the prophecy has literally been fulfilled. Thou shalt be built no more: though thou be sought for, yet shalt thou never be found again." It may be questioned whether the new city ever arose to that height of power, wealth, and greatness, to which it was elevated in the times of Isaiah and Ezekiel. It received a great blow from Alexander, not only by his taking and burning the city, but much more by his building of Alexandria in Egypt, which in time deprived it of much of its trade, and thus contributed more effectually to its rain. It had the misfortune afterwards of changing its masters often, being sometimes in the hands of the Ptolemies, kings of Egypt, and some times of the Selcucida, kings of Syria, till at length it fell under the dominion of the Romans. It was taken by the Saracens about the year of Christ 639, in the reign of Omar their third emperor. It was retaken by the christians during the time of the holy war in the year 1124, by Baldwin, the second of that name, being then king, of Jerusalem, and assisted by a fleet of the Venetians. From the christians it was taken again, in the year 1289, by the Mamelukes of Egypt, under their Sultal Alphix, who sacked and razed this and Sidon and other strong towns, in order that they night never afford any harbour or shelter to the christians. From the Mamelukes it was again taken in the year 1516, by Selim, the ninth emperor of the Turks; and under their dominion it continues at present. But alas, how fallen, how changed from what it was formerly! For, from being the centre of trade, frequented by all the merchant ships of the east and west, it is now become a heap of ruins, visited only by the boats of a few poor fishermen.So that as to this part likewise of the city, the prophecy has literally been fulfilled. I will make thee like the top of a rock; thou shalt be a place to spread nets upon." Of Egypt he says,

· Egypt was one of the most ancient and powerful king

doms in former ages: and at one period is said to have contained eighteen thousand cities and seventeen millions of inhabitants. The revolutions and state of this kingdom were minutely described by the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. [For the most striking of those denunciations, we refer our readers to Ezekiel, xxix, 15, 16. xxx. 6, 12, 13.] It is now upwards of two thousand four hundred years since this prophecy was delivered; and what likelihood or appearance was there, that so great a kingdom, so rich and fertile a country, should for so many ages bow under a foreign yoke, and never during that long period be able to recover its liberties, and have a prince of its own to reign over them? But as is the prophecy so is the event. For, not long afterwards, Egypt was successively attacked and conquered by the Babylonians and Persians on the subversion of the Persian empire by Alexander, it became subject to the Macedonians, then to the Romans, and after them to the Saracens, then to the Mamelukes, and is now a province of the Turkish empire: and the general character of its inhabitants is a compound of baseness, treachery, covetousness, and malice. Syene is in ruins; and the idols of Egypt are scattered. And all modern travellers attest that the numerous canals with which this country was anciently intersected, are (with the exception of a few in Lower Egypt) now neglected. The consequence is, that a very large proportion of the country is abandoned to sand and to unfruitfulness, while the effect is a fulfilment of the threatening, I will make her rivers dry. The annual supply of enriching and fertilizing water, being now lost to an immense tract of country on both sides of the Nile, sand, the natural soil, prevails: yegetation, which once bound, together the earth by the roots and fibres of grass, is burnt up. And what was once a fruitful field, has become desolate, overwhelmed by flying blasts of sand, and consigned to ages of solitude."

RELIGION VINDICATED.

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IX. Inspiration of the Scriptures.-No doubt many vague and indistinct ideas obtain with regard to the true import and extent of the inspiration of the Scriptures. The Bible is properly called the word of God, the revelation of heaven, the inspiration of God, &c. From this phraseology many have inferred that christians suppose the writers of the Bible to have been as passive in that writing as wooden machines that they were passively moved on by the Holy Ghost to the use of every word and the formation of every letter. That the writers used no human knowledge or agency, but took their pens in hand, and suffered them to be moved entirely by the invisible power of God. We believe no such thing; and we think enlightened christians generally do not. No such a revelation was necessary; but it was only necessary that the writers should have extraordinary powers where their ordinary qualifications were deficient or inadequate to the work assigned them. They had a competent knowledge of the language they used, therefore they needed uo inspiration on this point. Hence we are not to suppose the phraseology or rhetorick, or style of the Bible any more inspired than other books.

