history as Jews, deducing from David the rise and fortunes of Messiah, and showing in the death and resurrection of Jesus, the person of the Holy One who was not to see corruption. And thus St. Peter, expounding to Cornelius the life and character of Jesus, declares, "To him give all the Prophets witness, that through his name, whosoever believeth in him, shall receive remission of sins."

Since, then, it was the plan of the first teachers of the Gospel, to refer to the Old Testament for a proof of our Lord's pretensions, let us follow their example, and deduce from the same records a prophetical account of Christ. We shall see how remarkably the predictions of the Old Testament. were fulfilled in the person of the Son of Mary, and that many of them were too precise and singular, too much out of the ordinary train of events, to be applied to any other man.

I. The First prophecy I shall mention is that which relates to the family descent of the Messiah. "The Lord hath sworn in truth unto David; he will not shrink from it; Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne."

Now, that this prophecy related to the Messiah, we have the testimony of the whole Jewish nation, who held universally, that Christ should be a descendant of the stock of David. It was his royal extraction, probably, as much as any other thing, which led them to expect in him a great temporal

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prince. There never was any dispute among them as to this point. The dispute in our Saviour's day was whether he were the Christ or not, and one great objection which they took to his pretensions, lay in that he was the son of poor parents, whose obscurity must have rendered their family history quite unknown to the great body of the nation. "Is not this, said they, the Carpenter's Son? Is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, and his sisters, are they not with us? And they were offended in him." They thought it presumptuous in him to aspire to such honours. But that the prophecy was fulfilled in Jesus is clearly shown by St. Matthew and St. Luke, the one of whom proves his descent from David through the line of Joseph, his reputed father, and the other through Mary, his actual and virgin mother. His family extraction was easily ascertained by those who would be at the pains to enquire into it, for in every tribe registers were kept of all the families of it and their members, and even after the return from Babylon, when the tribes in general were all merged into the one of Judah, the wise providence of God had! so ordained it, that this attention to their respective pedigrees should still be kept up. And it seems highly probable, that one of the chief reasons of Providence for the division of the nation into tribes, and the careful preservation of family histories, was to render the extraction of Christ, a matter of proveable certainty. But what showed that thei blessed Jesus of Nazareth was descended from David,

was the circumstance of his parents going up to Bethlehem to be registered according to the decree of the Roman Emperor, who had commanded all persons to repair for this purpose to the towns from which their respective families had sprung. Accordingly, Joseph and Mary went up to Bethlehem, because they were of the house and lineage of David, and Bethlehem, it is well known, was the birthplace of David, and the residence of Jesse his father. As this journey took place before the nativity of Jesus, and was in compliance with a public decree, there could be no collusion in it to bring about any prophecy, nor would it have been easy to have effected such collusion, had it been intended. Yet by this very journey, one of the most memorable prophecies was actually accomplished with respect to the Messiah of which history affords an example, and which we shall come next to consider.

II. "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting."

Bethlehem was a small and inconsiderable village about two miles from Jerusalem, and was rendered remarkable by several circumstances, but by none more than its being the residence of David's family, and the place of that prince's nativity. Here Micah, in the prophecy before us, had announced that Messiah should be born, and the

reason for appointing this place was evidently to connect the Messiah with the house of David.

Now, what renders the fulfilment of this prediction by Jesus so remarkable, is that his parents dwelt at Nazareth, a city of Galilee, a considerable distance from Bethlehem. What, then, could induce them to take a long journey to Bethlehem, at the particular crisis when they did, and in the then condition of the blessed Virgin, but that necessity which arose out of the Emperor's decree? If they had entertained the smallest idea of accomplishing the prophecy of Micah, would they not have endeavoured to render the fact notorious? But how were

they to effect this? The village was so full of strangers that there was no room for them at the inn, and in consequence of this, the Virgin was delivered of her child in a stable,-a circumstance not well calculated to favour such a design. Besides, even after the visit of the Shepherds, the journey of the Wise Men, and the slaughter of the Innocents, events which were calculated to make a considerable impression at the place, it does not appear that the infant Jesus was an object of public curiosity. The nation at large knew nothing of him till his appearance before them as a public preacher, and his birth at Bethlehem was so wrapped up in obscurity, that he was universally held to be a Nazarene. "Some said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee? Hath not the Scripture said, That Christ cometh of the seed of David, and out of the town of Bethlehem where David was?" Search, and look," said

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others, "for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet." What particularly demands our notice in relation to this prophecy, is the exact agreement of the decree with the time of the Virgin's travail, which, as they were events wholly unconnected with each other, shows a higher hand than ordinary in guiding the result.

If, then, Jesus was descended from the family of David, and if he was born at the town of Bethlehem in Judah, both which circumstances were foretold by the Prophets, and if these events were in their own nature independent of any agency of his, and incapable of being accomplished by artifice and fraud, it proves, at least, that the pretensions of our blessed Lord to the character he claimed, rested on very strong foundations.

III. A Third prophecy equally wonderful and equally applicable to Jesus, is that of Isaiah, which foretold that Christ should be born of a Virgin. "Behold a Virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel."

Now, of this singular prediction it is to be observed, that no one could feign an accomplishment of it. There was that with respect to it, which placed it beyond the power, or even the contrivance of man. God, who made the laws of nature, alone can alter them, and as the Messiah was to be his Son, though born of a woman, he was to be begotten by the Holy Ghost. The peculiar nature of this mode of generation seems to have been overlooked in its proper and literal sense by the Jewish nation,