dom pervaded the thousand secrets both of grace and nature-the student of Scripture will not fail to trace the types of that Saviour, in whom all these characteristics were afterwards so admirably combined, and perfected. Whatsoever things are good and glorious in the history and character of these real yet typical persons, find a common focus in Christ their antitype.

Again, let such a student reflect on the deliverance of the Hebrews from the land of Egypt, and from the tyranny of Pharaoh; on their long continued wanderings in the wilderness; on the manna from the skies and the water from the rock, by which they were sustained and refreshed; on the fiery cloud which guided them on their journey; on the miraculous passage of the nation over Jordan; and on their final settlement in the land of Canaan flowing with milk and honey. What Christian does not derive from this narrative a delightful kind of instruction, while he is reminded by it, of the deliverance of Christ's followers-the whole nation of believers-from the tyranny of Satan and from the corruptions of the world; of their pilgrimage on the earth; of the spiritual bread which they eat; of the spiritual water which they drink; of the rock which accompanies them; of the light which guides them; of the death through which they must pass; and of the glorious and delightful rest-the heaven of abundant blessedness-into which they shall finally enter?

Historical facts, thus filled with an internal weight of instruction, and pointing to the vast realities of the spiritual world, must have arisen in the peculiar providence of God; and the religion with which they are connected, must be His religion. The accordances of revelation are like those of nature-numerous, unconcerted by man, peculiar, precise. Both bespeak as their only true origin, the wisdom and goodness of God.

SECTION II.

ON PROPHECY COMPARED WITH HISTORY.

THE religion of the Bible is attested by nothing more clearly than by prophecy compared with its fulfilment. Since the whole course of events arises out of the counsels of God, and since those counsels are secret and unfathomable, we may rest assured that an actual knowledge of the future, is an attribute which belongs to Him alone. Prophecies, therefore, which relate to circumstances so distant, peculiar, or complex, as to lie beyond the reach of conjecture, and which nevertheless are exactly fulfilled, can be traced by any reasonable mind, only to the Spirit of our Heavenly Father to whom all things are known, whether past, present, or future. Such prophecies are numerous in the Bible.

In order to take a full view of this branch of evidence, we must be well acquainted with

history, and with the present condition of various places and nations. The student of prophecy, for example, will of course be led to compare the predictions of the Lord Jesus respecting the siege and destruction of Jerusalem, with the relation which the historian Josephus has given of these events; and he will observe that complete agreement between the two, which clearly establishes the divine origin of the prophecy. Evidence equally strong, but still more extensive, arises from a comparison of the descriptions given by modern travellers of Babylon, Tyre, Arabia, Judæa, and many other cities and countries, with the prophecies respecting them contained in the Old Testament. Again, in the scattered condition of the Jews themselves, and in the contempt and persecution to which they have been so long exposed, persons even of very limited information, may find a standing proof that Moses and other holy men of old, who foretold these things, spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.'

66

But there are parts of the evidence derived from prophecy which, independently of any extraneous source of information, stand complete in the Bible itself. Thus the promise made to Abraham, that his seed should be like the stars of heaven for multitude, and should inherit the land of Canaan, was ac

1 The particulars of this comparison are admirably unfolded by Alexander Keith, in his little work, entitled "Evidence of the Truth of the Christian Religion derived from the literal Fulfilment of Prophecy." 1 vol. 12mo.

Το

complished in the course of centuries, and the Bible contains a full account of the fact. substantiate this proof, nothing is required but a comparison of parts of Genesis with the book of Joshua.

When Joshua had destroyed Jericho, he said," Cursed be the man before the Lord that riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho : he shall lay the foundation thereof in his firstborn, and in his youngest son shall he set up the gates of it." This prophecy was delivered about 1450 years before Christ; and the first book of Kings contains an account of its exact fulfilment more than 500 years afterwards. The reign under which the circumstance took place, and the names of all the parties concerned, are there faithfully recorded.3

When King Jeroboam was sacrificing to his idols in Bethel (B. c. 975), a man of God came and "cried against the altar in the word of the Lord, and said, O altar, altar, thus saith the Lord; Behold a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name, and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places, that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee."4 That this prophecy was actually delivered accord2 Joshua vi, 26.

3 1 Kings xvi, 34.-" In his days did Hiel the Bethelite build Jericho: he laid the foundation thereof in Abiram his firstborn, and set up the gates thereof in his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the Lord which he spake by Joshua the son of Nun."

ing to this narration, we have no reason whatever to doubt. Of its fulfilment, about 350 years afterwards the subsequent history of the Jews contains a clear account. There we read that Josiah was born of the seed of David according to the prophecy, and that he destroyed Jeroboam's altar at Bethel; "and as Josiah turned himself he spied the sepulchres that were in the mount, and sent and took the bones out of the sepulchres, and burnt them upon the altar and polluted it, according to the word of the Lord which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words."5

Jeremiah's predictions of the invasion of Judæa and the destruction of Jerusalem by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar, of the captivity of the Jews in Babylon during seventy years, and of their peaceful return to their own land, were utterly disregarded by his hearers as improbable and absurd. Yet they were all accomplished in the course of a century, and subsequent historians or prophets who probably had no connexion with

52 Kings xxiii, 16.-There is a point in this example, which affords a striking evidence of its authenticity. The prophecy states that the priests were to be offered on the altar, and men's bones burnt thereon. The history mentions only the burning of the bones of the priests on the altar. The history unfolds the true meaning of the prediction, which was that the priests should be offered on the altar by the burning of their skeletons upon it. Yet this apparent difference would surely have been avoided by a forger, had such an one either invented the history as a key to the prophecy, or composed the prophecy after the event had happened.