men the cause. The peculiar indignities which he underwent the very words of mockery used against him. The price which Judas received for his treachery. The purpose to which that money was applied.

Passages of this nature could not have been introduced by the apostles into the existing Scriptures, because, as their countrymen were generally hostile to the design, such an attempt

4"And one shall say unto him, what are these wounds in thy hands? Then he shall answer, those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends."-Zech. xiii. 6.

5 66 I gave my back to the smiters; and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting."-Isai. 1. 6. "The assembly of the wicked have inclosed me. 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. All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, and shake the head, saying, he trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him; let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him."-Ps. xxii. They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.”—Ps. lxix. 20. Compare Matt. xxvii.

6 66

66

They weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said unto me, Cast it unto the potter; a goodly price that I was prized at of them. And I took the pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord."-Zech. xi. 12. Matt. xxvi. 15. xxvii. 3, &c.

must have proved fatal to their pretensions. And further, because the books among which these scattered sentences are found, had now been extensively diffused during a period of three hundred years in a foreign language, defying the imposture of the whole nation, if the whole nation had concurred in the design.

We are reduced, then, to the necessity of supposing, that the followers of Jesus, desiring to deify their teacher, selected from their national Scriptures these pointed allusions to circumstances like his which happened to be written there, and brought them forward to confirm his pretensions.

But surely to ascribe coincidences like these to chance; to allege that all these passages were thrown out at random in the Jewish Scriptures, and that the circumstances of the birth, and life, and character, and death of Jesus turned out so as to agree with them; is to attribute to chance what never did or could take

bable than the event which such a solution is intended to disprove. For, allow to Jesus the authority which he claims, and every difficulty vanishes. We should then expect to find prophetic intimations of his great purpose, and of the way in which it was to be effected. We should expect to find them, too, just what they are; not united and brought together in a way of formal description, which could only be a provision for imposture; but such scattered hints and allusions as after the event has occurred serve to show that it was predicted, by a comparison of the event and the prophecy.

It ought to be observed, in-addition, that if the disciples of Jesus had framed their story and their representation of facts, with a view of obtaining this collateral support, they would have been more diligent and ostentatious in pointing out the circumstances of resemblance. They would have anticipated the labours of those writers who have made it their business to show the completion of prophecy in the events related in the Gospels. But, on the contrary,

they bring these things forward in an historical, rather than an argumentative way; and commonly leave the deductions which may be drawn from them to the discernment of after times.

On these grounds I think myself justified in concluding, that the divine mission of Jesus receives a strong confirmation from the historical facts, the ceremonial rites, and the ancient prophecies which corresponded with the circumstances of his life, and the alleged object of his ministry and sufferings.

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CHAPTER V.

On the Phraseology of the Christian Scriptures.

IN examining the Christian writings, I am struck with the original and peculiar phrases by which the teachers of the Gospel recommended it to the notice of their countrymen. We have seen that they were innovators in doctrine. They were innovators in language too. Their writings abound with terms which can only be understood by reference to these doctrines, which were novel when they were first used; and, although they have now obtained such universal currency as to sound familiar to our ears, derive their meaning entirely from the religion which they were employed to communicate and explain.

1. "Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people'." It is remarkable, that these words assume the truth

1 Luke, ii. 10.