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ment upon Plato's Timæus, speaking of the presages of stars mentioned by Plato, adds as a farther proof, Est quoque alia venerabilior et sanctior historia. There is likewise another more venerable and holy history, (by which I doubt not he means this of Saint Matthew, for what he tells seems to be taken out of it,) "That by the rising of a certain unusual star, not plagues and diseases, but the descent of the venerable God, for the salvation and benefit of mortals, was observed by the Chaldeans, who worshipped this, God newly born, by offering gifts unto him."

De. This makes those Magi or wise men to have been Chaldeans, who I know were the most noted then in the world for the most curious learning, particularly in astronomy. And they were likewise East of Jerusalem, so that it might be well said they came from the East, and had seen his star in the East. But I cannot imagine how they should read the birth of a God in the face of a new star; and how that star should send them particularly to Jerusalem, though I may suppose it pointed them westward.

(7.) Chr. This will be easier to you, when you know, that all over the East there was a tradition, or fixed opinion, that about that time a King of the Jews would be born, who should rule the whole earth. And the appearance of this extraordinary star in the East was taken by them as a sign that he was then born. And whither should they go to look for the King of the Jews, but to Jerusalem ? And when they came thither they inquired, saying, "Where is he that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and are come to worship him." This made Herod gather the priests and scribes together. And they, by searching the prophets, found that Bethlehem was the place; whereupon the wise men went to Bethlehem; and to convince them that they were right, the star which they had seen in the East appeared to them again, and "went before them till it came and stood over where the young child was." This made them "rejoice with such an exceeding great joy."

De. This would go down in some measure with me, if you could make good your first postulatum, of such a current tradition or opinion in the East; but for this you have given no sort of proof. And all the rest which you have inferred from thence must come to the ground with it, if it be not supported. I confess it would seem as strange to me as the star to the wise men, if God had (we know not how, it is unaccountable to us) sent such a notion into the minds of men, and at that time only, of such a King to be born, and that he should be a Jew, (the then most contemptible people in the world, subdued and conquered by the Romans,) and that he was to be King of the Jews, and thence to become

King of all the earth, and conquer his conquerors. The Romans would have looked with disdain upon such a notion or prophecy as this; it would have made some stir among them, if they had heard of it, or given any credit to it.

(8.) Chr. You argue right; and I will show you what stir it made among them, and I hope you will take their word, as well for this eastern tradition, as for the effects it had among themselves. Nay, they wanted not the same tradition among themselves, and express prophecies of it in their Sibyls, and otherwise. So that the same expectation of the Messiah was then current over all the earth, with the Gentiles as well as with the Jews.

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Tacitus in his History, l. v. c. 13, speaking of the great prodigies that preceded the destruction of Jerusalem, says that many understood these as the forerunners of that extraordinary person whom the ancient books of the priests did foretell should come about that time from Judea, and obtain the universal dominion. His words are, "Pluribus persuasio inerat, antiquis sacerdotum literis contineri, eo ipso tempore fore, ut valesceret Oriens, profectique Judæa rerum potirentur:" that is, Many were persuaded that it was contained in the old writings of the priests, that at that very time the east should prevail, and the Jews should have the dominion." And Suetonius in the Life of Vespasian, c. 1. n. 4. says, “ Percrebuerat Oriente toto vetus et constans opinio, esse in satis, ut eo tempore, Judæa profecti rerum potirentur;" that is, "That it was an ancient and constant opinion (or tradition) throughout the whole East, that at that time, those who came from Judea should obtain the dominion ;" that is, some Jew should be universal king. Therefore Cicero, who was a commonwealths-man, in his second book of Divination, speaking of the books of the Sibyls, who likewise foretold this great King to come, says, "Cum antistibus agamus, et quidvis potius ex illis libris, quam_regem proferant : quem Romæ post hæc nec Dii, nec homines esse patientur;" that is, "Let us deal with these priests, and let them bring any thing out of their books, rather than a king, whom neither the Gods nor men will suffer after this at Rome."

But he was mistaken, and had his head cut off for writing against kingly government. And others more considerable than he laid greater stress upon these prophecies, even the whole Senate of Rome, as I come to show you.

Whether these Sibyls gathered their prophecies out of the Old Testament, is needless here to examine. I am now only upon that general expectation which was then in the world of this great and universal King to come about that time.

