the New, that Jesus of Nazareth did rise, and therefore is the Messiah.

Among the predictive witnesses, the first place is due to that ancient and venerable order of men, styled Patriarchs, or heads of families, whose lives and actions, as well as their words, were descriptive of the person in faith of whom they lived and acted, instructing, interceding for, and conducting their dependents, as representative prophets, priests, and kings; looking forward unto the Author and Finisher of their faith and ours, who, by dying and rising again, was to exhibit to the world the divine fulness of all these characters; to teach, to atone, to reign; to bruise the serpent's head; to comfort the sons of Adam concerning the work and toil of their hands; to gather and to bless the nations. The extraordinary incidents, with which the history of these holy persons aboundeth, the frequent revolutions of their affairs from the depth of adversity to the height of prosperity, brought about by the remarkable interpositions of Heaven in their favour, naturally direct our attention to parallel circumstances in the after dispensations of God, to which foregoing ones were designed to bear testimony. In this light, the history of Isaac, intentionally offered in sacrifice, and received again from the dead in a figure; of Joseph, suffering persecution from his brethren, and by them sold into the hands of strangers, but afterwards taken from prison and from judgement, exalted to power and honour, and becoming the preserver of men ; and, under the Mosaic dispensation, the history of David, anointed to the kingdom, but wading through

a sea of troubles and sorrows to the poessssion of it; of Samson arising at midnight, dismantling the fortifications of the city where he was confined as a pri soner, and leading captivity captive; together with the accounts of many other temporal saviours and deliverers raised up to Israel in time of need, to rescue them from the oppression of their enemies; all these histories have been, from the beginning, considered as bearing an aspect to the exaltation of mankind from misery and shame to felicity and glory, through the sufferings and resurrection of the Son of God, the Champion of the church, and Redeemer of the world. And, considered in this view, they will always afford matter of instruction, of wonder, and delight, to the pious and discerning Christian.

In the class of the predictive witnesses of our Lord's resurrection, the second place is claimed by the Law. Nor will its claim be disputed by any one who shall reflect, that it prophesied until John, executing the office of a schoolmaster, to lead men, by material elements and rudiments, to an apprehension of the spiritual ideas signified and conveyed thereby, until the Baptist succeeded it in that office; who, pointing to Jesus as he walked, spake the language of its institutions, when he said, "Behold the "Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the "world." And indeed, when, after the sacramental atonement made by the death of the innocent victim, we see the Levitical high priest arrayed in the garments of glory and beauty; when we behold him purifying all the parts of the figurative tabernacle with blood, and then entering, within the veil, into the

holiest of all, to present that propitiating blood before the offended Majesty of heaven: is it possible, even though an apostle had not applied all these circumstances for us, to detain the imagination a moment from fixing itself on the great High Priest of our profession; the plenary satisfaction made on the cross; his resurrection in an immortal body, no more to stand charged with sin, no more to see corruption; the purification of the church by his precious blood; his ascension into heaven, and intercession for us in the presence of God? Again, when we read the command given to the priest, that on the morrow after the sabbath he should wave a sheaf of the first fruits, as an earnest and sanctification of the future harvest; doth it not immediately suggest to us, that on the same day, on the morrow after the sabbath, Christ arose from the dead, and became the firstfruits of them that slept, the sanctification and earnest of that harvest which shall be at the end of the world; at which time he, who, in the days of his flesh, went on weeping, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, bearing forth the precious seed of the word of life, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him? Nor can we, it is apprehended, peruse the account of the flowering rod of Aaron, deposited in the most holy place, for a perpetual memorial of the investiture of the priesthood in him and his family, without being led to reflect on the ascertainment of the eternal Melchisedekian priesthood to the person of Christ, by the reflorescence

c Levit. xxiii. 11.

d See Numb. xvii.

of that mortal part which he drew from the stem of Jesse, and which hath now taken up its residence in heaven itself, being an everlasting memorial to God and man, of the true and availing priesthood and intercession of the holy Jesus.

Next to the Patriarchs and the Law, the Prophets press for admittance, to deliver their testimony; "for the testimony of Jesus," as saith the angel in the Revelation, "is the spirit of prophecy." Some of these give their evidence in the ancient way of figure and emblem; others, with less reserve, in express literal declarations. Of the former kind is that of Jonah, devoted for the safety of the vessel in which he sailed, detained three days in what he styleth "the belly of hell," and then restored to the world again, to preach repentance to the Heathen; circumstances too plain and striking to need any comment, after that given by our Lord himself: "As Jonas was three

6.6

days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall "the Son of man be three days and three nights in "the heart of the earth'." Of a like nature is that vision of Zechariah, in which he seeth Joshua the high priest clothed with filthy garments, which are taken from him, and he is clothed with change of raiment, and other sacerdotal ornaments, denoting the purity and glory of Christ, when our iniquity passed from him, and he arose, without sin, unto salvation. And thus again, the prophecy of Haggai, that the "glory of the latter house should be greater "than that of the former"," is as true of the temple of

e Rev. xix. 10. h Haggai, ii. 9.

f Matt. xii. 40.

$ See Zechar. iii.

our Lord's body, after his resurrection, compared with that before his death, as it is of the second material temple, compared with the first, on account of the presence of God incarnate in the one, which was not in the other. Hosea delivers a prediction of the restoration of the church then oppressed and afflicted, in terms literally applicable to the virtual resurrection of the members in the Head of the church."Come and let us return unto the Lord; for he "hath torn; and he will heal us; he hath smitten, "and he will bind us up; after two days he will re"vive us; in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight'." But Isaiah is very explicit, and saith, in the person of Christ addressing himself to the church; "Thy dead men shall "live, together with my dead body shall they arise: "awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust; for "thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall "cast out the dead." And elsewhere, discoursing of the Messiah, he foretelleth expressly, that "when "he had made his soul an offering for sin, he should see his seed, he should prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord should prosper in his hands: "that he should see of the travail of his soul, and "be satisfied that because he had poured out his "soul unto death, God would afterwards give him "a portion with the great'." I shall close the predictive evidence with the famous passage from the 16th Psalm: "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell,

i Hosea, vi. 1, 2.

* Isa. xxvi. 19.

1 Isa. liii.