to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness."* And in the gospel of peace these promised blessings are realized. We now see what many prophets and wise men did desire in vain to see. The Christian religion has indeed been sadly perverted and corrupted, and its corruptions are the subjects of prophecy. Bigotry has often tarnished and obscured all its benignity. Its lovely form has been shrouded in a mask of superstition, of tyranny, and of murder. But the religion of Jesus, pure from the lips of its Author and the pen of his apostles, is calculated to diffuse universal happiness-tends effectually to promote the moral culture and the civilization of humanity-ameliorates the condition and perfects the nature of man. It is a doctrine of righteousness, a perfect rule of duty; it abolishes idolatry, and teaches all to worship God only; it is full of promises to all who obey it; it reveals the method of reconciliation for iniquity, and imparts the means to obtain it; it is good tidings to the meek; it binds up the broken-hearted, and presents to us the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, or the most perfect system of consolation, under all the evils of life, that can be conceived by man. For the confirmation of all these prophecies concerning it we stand not in need of Jewish testimony, or that of the primitive Christians, or of any testimony whatever. It is a matter of experience and of fact. The doctrine of the gospel is in complete accordance with the predictions respecting it. When we compare it with any impure, degrading, vicious, and cruel system of religion that existed in the world when these prophecies were delivered, its superiority must be apparent, and its unrivalled excellence must be acknowledged. Deities were then worshipped whose vices disgraced human nature; and even impiety could not institute a comparison between them and the God of Christians. Idolatry was universally prevalent, and men knew not a higher honour than the humiliation of bowing down in adoration to stocks and stones, and sometimes even to the beasts. Sacrifices were every where offered up, and human victims often bled, when the doctrine of reconciliation for iniquity was unknown. And we have * Isa. lii. 7; lxi. 1; xlii. 1, 3. Jer. xxxi 34. Dan. ix 24. only to look beyond the boundaries of Christianity,-to Ashantee, or to India, or to China,-to behold the most revolting of spectacles in the religious rites and practices of man. Regarding the superiority of the Christian religion only as a subject of prophecy, the assent can hardly be withheld, that the prophecies concerning its excellence, and the blessings which it imparts, have been amply verified by the peace-speaking gospel of Jesus. But, in ascertaining the accomplishment of ancient predictions, in evidence of the truth, the unbeliever is not solicited to relinquish one iota of his skepticism in any matter that can possibly admit of a reasonable doubt. For there are many prophecies of the truth of which every Christian is a witness, and to the fulfilment of which the testimony even of infidels must be borne. That the gospel emanated from Jerusalem-that it was rejected by a great proportion of the Jews-that it was opposed at first by human power-that idolatry has been overthrown before it-that kings have become subject to it and supported it-that it has already continued for many ages and that it has been propagated throughout many countries, are facts clearly foretold and literally fulfilled :-" Out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, and he shall judge among the nations.* He shall be for a sanctuary, but for a stone of stumbling, and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel; for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.† The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord, and against his anointed." In like manner Christ frequently foretold the persecution that awaited his followers, and the final success of the gospel, in defiance of all opposition. "The Lord alone shall be exalted in that day, and the idols he shall utterly abolish; from all your idols I will cleanse you ;-I will cut off the name of idols out of the land, and they shall no more be remembered.§-To a servant of rulers, kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship. The Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. Kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers. The Gentiles shall Isa. ii. 3, 4. Micah iv. 2. † Isa. viii, 14 Ps. ii. 2. Mat. x. 17; xvi. 18; xxiv. 14; xxvii. 19 see thy righteousness;-a people that knew me not shall be called after my name. In that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign to the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek. I will make an everlasting covenant with you. Behold thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not, and nations that knew not thee shall run after thee."