(9.) The same year that Pompey took Jerusalem, one of these oracles of the Sibyls

made a great noise, which was, “That nature was about to bring forth a king to the Romans." Which, as Suetonius relates in the Life of Augustus, c. 94, did so terrify the Senate, that they made a decree to expose, that is, destroy, all the children born that year. "Senatum ex territum censuisse, ne quis illo anno genitus educaretur." That none born that year should be brought up, but exposed, that is, left in some wood or desert place to perish. But he tells how this dreadful sentence was prevented: "Eos qui gravidas uxores haberent, quod ad se quisque spem traheret, curasse ne Senatus consultum ad ærarium deferretur." That those senators whose wives were with child, because each was in hopes of having this great king, took care that the decree of the Senate should not be put into the ærarium or treasury, without which, by their constitution, the decree could not be put in execution. And Appian, Plutarch, Sallust, and Cicero, do all say, that it was this prophecy of the Sibyls which raised the ambition of Cornelius Lentulus at that time, hoping that he should be this King of the Romans. Virgil, a few years before the birth of Christ, in his fourth Eclogue, quotes a prophecy of one of these Sibyls speaking of an extraordinary person to be born about that time, who should introduce a golden age into the world, and restore all things, and should blot out our sins.

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-Si qua manent sceleris vestigia nostri.
And calls him,

Chara Deum soboles, magnum Jovis incrementum.
Dear offspring of the Gods, and great son of Jove.

He describes a new state of things like the new heavens" and "new earth," (Isaiah, lxv. 17.)

Magnus ab integro seclorum nascitur ordo.

A great order of ages does begin, wholly new.

And as Isaiah describes the happy state in the " new earth," that the lion and the lamb should feed together, the serpent eat dust, and that they should not hurt or destroy in all the holy mountain," (Isai. Ixv. 25.) Virgil does almost repeat his words:

Nec magnos metuent armenta leones.
Occidet et serpens, et fallax herba veneni
Occidet.

Here the poet describes nature as in labour to bring forth this great King, as the other prophecy of the Sibyls before-mentioned speaks. And he says, aderit jam tempus,"

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- that the time was then at hand.

• Jam nova progenies cœlo demittitur alto. Now a new progeny from heaven descends. And he applies it to Saloninus the son of Pollio the consul, then newly born, as if it was to be fulfilled in him. But as there was nothing like it in the event, so these words are too great to be applied to any mortal, or the reign of any king that ever was in the world; or to any other but to the Messiah the Lord of heaven and earth.

(10.) De. But, you know, the authority of these Sibyls is disputed. Some say the Christians did interpolate them, and added to them, in about a hundred years after Christ.

Chr. It is true, the Christians did often quote them against the heathens, as Saint Paul quoted the heathen poets to the Athenians, Acts, xvii. 28. And Clem. Alexandrinus in his Strom. 1. 6. says, that Saint Paul quoted the Sibyls likewise in his disputations with the Gentiles. And the Christians were called Sibyllianists, from their quoting the Sibyls so often. But Origen, in his answer to Celsus, 1. 7, challenges him to shew any interpolation made by the Christians, and appeals to the heathen copies which were in their own possession, and kept with great

care.

But what I have quoted to you out of Virgil was before Christ was born, and therefore clear of all these objections.

De. Then the Jews must have had some hand in them. As likewise in that eastern tradition you have spoken of.

Chr. If so, you must suppose that the Jews had it from their own prophets. And this will be a strong confirmation that the time of the Messiah's coming was plainly told in the prophets.

(11.) De. What say the Jews to this? For I cannot imagine how they can get off from it.

Chr. Some of them say, that the Messiah put off his coming at the appointed time, because of their sins. Others say, he did come at the time, but has concealed himself ever since.

And as God introduces the Messiah with say- De. These are mere excuses. Do they preing, "I will shake the heavens and the earth, tend any prophecy for this? But to what and the sea," (Hag. ii. 7.) Virgil does in a purpose? For these excuses show, that promanner translate it in this Eclogue, introduc-phecies are no proofs, because if they may be ing the great person then to be born, and the joy which should be in the whole creation.

Aspice convexo nutantem pondere mundum,
Terrasq. tractusq. maris, cœlumq. profundum.
Aspice venturo lætentur ut omnia seclo.

