66 and the predictions scattered through the Bible, has been traced so clearly by several writers, that I need do little else than transcribe their remarks. On comparing the principal predictions with the historical passages, and thus bringing the accounts of the Prophets and of the Evangelists together, it will be found. that there is throughout an extraordinary correlation, that the latter become echoes of the former, and that the former specified nothing for the Messiah to suffer which Christ himself did not suffer. ZECHARIAH says, "they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver;" and MATTHEW records that Judas sold Jesus for neither more nor fewer pieces, but that the chief priests "covenanted with them for thirty pieces of silver." ZECHARIAH says, they" took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter;" MATTHEW tells us, they took the thirty pieces of silver, and gave them for the potter's field The PSALMIST, under the spirit of prophecy, says, when " trouble is near there is none to help," and ZECHARIAH says, "Smite the Shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered;" MATTHEW, in correspondence, affirms, "that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled, all the disciples forsook him and fled "2" ISAIAH says, "he was wounded;" ZECHARIAH, "they shall look upon me whom they have pierced;" and DAVID still more particularly, "they pierced my hands and my feet;" the Evangelists tell us how he was fastened to the cross, and Jesus himself shows "the print of the nails 43. DAVID predicts, they shall laugh him to scorn, and shake their heads, saying, He trusted in the Lord that he would deliver him; let him deliver him, since he delighted in him:" 66 42 39 See especially Bishop Pearson on the Creed, p. 88, &c.; and General Burn's judicious Summary on the Evidences of Christianity, in his valuable little book, the Christian Officer's Complete Armour. 40 Zech. xi. 12. Matt. xxvi. 15. Zech. xi. 13. 42 Ps. xxii. 11. 43 Is. liii. 5. John xx. 25 Matt. xxvii. 9, 10. Zech. xiii. 7. Matt. xxvi. 56. Zech. xii. 10. Ps. xxii. 16. Matt. xxvii. 35. 66 the historian describes the same action, and gives like expressions ;- they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads and saying, He trusted in God, let him deliver him 44.9. DAVID exclaims, when prophesying as a type of the Messiah, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" he who was both "the root and the offspring of David" determines in whose person the Prophet spoke it,—“ Eli, Eli, lama sabacthani 45? ISAIAH foretells, "He was numbered with the transgressors:" the Evangelists inform us, he was "crucified between two thieves, one on his right hand, the other on his left 46." We read in the prophetic Psalms, "They gave me gall for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink:" and in the Gospel," they gave him vinegar to drink, mingled with gall" We read again in the Psalms, "They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture;" and, to fulfil the prediction, "the soldiers took his garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part, and also his coat. Now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout: they said, therefore, among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it whose it shall be 48" In another prophet we read, " He shall be brought like a lamb to the slaughter, and be cut off out of the land of the living49" conformably with this, all the Evangelists declare how like a lamb he suffered; and the Jews themselves acknowledge that he was "cut off." In the institution of the paschal lamb, which typified this "Lamb of God," it was ordained, “Ye shall not break a bone of it:" DAVID, prophesying of the Messiah, says, He keepeth all his bones; not one of them is broken:" and, in the event, "He who saw it bare record, and he knoweth that he saith true;" and he affirms, "They brake not his legs" (though 44 Ps. xxii. 7, 8. 45 Ps. xxii. 1. 66 Matt. xxvii. 39, 43. Matt. xxvii. 46. Matt. xxvii. 38. Mark xv. 27. Matt. xxvii. 34, 48. John, xix. 23, 24. 49 Is. liii. 7, 8. they brake the legs of the malefactors crucified with him), "that the Scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken 50" ISAIAH, prophesying of his burial, says, "He made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death:" and here again we may admire the exact completion of the prediction; for Jesus was buried like the wicked companions of his death, under the general leave granted to the Jews for taking down their bodies from the cross; yet Joseph of Arimathea, a RICH man and an honourable counsellor, and Nicodemus, a man of the Pharisees, a ruler of the Jews, a master of Israel, conspired to make his grave with the rich, by "wrapping his body in linen clothes," &c. and "laying it in a new sepulchre," which Joseph of Arimathea had caused to "be made for his own use" When the Scribes and Pharisees asked Jesus Christ for a sign by which they might ascertain his Divine authority, the reply was, As Jonas was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so