through a Persian king's instrumentality, and nationa reconstitution, even till the time of Jesus: with a serie of prophets also, successively, through whom the promis of the great Deliverer was expanded yet more and more into particulars :-how that He was to be born of the tribe of Judah, and family of David; born of a virgin, born at Bethlehem :-how the time of this was to be when the sceptre of self-government should be departing from Judah, and when 490 years from the time of some Persian king's decree for the Jews' restoration as a self-governing people after the captivity in Babylon, should be near expiring-moreover how, though Immanuel, GOD INCARNATE, He would yet be born of low estate, and consequently be despised and rejected by the Jews: how, though perfectly righteous, (mark here his predicted moral perfectness as man) He would yet be led by them like a lamb to the slaughter, a selfdevoted sacrifice for man; the curse of our sins, and the chastisement by which our peace was to be obtained, being laid on Him:-but that, having again risen from the dead, and re-ascended to the heavenly place, He would there, with the plea of having borne the sins of many, make intercession for transgressors: and moreover, after a while, come again; and, with the redeemed ones from among men for his associates, assume the kingdom, as universal King over our regenerated earth.

Such, on careful inquiry, do we find to be the chief particulars in those wonderful prophecies respecting the great Deliverer of Old Testament promise. Think, I pray you, over their number and their peculiarity. And so evidently have all the particulars fitted the history of JESUS OF NAZARETH, as recorded in the Gospels, that they must have seemed, I think, as we went through them, almost his anticipated history. The very Jews' rejection of Him, because He came in humiliation, and because the kingdom He was to establish was one not of this world, i.e. of this dispensation, was one express particular of the things predicted of the great Deli

verer.

So that, instead of that fact being against the truth of his pretensions to being the Messiah of promise, it does but clench and complete their truth. The judgment of Reason is, on this point of the prophetic evidence of Christianity, clear and conclusive in its favour.

2. Now turn we to consider certain New Testament prophecies that emanated from Jesus Christ and his Apostles respecting the after-coming future. And here it will suffice that I give but two grand illustrations:the one from predictions uttered by them respecting the future of the Jews who had rejected Him; the other from their predictions respecting the future of his professing Christian Church.

Respecting the Jews, who remembers not the affecting story of Christ's weeping over Jerusalem, as He beheld it from Mount Olivet; and foretelling how the enemy would come and cast his trenches about it, and lay it and its temple even with the ground, (not one stone being left upon another,) and her children within it :moreover how Jerusalem would be afterwards trodden by Gentiles; and the Jewish remnant scattered among all nations, until the fulness of the Gentiles (i.e. the full number of the Gentile election of grace) should be accomplished? Again, who knows not how every word of that prophecy has been fulfilled, down even to the present time? Who knows not of the siege and capture of Jerusalem by the Roman general Titus; the destruction of the temple, when he would fain have spared it; the ploughing up of its very foundations; the scattering of the Jewish remnant through all nations, like branches, as said St. Paul, broken off from their own olive-tree :and, as to Jerusalem itself, how, instead of being left a perpetual desolation, like Babylon, it has been occupied and trodden successively by Gentile Romans, Greeks, Christian Crusaders, Saracens, Turks, as its masters; -never by Jews? Meanwhile the fulness of the Gentiles seems now at length, through the universal preaching of the Gospel-word, rapidly accomplishing; together

with other signs of the near closing of the present dispensation. And, when this shall have been accomplished, the Christian, confirmed in his hopes by the fulfilment thus far of every particular in these predictions, looks for better times for Israel, as told of alike in Old Testament and New Testament prophecy :-times when the Jews, having recognised Jesus of Nazareth as their Messiah, shall be united again to their own divinely chosen olive-tree; and when "Jerusalem thereupon shall become a rejoicing, and her people a joy."

Next, as to the predictions by Christ and his apostles respecting the future of His professing Church. Most marvellous was Christ's prophecy of tares, as well as wheat, as what would soon grow and multiply in it: and St. Paul's prophecy as to that apostacy, of which the principles were even then in apostolic times at work; and how, gradually advancing, it would at length culminate in a great anti-Christian kingdom, under the great Antichrist; with his seat, as St. John plainly predicted, on the seven hills of Rome. I have in my first Lecture had to illustrate the early growth of such principles from the history of the very rite of Confirmation, as introduced, and unfolded more and more, with anti-Christian teachings and practice, in the corrupted Churches alike of East and West, including our own country, till the blessed Reformation. Alas! too largely might I add further iliustration of it! But here again what evidence is there of the Omniscient Spirit of God having dictated such most wonderful, and wonderfully accomplished, predictions! What evidence to the truth of Jesus Christ's asserted resurrection and ascension, in this grand sign of the gift, as promised by Him, of the prophetic Spirit to the apostles! It was a saying of Bishop Warburton, a learned and shrewd reasoner: "I have ever thought the prophecies relating to Antichrist, interspersed up and down the Old and New Testament, [i.e. as fulfilled in the apostacy which reached its culminating point in the Popedom at Rome,] one of

the most convincing proofs of the truth of the Christ an religion." And certainly sound REASON will, in my opinion, endorse his judgment; and admit that both these, and those other New Testament prophecies about the Jews, do indeed constitute a most convincing and irrefragable proof of its truth. For (as before said) what but God's own Omniscient Spirit, speaking in and by Jesus and his apostles, could thus have declared the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things which had not yet been done; saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure?"

But now,

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III. As to the MORAL EVIDENCE of Christianity.

'It is a pernicious superstition," said the great Roman historian Tacitus, as already cited, of the Christian religion:-pernicious, that is, as regards man; superstitious in its doctrines about God. Is such the case? The appeal here lies primarily to the Conscience-that wonderful faculty implanted by God within man, to speak discriminatingly with its still small voice of what is good, and what is evil: and which, though, like a harp gone out of tune from exposure in a humid atmosphere, it may for a while lose its true distinctness of tone, through neglect, or conversancy with an evil world, will yet almost instinctively, even in such case, wake up, and speak with the voice of truth, when what is morally right and beautiful is clearly set before it for judgment. "A pernicious superstition!" To see whether Christianity deserves to be characterized as pernicious, let me illustrate from Jesus Christ's moral doctrine, both in itself, and as exemplified in his own life and character. To see whether it deserves to be called superstitious, let me illustrate from what it sets forth as to the character of God, and the heavenly place of his more especial presence and manifestation.

I. Now, as to the Moral doctrines of Christianity, I

need only to cite some of the well-known and most characteristic of the moral precepts of the Christian Gospel, whether as promulgated by Jesus Christ Himself, or by his apostles.

From Jesus Christ's own sermon on the Mount, then, take first the following, as characteristic specimens of the moral doctrines taught by Him. "Blessed are

they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled. Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God. Blessed are the merciful; for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of God. Think not that I am come to destroy the law: (i.e. the Mosaic moral law of the ten commandments:) I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." And then, to show how the fulfilment He would inculcate extended far beyond the mere formal act of obedience, mark how He goes on to teach that there must be an entering into, and acting on, the very spirit of each commandment. "It was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill. But I say unto you, Whosoever is angry with his brother without cause is in danger of the judgment. Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself. But I say, Let your communication be simply, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: [perfect truth, that is, in all its simplicity:] for whatsoever is more than this cometh of evil. Ye have heard that it has been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies: bless them which curse you do good to them that hate you; and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you."

And, as the Master, so in like spirit his apostles. "Owe no man anything," wrote St. Paul; (such was his expansion of the commandment, "Thou shalt not steal;")" but to love one another." That one debt of love Christians were to be ever paying, yet ever owing. "For this, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not commit