world, clothes the heavens with blackness, Is. 1. 3.; and in equal mercy to the moral world, veils his nature and providence in thick clouds, and makes darkness his pavilion, Ps. xviii. 11?

TO THESE deductions from the text, more might be added. For I believe it will be found that if the end of prophecy, as here delivered, be steadily kept in view and diligently pursued, it will go a great way towards leading us to a prosperous issue in most of those inquiries, which are thought to perplex this subject. But I mean to reason from it no farther than just to shew, in the way of specimen, the method in which it becomes us to speculate on the prophetic system. We are not to imagine principles, at pleasure, and then apply them to that system. But we are, first, to find out what the principles are, on which prophecy is founded, and by which it claims to be tried; and then to see whether they will hold, that is, whether they will aptly and properly apply the particulars, of which it is compounded. If they will, the system itself is thus far clearly justified. All that remains is to compare the prophecies with their corresponding events, in order to assure ourselves that there is real evidence of their completion.

The use of this method has been shewn in FOUR capital instances. It is objected to the

scriptural prophecies, that they are obscure-that they abound in double senses-that they were delivered to one people-that, after all, there is sometimes difficulty in making out the completion-all of them, it is said, very suspicious circumstances; and which rather indicate a scheme of human contrivance, than of divine inspiration.

To these objections it is replied, that, from the very idea which the scriptures themselves give of prophecy, these circumstances, must needs be found in it; and further still, that these circumstances, when fairly considered, do honour to that idea for that the obscurity, complained of, results, from the immensity of the scheme-the double senses, from the intimate connexion of its parts-the partial and confined delivery, from the wisdom and necessity of selecting a peculiar people to be the vehicle and repository of the sacred oracles-And lastly, the incomplete evidence, from the nature of the subject, and from the moral genius of that dispensation, to which the scheme of prophecy itself belongs.

In conclusion, it is now seen to what purpose these preliminary discourses serve, and in what method they have been conducted.

The FIRST, shewed the vanity and folly of reasoning on the subject of scriptural prophecy from our preconceived fancies and arbitrary as. sumptions. The SECOND, shewed the only true way of reasoning upon it to be from scriptural principles, and then opened and explained one such principle. In this LAST, I have shewn that, by prosecuting this way of reasoning from the principle assigned, some of the more specious objections to the scriptural prophecies are easily obviated.

Taken together, these three discourses serve to illustrate the general idea of prophecy, considered as one great scheme of testimony to the religion of Jesus; and consequently open a way for the fair and equitable consideration of particular prophecies, the more immediate subject of this lecture.

SERMON IV.

THE GENERAL ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY.

JOHN xiii. 19.

Now I tell you before it come, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe, that I am He.

IT hath been concluded (not on the slight grounds of hypothesis, but on the but on the express authority of scripture,) that prophecy was given TO ATTEST THE MISSION OF JESUS: to afford a reasonable evidence, that the scheme of redemption, of which he was the great instrument and minister, was, in truth, of divine appointment; and was carried on under the immediate cognizance and direction of the Supreme Being, whose prerogative it is to see through all time, and to call those things, which be not, as though they were.

*Romans iv. 17.

Our next inquiry will be, how the prophetic scriptures serve to that end, and what that evidence is (I mean, taking for granted, not the truth of the prophetic scheme itself, but the truth of the representation, given of it in scripture) which is thus administered to us by the light of prophecy.

I. The text refers to a particular prophecy of our Lord, concerning the treachery of Judas; of which, says he to his disciples, I now tell you before it come, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe, that I am He: that is, "I add this, to the other predictions concerning myself; that, when ye see it fulfilled, as it soon will be, ye may be the more convinced of my being the person, I assume to be, the Messias foretold."

The information, here given, was perhaps intended by our Lord to serve a particular purpose, To prevent, we will say, the offence, which the disciples might have taken at the circumstance of his being betrayed by one of them, if they had not, previously, been admonished of it. But the reason of the thing shews, that the use, which the disciples are directed to make of this prophecy, was the general use of the prophecies concerning Jesus. The completion was to verify the prediction, in all Bases; and to convince the world, that He was