PART II.

OF THE AUXILIARY EVIDENCES OF

CHRISTIANITY.

CHAP. I.
Prophecy.

II. lii. 13. liii. “ BEHOLD, my fervant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted, and extolled, and be very high. As many were aftonished at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the fons of men: so shall he sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at him; for that which had not been told them shall they fee; and that which they had not heard shall they confider. Who hath believed our report? and

to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?

VOL. II.

B

For

For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall fee him, there is no beauty that we should defire him. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of forrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid, as it were, our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our forrows: yet we did esteem him ftricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our

tranfgreffions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth : he is brought as a lamb to the flaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgement; and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut

off

off out of the land of the living: for the tranfgreffion of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief. When thou shalt make his foul an offering for fin, he shall see his feed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall profper in his hand. He shall fee of the travail of his foul, and shall be fatisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hatlı poured out his foul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the fin of many, and made interceffion for the tranfgreffors."

These words are extant in a book, purporting to contain the predictions of a writer,

1

who lived seven centuries before the Chrif tian æra.

That material part of every argument from prophecy, namely, that the words alledged were actually spoken or written before the fact to which they are applied took place, or could by any natural means be foreseen, is, in the present instance, incontestable. The record comes out of the cuftody of adversaries. The Jews, as an ancient father well observed, are our librarians. The paffage is in their copies as well as in With many attempts to explain it away, none has ever been made by them to difcredit its authenticity.

ours.

And, what adds to the force of the quotation is, that it is taken from a writing declaredly prophetic; a writing, profeffing to describe such future transactions and changes in the world, as were connected with the fate and interests of the Jewish nation. "It is not a passage in an hiftorical

or

or devotional composition, which, because it turns out to be applicable to some future events, or to some future situation of affairs, is prefumed to have been oracular. The words of Ifaiah were delivered by him in a prophetic character, with the folemnity belonging to that character; and what he fo delivered, was all along understood by the Jewish reader to refer to something that was to take place after the time of the author. The public fentiments of the Jews, concerning the design of Ifaiah's writings, are fet forth in the book of Ecclefiafticus: "He faw, by an excellent spirit, what should come to pass at the last, and he comforted them that mourned in Sion. He shewed what should come to pass for ever, and fecret things or ever they came." (ch. xlviii. v. 24.)

It is also an advantage which this prophecy poffeffes, that it is intermixed with no other fubject. It is entire, feparate, and uninterruptedly directed to one scene of things.