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to encounter death, and such a death, with a long previous conviction of its certainty, and a determination to endure it. For argument's sake (and only for the sake of argument) we may admit this to be possible without making our philosopher an enthusiast:-such as those who have often devoted themselves to voluntary death, from motives of superstitious hope or fear. What then?-He could not have predicted the manner of his death: -still less have predicted it long before—in a region remote from the scene of His sufferingwhen there was no apparent probability of His suffering any judicial death at all, and when, from a peculiar combination of circumstances, the death predicted appeared to stand in contradiction with the authors of it predicted also:-a Roman punishment proceeding from the Jewish Hierarchy. He could not have foretold the very place, and time, nay the day of his death; as well as the manner of it, its authors and abettors; even if, with this clear knowledge announced so long before, he could have calmly advanced to meet it, to seal by the life and the death of a God the lie of an impostor—the fanaticism of a madman-or the dreams of a philosopher!

Another reply may be imagined: "But what evidence can you allege to assure us that these predictions were actually delivered, as recorded in the Evangelists?"-What possible purpose could be served by their fabrication? Were

they inserted that a nameless individual in the nineteenth century might, for the first time, make use of them as an argument for the truth of those events of which they who recorded them entertained no doubt d? But in fact it would be impossible to get rid of these predictions without abrogating all credit which can attach to any record whatever. A few reasons out of many may suffice

-1st. The predictions are multiplied beyond any thing a reader, whose attention has not been turned to the subject, can conceive; occurring in every possible variety of form and occurring almost equally in every one of the four Evangelists. 2dly. No importance appears ever to be attached to them by the historians, as likely to give credibility to their narrative:-but to all appearance, they are set down simply because they were so delivered. 3dly. They are, for the most part, incidental, and in this respect coincide perfectly with the characteristic manner of speech peculiar to our Lord. 4thly. They do not stand alone, but are mixed up with many antecedent and succeeding particulars; several of them of a sort the least likely to have been gratuitously imagined. 5thly. They

d It may be added: And of which their very enemies admitted to be true all those facts, the truth of which we consider to be equivalent to a demonstration of the Religion;-the miracles, that is of our Lord.

* For instance, what more unlikely than that the Evangelists should have invented the accounts of the

could not have been recorded, as they have been, by all the four Evangelists, without the imputation of a common design and purpose, if not a concerted combination and plan: yet it very frequently occurs that the prophetic words are omitted by one or two of the witnesses, who give all the circumstances which led to their utterance, or were consequent upon it. 6thly. These predictions appear to have formed part of a plan (if I may be permitted so to speak), which our Lord systematically pursued, both in His actions and His words, from the commencement of His ministry to the evening before His death. With this plan or purpose, which His actions indicate, His prophetic declarations of

disputes among our Lord's disciples "Which should be the greatest?" which so repeatedly followed His declaration that He should be removed from them? Or that they should have stated gratuitously that His followers understood none of these things. See the remarks offered pp. 54, 55.

f Compare the observations made p. 76, (note): where a strong instance of this is given. See also the remarks pp. 90, 91. Compare also Luke xi, 30, “For as Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites," etc. with Matth. xii, 40. A remark on this head has been offered, p. 53, (note). Compare also Matth. xviii, 1, sqq., (where the dispute among the disciples is not expressly mentioned) with the corresponding passages: Mark ix, 33. Luke ix, 46.

His approaching end are indissolubly bound up.

Such a plan or purpose it has been my humble and devout endeavour to trace in some of its details. We have seen how systematically He pursued and gradually unveiled to those around Him His unexampled design: revealing it at first to individuals, then to His immediate and chosen followers, then to the multitude of His disciples (but to these only by figurative expressions): at first making known the great and all-important particular of His future death, the manner of it, and the ultimate cause of it (the Redemption of mankind): then describing its authors and perpetrators, and at last defining the most minute particulars—the place the time and the day". These particulars were at first implied by remote but always characteristic expressions: then by others yet more plain, but still figurative: lastly by direct and literal announcements.

We find that His Divine Conduct corresponded perfectly with this course of Prophecy: we find Him to have avoided proclaiming Himself, or suffering Himself to be proclaimed as that Great Personage whom He at last openly confessed Himself to be, and with which confession all his words. and actions minutely but not ostentatiously agreed:

* Matth. xvi, 21. Luke xiii, 32, sqq.

h Matth. xxvi, 2.

[As I have felt myself compelled to use, in the preceding Essay, a coldness of language which little expressed the depth of my conviction, I may perhaps be pardoned for subjoining the following lines.]

Eternal-Blest-All-glorious Name!
Whom but to name in me were sin;
But that on earth Thy mercy came,
To save us, our drear dungeon in :

While reverently I trace the page
Thy life divine that shows,
How poor appears all earthly weal,
Compared with Thy woes!

O let my heart the lesson feel
And not my mind alone:

Not only thus to show Thy Truth;
But in my life to own.

THE END.

PRINTED BY TALBOYS AND BROWNE, OXFORD.

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