* At the time the prophecies were delivered, there was not a vestige in the world of that spiritual kingdom and pure religion which they unequivocally represent as extending in succeeding ages, not only throughout the narrow bounds of the land of Judea, and those countries which alone the prophets knew, but over the Gentile nations also, even to the uttermost ends of the earth. None are now ignorant of the facts, that a system of religion which inculcates piety, and purity, and love,— which releases man from every burthensome rite, and every barbarous institution, and proffers the greatest of blessings,- -arose from the land of Judea, from among a people who are the most selfish and worldly-minded of any nation upon earth;-that, though persecuted at first, and rejected by the Jews, it has spread throughout many nations, and extended to those who were far distant from the scene of its origin; and that it freely invites all to partake of its privileges, and makes no distinction between Barbarian, Scythian, bond or free. A Latin poet, who lived at the commencement of the Christian era, speaks of the barbarous Britons as almost divided from the whole world; and yet, although far more distant from the land of Judea than from Rome, the law which hath come out from Jerusalem, hath taken, by its influence, the name of barbarous from Britain; and in our "distant isle of the Gentiles," are the prophecies fulfilled, that the kingdom of the Messiah, or knowledge of the gospel, would extend to the uttermost part of the earth. And, in the present day, we can look from one distant isle of the Gentiles to another,-from the northern to the southern ocean, or from one extremity of the globe to another, -and behold the extinction of idolatry, and the abolition of every barbarous and cruel rite, by the humanizing influence of the gospel. But it was at a time when no divine light dawned upon the world, save obscurely on the land of Judea alone; when all the surrounding *Isa. xi. 10; lv. 5. nations, in respect to religious knowledge, were involved in thick darkness, gross superstition, and blind idolatry: when men made unto themselves gods of corruptible things; when those mortals were deified, after their death, who had been subject to the greatest vices, and who had been the oppressors of their fellow-men; when the most shocking rites were practised as acts of religion; when the most enlightened among the nations of the earth erected an altar to the "unknown god," and set no limit to the number of their deities; when one of the greatest of the heathen philosophers, and the best of their moralists, despairing of the clear discovery of the truth by human means, could merely express a wish for a divine revelation, as the only safe and certain guide ;* when slaves were far more numerous than freemen even where liberty prevailed the most; and when there was no earthly hope of redemption from temporal bondage or spiritual slavery:-even at such a time the voice of prophecy was uplifted in the land of Judea, and it spoke of a brighter day that was to dawn upon the world. It was indeed a light shining in a dark place. And from whence could that light have emanated but from heaven? A Messiah was promised-a prince of peace was to appear-a stone was to be cut without hands that should break in pieces and consume all other kingdoms. And the spiritual reign of a Saviour is foretold in terms that define its duration and extent, as well as describe its nature:-"I behold him, but not now-I see him, but not nigh. His name shall endure for ever, his name shall be continued as long as the sun, and men shall be blessed in him, all nations shall call him blessed. He shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.-Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.-All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn unto the Lord-and all kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee.t-I will give thee for a light of the Gentiles, that thou mayst be my salvation to the ends of the earth.-The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.‡-The Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations. He shall not fail nor be discouraged till he have set judg*Plato in Phædone et in Alcibiade, II. † Ps. Ixxii. 8, 17; ii. 8; xxii. 27, 28. + Isa. xl. 5. ment in the earth; and the isles shall wait for his law.* --He will destroy the face of the covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations.†-I am sought of them that asked not for me,-I am found of them that sought me not,-I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name.‡-It shall come to pass, in the last days, say both Isaiah and Micah in the same words, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills-and all nations shall flow unto it.§-In the place where it was said, Ye are not my people, it shall be said, Ye are the sons of the living God. The abundance of the sea shall be converted unto Thee-the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto Thee.-Sing, O barren, thou didst not bear-break forth into singing and cry aloud-for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife (more Gentiles than Jews).**-Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations,-spare not, lengthen thy cords, for thou shalt break forth on the right-hand and on the left-and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles-for thy Maker is thy husband-the Lord of Hosts is his name-the Lord of the whole earth shall he be called-the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose."++ These prophecies all refer to the extent of the Messiah's kingdom; and clear and copious though they be, they form but a small number of the predictions of the same auspicious import;-and we have not merely to consider what part of them may yet remain to be fulfilled, but how much has already been accomplished of which no surmise could have been formed, and of which all the wisdom of shortsighted mortals could not have warranted a thought. All of them were delivered many ages before the existence of that religion whose progress they minutely describe; and, when we compare the present state of any country where the gospel is professed in its purity, with its state at that period when the Sun of righteousness began to arise upon it, we see light pervading the region of darkness, and ignorance and barbarism yielding to knowledge and moral cultivation. In * Isa. lii. 10; xlii. 4. † Isa. xxv. 7. || Hos. i. 10. Isa. lxv. 1. ¶ Isa. lx. 5. |