.

48 Micah v. 2.

50 Jer. xxiii. 6..

52 Ps. cxviii. 25-29.

53 Isa. xlv. 10, 11.

This Man of Sorrows he was, as well as the King of Glory. Nor has there ever appeared a person beside him, during the four or five thousand years which have elapsed since some of these prophecies were delivered, to whom these wonderful, and varied, and numerous, and apparently contradictory particulars were ever capable of being applied.

It may assist the mind in conceiving the force of this part of the argument, to be reminded, that the probability of any number of particular facts occurring in the case of any one person, is exceedingly small. Supposing only fifty independent circumstances had been predicted of the Messiah, and that there was an equal chance, to use the language of mathematicians, for the happening or the failure of any one of the supposed particulars, the probability against the occurrence of all the particulars in any way, is that of the fiftieth power of two to unity, that is, greater than eleven hundred and twenty-five millions of millions to one. And this computation is exclusive of the considerations of time and place. It supposes also the affairs of the world to be left to blind chance." I only mention this circumstance in this cursory manner; the argument needs it not.

But I observe,

5+ Gregory.

II. That the NUMBER AND VARIOUS AGES OF THE PROPHETS by whom these predictions were delivered, and THE INDEPENDENCE OF THEIR PREDICTIONS one of the other, increase the proof of divine prescience.

The numerous predictions which we have cited, to which many more might have been added, were not delivered by one prophet at any one given period. If they had; if every one of the prophetic marks of the Messiah had been foretold, for instance, by Haggai or Malachi, after the Babylonish captivity, the argument would have been conclusive. But there is much more in the case before us as it actually stands. We have a succession of prophets during four thousand years, who arise one after another, to predict these things of the same person, the Messiah. We have a chain of prophecies, the links of which are indescribably minute, or apparently unsuitable to each other, and yet which form, when brought together,

one unbroken series.

The first prediction of the birth of the great Deliverer was uttered, as we have more than once observed, in the garden of transgression, four thousand years before the accomplishment. Two thousand years from this time passed before the family of Abraham was designated. After a lapse of three or four more centuries, the descent

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