DISCOURSE IX. THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. LUKE, CHAP. XXIV.-VERSES 25, 26. Then he said unto them; O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? THEY, who have studied most diligently the prophecies of the Old Testament, have been the most ready to acknowlege their obscurity.* The language, in which these books are written, they observe, is neither clear nor copious: it consists of few words, used in a great variety of senses; and these senses often not connected, but by some minute, and scarce discernible resemblance. The style of these writings, agreeably to the genius of the eastern nations, abounds with bold figures, sudden apostrophes, and frequent and unprepared transitions. The prophets too usually mix, with their predictions, histories of the preceding times, or censures of their own and to us, who have nothing to guide our search through these dark and distant ages, so necessary a distinction is not always sufficiently marked; so that we sometimes are in doubt, whether the writer is speaking of things past or future. Amidst so many difficulties, what wonder, it may be asked, that we should not readily discern all the characters of the true Messiah, when his own immediate disciples were slow in comprehending them? But the rebukes, which they frequently received from their gracious Master for this dulness, show that it proceeded from faulty * See Bishop Chandler's Introduction to his Defence of Christianity, p. 13. &c. : prejudices;* probably from the prejudices then common among the Jews; who expected a mighty temporal prince, commissioned by God to restore their fallen state to its ancient splendor, and, in the warmth of these expectations, were inattentive to the description of the sufferings he was first to undergo and the obscurity we complain of is such, as should excite our industry, not lead us to despair of success. If we use a little attention, there are two cases, in which the difficulties before mentioned, as far as they concern the evidence of Christianity, will totally vanish. One of these cases is, when we can collect, from clear testimonies, how the predictions were understood before the coming of Christ. This circumstance has been considered on a former occasion, when it appeared, that in order to judge of the evidence arising from the conformity of events to ancient prophecies, it is not always necessary to discover the exact sense in which these prophecies were delivered; it is sufficient if we can learn what meanings were affixed to them before their accomplishment. When these interpretations are justified by the success of them, then may we safely conclude that either the prophet or his interpreter was inspired :† and we have a series of predictions in the case before us, which (though the design of the authors may not now, in every instance, be so apparent as to preclude all controversy) were certainly referred by the Jews to their expected Messiah, and were as certainly fulfilled by Jesus Christ. The other case, in which a prophecy, delivered in dark and ambiguous terms, may yet afford a full conviction, is, when such a prophecy is at once explained and verified by the events: for it seems to me to be of little importance, in weighing the evidence, at what time the prediction became clear; provided it be ever clear, that matters, placed beyond the reach of human foresight, were predicted. I will illustrate my meaning, before I proceed, by two examples taken from the discourses of * See Berriman's Sermon on this text, preached at Boyle's Lecture, Serm. xiii. + Unless we rather choose to say, what comes to the same thing, that the events were accommodated to the expectations, by an extraordinary providence. our Saviour. Destroy this temple,' said he, and in three days I will raise it up.' The Jews answered, Forty and six years has this temple been building (so it should be translated; for the work was not yet finished†): and wilt thou rear it up in three days?' They certainly understood him, as the place and the occasion naturally suggested, to be speaking of that temple, whence he had just driven the traders and moneychangers; and they looked on such a declaration as a vain boast of inconceivable power : but, after we had been told, that within three days he restored his own life, which the Jews had destroyed; we could not have doubted, even though the evangelist had not explained the meaning to us, but he spake of the temple of his body;' a fabric not improperly compared to that magnificent building, though infinitely more complicated, more nicely and wonderfully adjusted, than any ever framed by human art. Again, when Christ was foretelling the utter overthrow of the Jewish nation, some of his attendants asked him, 'where,' or when,' (for the evangelists express the question differently) these things should happen; to which he answered, in a line borrowed from the book of Job,|| Wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together.'