Agreeably to this idea we discover as many different styles of composition as there were different writers. Each evidently used a style peculiar to himself.

2. They obtained much knowledge of facts by ordinary means, and it was unnecessary that they should be inspired with such knowledge as they possessed without extraordinary inspiration. Hence they relate many incidents both in the Old and New Testament, which they learned by the ordinary senses, which they had seen and heard; and not unfrequently, they speak of things, customs, and circumstances, which were known as matters of general and undisputed notoriety. Moses tells us that the waters of the red sea opened to let the Hebrews pass, but he knew this fact without any extraordinary inspiration. The Evange29 *

lists tell us what they saw and heard, &c. And so we may say of all the writers, when they recorded facts which they knew by ordinary means, they depended not on extraordinary inspiration for their knowledge. The apostles were enabled to work miracles, when miracles were necessary to accomplish the divine purposes, but we should not conclude from thence that they walked about, eat, drank, &c. miraculously. From these remarks it will be perceived, that we conclude the writers used their own langttage and style in all cases; that they recorded facts, learned by the ordinary mcans, whenever such means of information were adequate to the grand object of the revelation...

This accounts for the fact that different writers relate the same event with different phraseology, and particularity. This little variety, while it forbids the idea of concert or combination, demonstrates that the facts were so obvious, that the different writers saw and knew them in their own persons. So far from being any disparagement to the records, it proves clearly that each recorded such facts as most forcibly impressed his senses, or most powerfully attracted his notice, without any consultation or connivance with the others. What we have here said for the non-inspiration of the Scriptures, will account for all the diversity of style, all the variety of figures, all the ambiguity of expression, all the trifling and unimportant discrepancies in the relation of substantial facts, and all such phraseologies as offend the delicacy of a refined and improved taste. Now we will tell what we conceive to be the true inspiration of the Bible. 1. The writers were inspired with an unyielding integrity of heart, or a disposition to tell the truth only. 2. They were inspired with all the knowledge necessary to the revelation, which they could not acquire by ordinary means. For instance, those meu, who saw Jesus Christ on earth; who saw his miracles performed, who saw him crucified, who saw him after his resurrection, and heard his instructions from his lips, would

need no other inspiration to make a faithful record of all these things, that should be substantially true, than merely a disposition to record the truth only. But when they are to record a moral or doctrinal principle or a prediction, not to be known by ordinary means, and not heard from Jesus himself, they must be inspired by the Holy Spirit with the knowledge of such truth. We may say then that the Scriptures were written by men in human language, who were inspired to write the truth, and so guided by the spirit of God as to make the book substantially true in all its doctrinal and moral features, all its splendid miracles, all its predictions, all its historical relations, and every thing that is essential to the substantial perfection of the whole.

Although we suppose much of the Scriptures to consist of well authenticated facts which the writers knew by ordinary and natural means, yet God miraculously made known to them, whatever was necessary to make the whole perfect in all essential matters of doctrine and fact. So clearly is their divine inspiration, so far as this, established, that were we to go to the evidence on both sides, examine every argument that has ever been adduced by its opponents, and every argument in its favour, we should find an irresistible and overwhelming balance to preponderate in its support. It is not necessary, as some philosophers have insinuated and their dupes have believed, for us to reject philosophy in order to be christians. No, we could never believe on such terms. True philosophy and sound reason will coalesce in every particular with every principle of the Bible and every particle of christianity. We may not see the reason of some things revealed; but is it not a fact that all human reason is imperfect? Were it not so, a revelation would not have been necessary. Whatever in revelation reason cannot clearly explain is not contrary to reason but above it. Christianity is reasonable, but it requires the reason of God to perceive the reason of the whole of it. However, the more perfect our reason becomes by

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