the smaller kingdoms, by the like evidence of extrinsic information. For these less considerable states have buried with them the documents which might have thrown light upon our inquiry. They were soon crumbled into oblivion; and the confirmations of prophecy have in some points perished with thein. Whereas the others, the greater kingdoms, have left behind them their memorials, which serve to verify the oracles of Scripture. Prophecy has struck its root in the relics of their history; and the shadow of it overhangs and overspreads their ruins.

I do not intend to insist upon the prophecies concerning kingdoms of inferior note. They are less suited to the purpose of an inquiry into the first proofs of the prophetic Inspiration, and they address themselves less powerfully, than some others do, to our attention at the present day. But before I quit the mention of them, I would say a few words to obviate any suspicion which may be raised to their disparagement.

Be it considered, then, for the honour of the Scripture Oracles, that the divine prescience might be as truly manifested, and God's Providence as justly explained, by predictions on the smaller scale as on the greater; and, secondly, that these inferior subordinate states whose importance is now so lost to us, were seen in a very different light by the people of Judæa. To them they were jealous neigh

bours, or active enemies; and they were felt by them in the contentions, or other interests of vicinage, which is itself equivalent to a relation of importance.

The pertinence, therefore, and the use, of these minor predictions, as delivered to the Jewish Church, are not in the least impaired by the magnitude of some other subjects of prophecy. We have seen before* that one of its ends and

purposes was in being the interpreter and expositor of God's providence to his ancient people, who might be competently taught by means, suited to them, which, in the lapse of time, may have lost something of their original force and clearness. And this change in the degree of evidence attending the several portions of prophecy, instead of arguing any defect in it, rather shews its integrity, by representing to us how truly and closely it was accommodated, in certain parts, to the known condition and circumstances of that people to whom it was immediately given; whilst others of its oracles have been of such a kind as to offer a conviction to every age. To the Israelite, assuredly, prophecy was not less important, or less capable of being scrutinized, when it spoke to him on things affecting his particular national concerns; but rather, that circumstance in it, which may seem a defect relatively to us, was, to him, an advantage, in the proximity of these its more confined and local subjects.

Disc. VI. Part iii. p. 386.

Having said so much on this head, I turn to the other class of predictions, those which carry us into the more considerable empires or communities of the ancient Eastern World.

First, I state that there are prophecies extant of the complete overthrow, or signal degradation of all the four kingdoms of Nineveh, Babylon, Tyre, and Egypt, which overthrow and degradation have come to pass. In this general view, the broad page of prophecy, and that of history, agree together.

But let it be supposed, that in these events, thus briefly described, there is nothing unusual, nothing so different from the common course of things, that any proof of a divine prescience can be grounded upon the prediction of them. Empires, it may be said, rise and fall; their mutability, and their decay, is a matter of experience; and human foresight confidently predicts the termination of their great

ness.

In this kind of remark there is some reason; but not so much as may at first appear. For it is to be remembered, that we are now living late in the world, and Experience has had a long study of human affairs. We have therefore principles whereupon to calculate, which in foregone times, two thousand five hundred years ago, were not established. In an earlier age, when the general march of things was more progressive, and the efforts of man, in policy, arts, and conquest, were expanding in their first circle, the notion of a great shock of

ruin and decay befalling consolidated and settled kingdoms was more remote from view: and to most of the kingdoms which I have mentioned, for example, to Nineveh, Babylon, and Egypt, such a shock of decay could not be predicted upon the observation of a similar fate having befallen others like to them; because none like to them had existed, none equally furnished with the elements of a secure and permanent greatness. So far as these things have subsequently happened, prophecy has preceded the experience of them; and, in their great unfrequency, it has gone beyond the mark of our experience.

But prophecy speaks a language, with respect to these ancient flourishing kingdoms, which will oblige us at once to change our hypothesis of objection. For, in each case, it combines with the general event, particulars of distinction which connot be mistaken for the anticipations of human foresight. Some of these particulars it will be necessary to quote.

I. The predictions of the prophet Nahum aré confined exclusively to the destruction of the kingdom and city of Nineveh. 1. One of the things foretold by him is this? "For while they be folded "together as thorns, and while they are drunken as "drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble fully

dry." 2. Another: "The gates of the rivers shall "be opened; and the palace shall be dissolved," Each of these particulars of the

or

"molten."

prophecy is something distinctive; and each of them happens to be verified to us by the testimony of a distant and neutral witness, an heathen historian, who had it little in his thoughts when he was transmitting such incidents of his multifarious Compilation, that he was confirming the exactness of an ancient Jewish prophet. From Diodorus Siculus *; who is the author here referred to, we learn that the Assyrian camp, in a state of drunkenness, during a general festival, was surprised and overwhelmed. The prophet's image, of their being "folded together" and entangled "as thorns," accurately expressing the embarrassment and inability of defence, in which they were involved; and the sudden mastery which was made of them, and pressed to a complete victory, being equally described in the image of "a " flame devouring the dry stubble," and enwrapping it in an instant conflagration.

From the same writer we derive this other critical circumstance; that during the siege of Nineveh, in the third year of it, an inundation of the river (which was the Tigris), caused by an excessive and continuous fall of rains, burst the walls, and laid them open, such was the magnitude of the city, to the extent of twenty stadia; upon which the king, seeing no hope of safety in defence, raised a vast pile, on which he consumed himself in the flames of

* Lib. ii. p. 112. ed. Rhodom, quoted by Bishop Newton.