Lo! teeming nature, bending with its load,
The earth, the ocean, and the heavens high,
Behold how all rejoice to greet the coming age.

thus put off, they can never be known. And they may be put off and put off to the end of the world.

(12.) Chr. But now, Sir, as to your point. If this general expectation, both east and west, of the great King of the Jews to be born about that very time that he did come, was occasioned

by the Jewish tradition of it, it strengthens the truth of the Holy Scriptures, whence the Jews had it. But otherwise, if God, we know not how, did send such a notion into the minds of men, all over the world, at that particular time, and never the like, either before or since; then the miracle will be greater, and the attestation to the coming of Christ stronger, and, as you said, it will be more wonderful and more convincing to you, than the star was to the wise men in the east.

De. I must take time to answer this. I made nothing at all of this of the Magi, and the star, and of Herod's slaying the infants upon it. I thought it a ridiculous story, and to have no foundation in the world. But when I see Suetonius telling us of the decree of the Senate of Rome to destroy all the children born that year, and for the same reason, for fear of this great King that was then to be born; I must think there was a strange chiming in of things here, one to answer the other. I know not how it happened by chance, or how?

(13.) Chr. You cannot imagine there could be any concert in this matter. That the Chaldeans, and Romans, and Jews, should all agree upon the point, and hit it so exactly, without any one of them discovering the contrivance! especially when it was so terrible to both the Roinans and the Jews, that they took such desperate methods to prevent it as to destroy their own children!

De. It is ridiculous to talk of a concert. I will not put my cause upon that. Would they concert what they thought their own destruction? Besides, the Jews and Romans were then enemies; and the Chaldeans were far off, and had little correspondence with either of them. And such an universal notion could not be concerted. Whole nations could not be trusted with a secret. And if they all kept it, and against their own interest too, it would be as great a miracle as any in your Bible.

(14.) Chr. How much more impossible is it to suppose, That there should be a concert between different ages, between all the ages from Adam downwards, in all those prophecies of the coming of the Messiah? How should they know it but by revelation? And would they have all agreed so exactly as to the time, place, manner, and other circumstances, if it had been a forgery contrived by different persons and in different ages?

(15.) This is an argument which Saint Peter thought stronger than the conviction even of our outward senses; for having set down what he and the other two apostles had both seen and heard upon the holy Mount, he adds, "We have yet a more sure word (that is, a stronger proof) of prophecy, whereunto ye do well to take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn,

and the day-star arise in your hearts,” ( 2 Pet. i. 19.) And he enforces it thus, "For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."

De. I will grant his argument so far, That it is easier to suppose the senses of three men, or of all the men in the world, to be imposed upon, than that Adam, Abraham, and I, had concerted together. But I will not give you my answer yet. Have you any more to say upon this head of prophecy?

Chr. I need say no more till your answer comes. For you have granted that this proof is stronger than what we see with our eyes.

(16.) But that your answer may take in all together, I will give you something farther. I have set down already some of the great prophecies of the coming of Christ, his sufferings, death, and resurrection. But there are others which reach to several minute circumstances, such as cannot be applied to any other fact that ever yet happened, and which could not have been foreseen by any but God; nor were known by the actors who did them, else they had not done them. For they would not have fulfilled the prophecies that went before of Christ in applying them to him whom they crucified as a false Christ.

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See then how literally several of these prophecies were fulfilled. As (Psal. Ixix. 21,) They gave me gall to eat, and vinegar to drink." Then read Matt. xxvii. 34, "They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall.' It is said, (Psal. xxii. 16, 17, 18,) They pierced my hands and my feet-They stand staring and looking upon me. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture." As if it had been wrote after John, xix. 23, 24. It was merely accidental in the soldiers; they would not tear his coat, because it was woven and without seam, therefore they cast lots for it: thus fulfilling this Scripture, without any knowledge of theirs, for they were Roman soldiers, and knew nothing of the Scripture. Again it is said, (Psal. xxii. 7, 8,) "All they that see me, laugh me to scorn; they shoot out their lips, and shake their heads, saying, He trusted in God that he would deliver him; let him deliver him, if he will have him." Compare this with Matt. xxvii. 39, 41, 42, 43, “ And they that passed by, reviled him, wagging their heads, and saying, Come down from the cross. Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said, He trusted in God, let him deliver him now, if he will have him; for he said, I am the Son of God." It is said again, (Zech. xi. 10,)"They shall look upon me whom they have pierced." His very price was foretold, and how the money should be disposed of, (Zech. xi. 13,) fulfilled Matt. xxvii. 6, 7. And his riding into Jerusalem upon an ass.

