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of the Messiah was limited to Judah; and after another interval of six or seven hundred years, to the house of David, the son of Jesse. Another prophet, separate from all the preceding, and three hundred years later than the promise to David, fixes the place of Messiah's birth. Isaiah about the same time announces, that a voice in the wilderness should call on men to prepare his way. But an express precursor and messenger was only predicted, as prophecy was closing its first commission, at a distance of three hundred years from the preceding.

And it is to be observed, that this series of continually narrowing limitations, did not in any way arise, the one from the other, by any human deduction or calculation. They were all independent prophecies. It by no means followed from the Messiah being of the seed of Abraham, that he should descend from the tribe of Judah. It by no means followed by any necessary deduction, from the prophecy of the sceptre in the tribe of Judah, that David's should be the individual family from which the Messiah was to spring. It in no way followed, from the descent from David, that the birth should be at Bethlehem; nor did it follow from any or all the preceding limitations, that a voice, uttered by a messenger like to Elijah, should introduce the Messiah.

So far from any succeeding prophet deducing the matter of his predictions from those who went before him, he did not himself fully understand his own. They enquired and searched diligently what and what manner of time the spirit of Christ that was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. Each prediction, therefore, in every age, was a distinct sign of a divine prescience; and the harmony of all in the one person of Christ, was a most illustrious proof of the infinite wisdom from which the whole proceeded.

But not only are the long succession of prophecies, and the independence in the delivery of them to be noticed; we are to observe further, that here is an entire people, as the inimitable Pascal remarks, who announce the Messiah by all their institutions, usages, laws, ceremonies, the whole of their religion: this people subsist from the time of Moses to Christ, to give in a body their testimony to their assurances of his coming, from which nothing can divert them, however threatened or persecuted. Here is a national and religious polity, all the parts of which are symbols, in one way or other, of the kingdom of Messiah. The priesthood, the tabernacle, the temple, the sacrifices, the festivals, are all representative of the same

blessings; and unite with the predictions of the prophets to paint out the same extraordinary person. It is not only all this; but it is all this subsisting till the Messiah appeared, and then dissolving and vanishing away; the people dispersed, (as we shall see in the second part of our present lecture,) the polity annihilated, the institutions closed, the prophetic voice silenced, the whole scene withdrawn, in order to throw an unsullied brightness around the person and kingdom of the Saviour, for the faith and adoration of mankind.

To say that all these wonderful predictions, accomplished in the Messiahship of Christ, prove a prophetic inspiration, and the truth of the revelation which it communicates, is to say little-they pour upon that revelation, and upon the Saviour, a flood of evidence and of glory, which is entirely in harmony with the unparalleled dignity of his person, and the infinite value of the benefits he came to procure for man. But we may remark,

III. That the CIRCUMSTANCES CONNECTED with the accomplishment of these predictions, and especially THE ACCUMULATION OF PROPHETICAL INSPIRATION, increase the proof of divine foreknowledge in the prophecies which we are considering.

1. Had these several predicted events occurred in the history of our Lord, in any manner whatever, the necessary proof would have been furnished of his Messiahship. But in all the main particulars, there was an apparent improbability which was overcome, step by step, by an evident arrangement of divine providence; and thus the marks of a supernatural agency, both in the prediction and the fulfilment of them, are multiplied.

The birth of the Messiah was to be at Bethlehem; but Joseph and Mary were inhabitants of Galilee. In what manner, then, is the event brought to answer the prediction? A decree issues from Cæsar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. The blessed virgin and Joseph go up to Bethlehem, the royal city, because they were of the house and lineage of David. And so it was, that whilst they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. By this arrangement of providence, the birth of Messiah at Bethlehem is more distinctly marked, and the lineage of the virgin noted; whilst the publicity of the taxing fixes the date of the nativity; and the whole displays a divine foreknowledge and wisdom, first unfolding in prophecy the events which it afterwards accomplished. Similar remarks may be made on other parts of our Lord's history, and especially on his last sufferings.

2. But the accumulation of prophetical inspiration is yet more striking: for there is not only an arrangement in the accomplishment of the prophecies of the Messiah, but a new prophetical inspiration attending that accomplishment. Not only is John Baptist the precursor of the Messiah, but, lo! an angel appears to his father Zacharias, foretels his birth of Elizabeth, who was barren as well as advanced in age, expounds the prophecy of Malachi, adds new circumstances, announces the name of the Baptist, and inflicts a punishment on the unbelieving and astonished father. This is what I term an accumulation of prophetical inspiration. In like manner, an angelic message announces to the favoured virgin, that she should be the mother of our Lord, and predicts the circumstances and manner of the miraculous nativity: a similar message relieves Joseph from his perplexity, designates the name which the divine babe was to receive, and describes before-hand his future office.

When our Lord entered upon his ministry, his doctrine and miracles, as we have already noticed, not only fulfilled the required terms of the ancient predictions, but were in themselves independent proofs of a divine mission. But what shall we say, when we further find an accumulation of prophetical inspiration, in his

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