shall the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth 52." and on another occasion, when the Jews requested a proof of his authority, he said, "speaking of the temple of his body,"-"Destroy this temple, and in · three days I will raise it up53." These sayings were tauntingly thrown in his teeth during his crucifixion by the unfeeling multitude, who, "wagging their heads, said, Ah! thou that destroyest the temple and buildest it in three days, save thyself, and come down from the cross 54 ! » Soon, however, Jesus proved that he had 'power to lay down his life, and power to take it up again 55" and, to fulfil his own prophecies, as well as all those relating to him that were scattered through the Jewish Scriptures, burst the bars of the tomb, and rose from the dead on the third day 56. 66 66 The preceding instances are abundantly more than 50 Num. ix. 12. Ex. xii. 46. Ps. xxxiv. 20. John, xix. 33, 35, 36. 51 Is. liii. 9. Matt. xxvii. 57. Mark xv. 43. John, xix. 39, 40. 54 Mark, xv. 29, 30. sufficient to show that, according to the prophets, thus it behoved the MESSIAH to suffer, to die, and to rise again; and that according to the testimony of eye-witnesses, who could not be deceived, who had no object to accomplish in deceiving others, and whose testimony is confirmed by their enemies and persecutors, thus JESUS CHRIST DID suffer, die, and rise again. How the contemplation of these things may affect others we cannot always conjecture; but surely the natural tendency of such an astonishing correspondence as that we have been tracing, is to "make our hearts burn within us" with the cheering warmth of conviction, and the pure flame of devotion, similar to what was experienced by the two disciples on that evermemorable evening, when the risen Saviour "talked with them in their way" to Emmaus, "opened to them the Scriptures, and, beginning at Moses and all the prophets, expounded unto them the things concerning himself57" Suppose that, instead of the spirit of prophecy breathing more or less in every book of Scripture, predicting events relative to a great variety of general topics, and delivering besides almost innumerable characteristics of the Messiah, all meeting in the person of Jesus-there had been only ten men in ancient times who pretended to be prophets, each of whom exhibited only five independent criteria as to place, government, concomitant events, doctrine taught, effects of doctrine, character, sufferings, or death; the meeting of all which, in one person, should prove the reality of their calling as prophets, and of his mission in the character they have assigned him :-suppose, moreover, that all events were left to chance merely, and we were to compute, from the principles employed by mathematicians in the investigation of such subjects, the probability of these fifty independent circumstances happening at all. Assume that there is, according to the technical phrase, an equal chance for the happening or the failure of any 57 Luke, xxiv. 13, 27, 32. one of the specified particulars; then 58 the probability against the occurrence of all the particulars in any way, is that of the 50th power of 2 to unity; that is, the probability is greater than 1125000000000000 to 1, or greater than eleven hundred and twenty-five millions of millions to one, that all these circumstances do not turn up, even at distinct periods. This computation, however, is independent of the consideration of time. Let it then be recollected farther, that, if any one of the specified circumstances happen, it may be the day after the delivery of the prophecy, or at any period from that time to the end of the world; this will so indefinitely augment the probability against the contemporaneous occurrence of merely these fifty circumstances, that it surpasses the power of numbers to express correctly the immense improbability of its taking place. Be it remembered also, that in this calculation I have assumed the hypothesis most favourable to the adversaries of prophecy, and the most unfavourable possible to the well-being of the world, and the happiness of its inhabitants; namely, the hypothesis that every thing is fortuitous; and it will be seen how my argument is strengthened by restoring things to their proper state. If every thing were left to blind chance, it appears that the probability against the fulfilment of only fifty independent predictions in the same time, place, and individual, would be too great to be expressed numerically: how much greater, then, must it be in fact, when all events are under the control of a Being of matchless wisdom, power, and goodness, who hates fraud and deception, who must especially hate it when attempted under his name and authority, who knows all that occurs in all places, and who can dissipate with “the breath of his mouth" every deceiver, and all their delusions? The more we know of the prophecies, and of history, whether sacred or profane, the more we are struck with the correspondence of predictions and 58 Emerson on Chances, prop. 3. Wood's Algebra, art. 419, Chances. |