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(Zech. ix. 9,) which the learned Rabbi Saadia expounds of the Messiah. That he should suffer with malefactors, (Isai. liii. 12.) That his body should not lie so long in the grave as to see corruption, (Psal. xvi. 10.)

Many other circumstances are told which cannot be applied to any but to Christ. I have set down these few, that you may take them into consideration when you think fit to give your answer as to this head of prophecies.

And you are to take care to find some other fact guarded with prophecies like this. Or else you must confess that there is no other fact that has such evidence as this.

(17.) But, before I leave this head, I must mention the prophecies in our Bible of things yet to come to the end of the world, and of the new heavens and new earth that shall succeed. De. These can be no proofs here, because we cannot see the fulfilling of them.

Chr. You may believe what is to come, by the fulfilling you have seen of what is past. But I bring this now to show you, that there is no other law or history in the world that so much as pretends to this, or to know what is to come.

This is peculiar to the Holy Bible, as being written from the mouth of God.

You have seen how the current of the prophecies of the Old Testament did point at and centre in that great event, the coming of the Messiah.

When he was come, then he told us more plainly of what was to come after him, even to the consummation of all things. And by what we have seen exactly fulfilled of all he told us to this time, we must believe what remains yet to come.

(18.) How particularly did he foretell the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, (Matt. xxiv ;) and that that age should not pass till it should be fulfilled? And his very expression was literally fulfilled, that there should not be left one stone upon another in the temple; for the very foundations of it were ploughed up by Turnus Rufus. (See Scaliger's Canon. İsagog. p. 304.)

When Jerusalem wa first besieged, it was full of Christians. But the siege was raised unaccountably, and for no reason that history gives. In which time the Christians, seeing those signs come to pass which Christ had .oretold would precede its destruction, and particularly laying hold of that caution he gave, "Then let them that are in Judea flee to the mountains," and that in such haste, as that he that was in the field was not to return to Jerusalem to fetch his garment, or he on the house-top there to stay to take his goods with him; accordingly, all the Christians left Jerusalem, and fled to Pella, a city in the mountains. And as soon as they were all gone, the Romans returned and renewed the siege. And so it came to pass, that when Titus sacked the city there was not one

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Christian found there, and the destruction fell only upon the unbelieving Jews. The others escaped, as Lot out of Sodom, by believing the prediction of that ruin.

(19.) Another very remarkable prediction of our blessed Lord in that same chapter was of the many false Christs that should come after him; and he warned the Jews not to follow them, for that it would be their destruction. "Behold (says he, ver. 25,) I have told you before." But they would not believe him; and accordingly it came to pass. Josephus in his Antiquities of the Jews, (1. xviii. c. 12. l. xx. c. 6,) and De Bell. Jud. (1. vii. c. 31,) tells of abundance of these false Messiahs who appeared before the destruction of Jerusalem, and led the people into the wilderness, where they were miserably destroyed. The very thing of which our Saviour cautioned them, (ver. 26,) "If they say unto you, Behold, he (that is, Christ) is in the desert, go not forth." And Josephus says, (De Bell. Jud. 1. vii. c. 12,) that the chief cause of their obstinacy in that war with the Romans, was their expectation of a Messiah to come and deliver them, which brought on their ruin, and made them deaf to the offers of Titus, who courted them to peace.

And since the destruction of Jerusalem there have been so many false Messiahs, that Johannes à Lent has wrote a history of them, printed Herbonæ, 1697; which brings them down as far as the year 1682, and tells the lamentable destruction of the Jews in following them.

(20.) But the next prophecy of our blessed Lord which I produce is more remarkable than these ; and of which you see the fulfilling in a great measure, namely, That his Gospel should prevail over all the world, and that the gates of hell should not prevail against it: and this told when he was low and despised, and had but twelve poor fishermen for his followers: and that his religion should conquer, not by the sword, like Mahomet's, but by patient suffering, as lambs among wolves. And in this state the Church endured most terrible persecutions, when all the rage of hell was let loose against her, for the first three hundred years, without any help but from Heaven only; till at last, by the Divine Providence, the great Emperor of Rome, and other mighty kings and princes, without any force or compulsion, did voluntarily and freely submit their sceptres to Christ.

