CHAPTER VI.

The subject farther considered-this prophecy of divine original-and applicable to Jesus Christ-and to him only-most probably a tradition from the prophecy relative to the "seed of the woman "very striking similarity between them.

Dr. Horseley is of opinion that this prophecy of the Cumæan Sybil (notwithstanding it bears her name) was of divine original, and that it was strictly applicable to the Messiah. When we consider who the learned prelate was, his vast erudition, the giant strength of his mind, and the time he gave to the study of the holy scriptures, and his laborious researches in order to explain them, his opinion on this as well as on all other scriptural subjects ought to have more than ordinary weight. He speaks thus upon it. "I have now established my fact, that from the

first ages of profane history to the very time of our Saviour's birth, explicit predictions of him were extant in the Gentile world, in books which were holden in religious veneration, and which were deposited in their Temples. The matter of these prophecies, and the agreement of the imagery of their language with what we find in the prophecies of holy writ, is I think a sufficient argument of their divine original. Observe, I affirm not in general of the Sybilline books that they were divine; much less do I affirm that the Sybils were women who had the gift of prophecy. I believe that they were fabulous personages, to whom the ignorant heathens ascribed the most ancient of their sacred books, when the true original of them was forgotten. But the existence of these imaginary prophetesses, and the authority of the writings ascribed to them, are distinct questions. Whether these books contained prophecies of Christ is a question of fact in which the affirmative is supported by the highest historical evidence. That these prophecies, wherever they might be found, could be of no other than divine original, the matter and the style of them is in my judgment an irrefragable argument."

Upon the above quotation I have now to ob

serve, that I fully coincide with the learned prelate in his opinion that the prophecy of the Cumæan Sybil, of which we have given a translation as it stands in Virgil, was of divine original, and also that it was strictly applicable to the Messiah. But I may go farther and say that it was applicable not only to no other person who appeared in the world about the time when the Messiah was born, but that it was applicable to no other person that ever trod upon our earth. The only person living at that time, to whom this prophecy could have applied with any thing like a seeming propriety, was Augustus; but, did it fit him? No. There was one part however of the prediction which was verified in his reign, but this only for a time. The Temple of Janus was shut three times, which had not been the case for seven hundred years before, and when it was last shut, the Romans were at peace with all the world. It must also be acknowledged that Augustus was himself an amiable man in the latter part of his life, and the patron of learned men; but this had nothing to do with morals, except that we may indulge a hope, that learning has a tendency to remove prejudices, to give men a more correct notion of things, and to make them mix more agreeably

and harmoniously in society with each other. But he was not, in the sense of this prophecy, the beginner of a reign of righteousness, or "the great deliverer from moral evil.” He did not remove "what remained of the vestiges of guilt," and thus "free the nations from fear for ever; nor did he do away any of the national vicious customs of his own times, as a first step to restore them to their former simplicity and innocence as in the golden age. He never took away one idol from the temples as preparatory to the worship of the true God. He allowed the bloody games, the gladiatorial and other cruel and wicked shows, to continue in crowded Amphitheatres for the sport of the Roman people. Nor did he endeavour by a new, I mean purer system of education to do away the prejudices of the rising generation, and thus to prepare them for the happier age, which had been predicted.

I shall now say a few words in addition to what Bishop Horseley has just said relative to this prophecy, as having been of divine original. And first, let me ask this question, where did the Cumaan Sybil get it? Or rather, did she fabricate it herself? This is impossible, for it contained such an exact description of the Messiah, and of the glorious character and consequences

of his reign, between five and six hundred years before he came, that no one but God himself, or one who had been divinely inspired, could have uttered it. But perhaps some one may say, the Sybil herself might have been inspired. This would have been contrary to what we know to have been God's usual proceeding in such cases. He never employed heathens, as Dr. Horseley contends in another place, or men in the habit of sacrificing to devils, to unfold his gracious designs beforehand to his creatures. But if the Cumaan Sybil was not herself an inspired person, and yet the prophecy was of divine original, what was it, and from whence did it come? There can be no doubt, I think, that it must have been a prophecy which had come down to the patriarchs by tradition, many hundred years before the Sybil was born, and which had been preserved by their descendants by the same. means (tradition either oval or written*) till her time, when by some means or other it fell into her hands. And now, having stated thus much, I have only one other question to propose; do

*Writing in some shape or other was known in the time of Job. "Oh, that my words were now written! Oh that they were printed in a book! That they were graven with an iron pen, and lead in the rock for ever!"