I see with my eyes; and which the apostle Peter called a more sure word, that is, proof, than what he saw and heard upon the holy mount, when our blessed Saviour was transfigured before him and two other of the apostles: for having repeated that passage as a proof of that whereof they were eye-witnesses, and heard the voice from heaven giving attestation to our Lord Christ, 2 Pet. i, 16, 17, 18, he says, v. 19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy for the proof of this Jesus being the Mes siah; that is, the prophecies which had gone before of him, from the beginning o the world; and all exactly fulfilled in him.

Men may dispute an imposition or delt sion upon our outward senses; but how can that be false which has been so long, even from the beginning of the world, and so often, by all the prophets, in several ages, foretold? how can this be an imposi tion, or a forgery ?*

Sometimes the plainest prophecies, the most public miracles, and the annals of kingdoms, well known when those books were first received, wonderfully concur to demonstrate their authenticity. Take one instance out of many: A prophet out of Judah, above 300 years before the event, thus fore. told the pollution of Jeroboam's altar at Bethel, bes fore Jeroboam himself, who was attended by his priests, his courtiers, and no dotibt a vast number of

This is particularly insisted on, in the Method with the Jews. And even the Deists must confess, that that book we call the Old Testament, was in being, in the hands of the Jews, long before our Saviour came into the world.* And if they will be at the pains to compare the prophecies that are there of the Messiah, with the fulfilling of them, as to time, place, and all other circumstances, in the person, birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of our

itlolatrous worshippers: O altar, altar, thus says the Lord, behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name, who shall burn men's bones pon thee: and this is the sign: Behold, this very day, the altar shall be rent, and the ashes that are upon it scattered. King Jeroboam inflamed with anger, stretched forth his hand against the man of God, say ing to his guards, Lay hold on him. But his extended hand was dried up so that he could not pull it in again to him the rending of the altar, and the scatter ing of the fire, instantly took place; and the capital prophecy was exactly fulfilled by pious king Josiah, as you may see by comparing 1 Kings xiii. 1, with 2 Kings xxiii. 15. Can we reasonably suppose, that books, containing accounts of such public events, would have been received as divine by a divided people, if their authenticity had not been confirmed by indubitable matter of fact?

Their wonderful preservation of that book, and consequently the prophetic history of Christ, whom they reject, is itself a proof, that infinite wisdom even overrules enemies to bear reluctant testimony to the truth.

blessed Saviour, they will find this prove what our apostle here calls it, a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts. Which God grant. Here is no possibility of deceit or imposture.

Old prophecies, and all so agreeing, could not have been contrived to countenance new cheat; and nothing could be a cheat, that could fulfil all these.

For this therefore, I refer the Deists to the Method with the Jews.

I desire them likewise to look there, sect 11. and consider the prophecies given so long ago, of which they see the fulfilling at this day, with their own eyes, of the state of the Jews, for many ages past, and at present; without a king, or priest, or tem-. ple, or sacrifice, scattered to the four winds, sifted as with a sieve, among all nations; yet preserved, and always so to be, a distinct people from all others of the whole earth. Whereas those mighty monarchies which oppressed the Jews, and which commanded the world, in their turns, and had the greatest human prospect of perpetuity, were to be extinguished, as they have been, even that their names should be blotted out from under Heaven.

As likewise, that as remarkable of our

blessed Saviour, concerning the preservation and progress of the Christian Church, when in her swaddling-clothes, consisting only of a few poor fishermen ; not by the sword, as that of Mahomet, but under all the persecution of men and hell; which yet should not prevail against her.

But though I offer these, as not to be slighted by the Deists, to which they can show nothing equal in all profane history, and in which it is impossible any cheat can lie; yet I put them not upon the same foot as the prophecies before-mentioned of the marks and coming of the Messiah, which have been since the world began.

And that general expectation of the whole earth at the time of his coming, insisted upon in the Method with the Jews, sectu 5.1 is greatly to be noticed.

But, I say, the foregoing prophecies of our Saviour, are so strong a proof, as even miracles would not be sufficient to break their authority.

I mean, if it were possible that a true miracle could be wrought in contradiction to them: for that would be for God to contradict himself.

But no sign, or wonder, that could pos sibly be solved, should shake this evidence. -It is this that keeps the Jews in their ob

stinacy. Though they cannot deny the matters of fact done by our blessed Saviour to be truly miracles, if so done as said; nor can they deny that they were so done, be cause they have all the four marks before-~. mentioned: yet they cannot yield! Why ? Because they think that the gospel is in contradiction to the law. Which if it were, the consequence would be unavoidable, that both could not be true. To solve this, is the business of the Method with the Jews. But the contradiction which they suppose, is in their comments that they put upon the law; especially they expect a literal fulfiling of those promises of the restoration of Jerusalem, and outward glories of the church; of which there is such frequent mention in the books of Moses, the Psalms, and all the prophets. And many Christians do expect the same, and take those texts as literally as the Jews do. We do believe, and pray for the conversion of the Jews. For this end they have been so miraculously preserved, according to the prophecies so long before of it. And when that time shall come, as they are the most honourable and ancient of all the nations on the earth; so will their church return to be the mother christian church as she was (at first; and Rome must surrender to Jerusa