¶ If this sign was at first uncertain, it could remain so no longer, when the army of Titus surrounded Jerusalem. That was the carcass, the city devoted to destruction, about which the eagles, the ensigns of the Roman legions, were gathered together. Many passages in the Old Testament, relating to the Messiah, are similar to these predictions in the New; particularly that famous prophecy contained in the 53d chapter of Isaiah.** It might be doubted by the Jewish, it has been controverted even among Christian interpreters, of whom the prophet is speaking; and, from the passage itself, considered independently of all the events which have followed it, the question *John ii. 19. Luke xvii. 37. ¶ Matt. xxiv. 28. † See Berriman, p. 43, note. § Matt. xxiv. 3. Luke xvii. 37. Job xxxix. 30. ** See this chapter illustrated, Chandler, chap. xi. § 2. Barrow on the Creed. Bullock's Sermons. could not be easily decided. But whoever compares the several parts of the prophecy with the gospel history, may be convinced that there has been one, and only one of all the human race, to whom the whole of it is applicable. The person here described was to be condemned, and to suffer death as a malefactor. He was taken,' says the prophet, from prison, and from judgment;' he was cut off out of the land of the living ;' 'he made his grave with the wicked;'+' he was numbered with the transgressors.' His punishment was to be remarkably painful, accompanied with stripes,§ and bruises, and wounds. It was also to be of the most ignominious kind. He was 6 a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, and we hid our faces from him; he was despised and rejected of men.'|| But these sufferings, and this ignominy, were not for any offences of his own, ('he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth'¶) but for the wickedness of others: he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities."** His sufferings are represented as voluntary. He was oppressed and afflicted; he was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, yet he opened not his mouth.'++ His soul was made an offering for sin.' And this voluntary offer was to be efficacious for others, and glorious to himself; he made intercession, he bare the sins of many;§§ he justified many ;'|||| and, because he hath poured out his soul unto death,¶¶ therefore,' saith God, I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.” Now, if the whole character, thus drawn by the prophet, belongs to one and the same person; if it be the same servant of God, who was unjustly condemned, and suffered a cruel and ignominious death; who endured the pain, and submitted to the ignominy, not only with patience and contentment, but willingly and of choice; who obtained, by this sacrifice of himself, pardon and privileges for others; who, in recompence for his virtue and sufferings, was highly exalted, * Isa. liii. 8. *** + lb. ver. 9. ¶ Ib. ver. 9. ↑ Ib. ver. 12. §§ Ib. ver. 12. § Ib. ver. 5. ++ Ib. ver. 7. Ib. ver. 11. and became the parent of a long and happy race of disciples and followers; and under whose government, true religion, the pleasure of the Lord, florished, and spread itself over the face of the earth; then certainly this description can with no degree of propriety be applied to any other than our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To avoid the force of this conclusion, some of the Jews have had recourse to the fiction of two Messiahs; one appearing in a mean and afflicted condition, the other powerful and vietorious: but their invention has nothing to support it in the Scriptures, or even in their own traditions. The two parts of the Messiah's character, the miseries of his life, and the glories of his reign, are constantly attributed to one person, and are so closely connected, that to separate them would be to overthrow the evidence of both. Nor was such a distinction thought of before the appearance of Christ. It has arisen wholly from the insuperable difficulty of reconciling, by any other than the Christian scheme, such discordant situations. How clear soever the predictions are of the Messiah's sufferings, yet, at the time of his appearance, they were so much disregarded or misapplied, that the accomplishment of them produced, for a time, a general prejudice against him. Nothing could appear less credible than that he should be the mighty prince, to whom God had given the utmost parts of the earth for his possession,' who wanted even where to rest his head; that he should redeem his country from misery and bondage, who was himself continually afflicted and treated as a slave; that he should reign and conquer, who had just been crucified and slain. But the stronger the inconsistency may appear between the several parts of a prediction, the more convincing evidence does it afford, when the whole is accomplished, that it was spoken by a true prophet. Let a man pretend to foretel future events, not unlike to those which have already happened; and the casual turns of human affairs may, in a course of ages, produce something corresponding to his conjectures. But, when the things predicted are such as could not be conceived to be possible before they came to pass, and, when they came to pass, bore evident marks of a divine power; then the inspiration of the prophet is unquestionable. Again, the more inconsistent the parts of a pre |