No religion that ever was in the world was so begun, so propagated, and did so prevail : and hence we assuredly trust, that what remains will be fulfilled, of the promise of Christ to his Church in the latter days.

But I speak now only of this prophecy so long beforehand, and when there was so little appearance of its coming to pass, so far as we have seen already.

Let me here remember one particular passage foretold by Christ, concerning the woman who anointed his body to the burying, That "wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of, for a memorial of her," (Mark, xiv. 8, 9.) And we see how it is spoken of to this day.

De. If this book had been lost, we had not heard of this prophecy.

Chr. So you may say of all the Bible, or of any other book: But Providence has fulfilled this prophecy by preserving the book; and it is a prophecy that this book, at least this fact of the woman, should be preserved for ever, and it may be preserved though that book were lost.

(21.) De. When prophecies are fulfilled, and the events come to pass, they are plain to every body; but why might they not have been as plain from the beginning? And then there could have been no dispute about them, as if it had been said, that such a one by name, at such a time, and in such a place, should do such things, &c.

Chr. Because God having given man free will, he does not force men to do any wicked thing and it would be in the power of wicked men to defeat a prophecy against themselves, as to the circumstance of time, place, or the manner of doing the thing.

For example, if the Jews had known that Christ had told his Apostles he was to be crucified, they would not have done it; they would have stoned him as they did Saint Stephen; for that was the death appointed by the law for blasphemy: and they several times attempted to have stoned Christ for this, because he said I am the Son of God, (John, viii. 59; x. 31, 32, 33.) But crucifixion was a death by the Roman law. Therefore the Jews, to fulfil this prophecy (but not knowing it) delivered Christ to the Romans to be put to death. Yet he told them so much of it, that after he was crucified they might know it, as he said to them, (John, viii. 28.) "When ye have lifted up the Son of Man,then shall ye know that I am he." And chap. x. 32, 33. "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. This he said, signifying what death he should die." But they understood it not till they had done it, then they knew what the lifting up meant. And chap. xviii. 31, 32, when Pilate would have had them judge him according to their law, which was stoning, they were cautious at this time only, and said, "It is not lawful for us to put any man to death; because they were then under the government of the Romans. But the next words show the design of Providence in it," that the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled, which he spake, signifying what death he should die." They had no such caution upon them when they stoned Saint

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Stephen after this, nor the many times before when they took up stones to stone the same Jesus.

Then, again, the piercing his side with the spear was no part of the Roman sentence of execution, but happened seemingly by mere accident; for the sentence of the law was, to hang upon the cross till they were dead; but that being the day of preparation for the Sabbath, which began that evening soon after Christ and the thieves were fastened to the cross, before it could be supposed they were dead, therefore, "that the bodies might not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath-day," the Jews besought Pilate that their legs might be broken (which was no part of the sentence neither, but done) lest they should escape when taken down. Accordingly the legs of the thieves were broken, for they were yet alive, and the reason why they brake not the legs of Christ was, because "they saw that he was dead already; but to make sure, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear: little knowing that they were then fulfilling prophecies, as, that "a bone of him should not be broken;" and again, "They shall look on him whom they pierced." As little did the soldiers think of it when they were casting lots upon his vesture: and the chief priests (if they had known it or reflected upon it) would not have upbraided him in the very words that were foretold in Psalm xxii, which I have before quoted. And they would have contrived the money they gave to Judas to have been one piece more or less than just thirty they would not have come so punctually in the way of that prophecy, (Zech. xi. 12, 13.) They weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver." And they would have bought any other field with it, but especially not that of the Potter, which Zechariah there likewise mentions.

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And as the enemies of Christ did not know they were fulfilling these prophecies of him, so neither did his disciples at the time when they were so doing. And it is said, (John, xii. 16.) "These things understood not his disciples at the first; but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of him, and that they had done these things unto him.” This makes the fulfilling these prophecies yet more remarkable.

Where Providence sees that prophecies will not be minded, they are more express and plain: as likewise where the passions and interests of men will hurry them on towards fulfilling them. Thus, Alexander the Great is described as plainly almost as if he had been named, (Dan. viii. 20, 21, 22.) And it is said, that this prophecy, which was showed him by the High Priest at Jerusalem, did encourage him in his expedition against the Persians. But it is not so when a man is to do foolish

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