nexion with, or remoteness from, each other he has not sufficient light to distinguish.

These remarks, however, apply most strictly to prophecies of remote events. When nearer occurrences are foretold, whether relating to the Jewish nation or to the countries in its neighbourhood, there is often a surprising clearness, as if, in these cases, the intention was to direct conduct for the present, as well as confirm faith by the result. And in a few important instances, even distant futurity is so distinctly contemplated, as to make such pre dictions a permanent, and, to every candid reader an irrefragable evidence, that a volume so undeniably ancient, and yet so unequivocally predictive, can be no other than divine.

Of this last class of prophecies, as most directly interesting, it may not be useless to point out the following striking examples. The denunciation by Moses, of what should be the final fate of the Jews, in case of obstinate disobedience.* Isaiah's astonishing picture of the sufferings, death, and subsequent triumph of the Redeemer ;+ a prediction upon which every kind of sophistry has been tried in vain. The dream of Nebuchadnezzar, with Daniel's interpretation; a prophecy which contains in it an absolute demonstration of revealed religion. Daniel's own vision of the four empires, and of that divine one which should succeed them. § amazing prophecy of the seventy weeks, which, however involved in obscurity as to niceties of chronology, is, in clearness of prediction, a standing miracle; its fulfilment in the death of the Messiah, and the destruction of Jerusalem, being as selfevident, as that Cæsar meant to record his own actions in his Commentaries. To these I would add, lastly, that wonderful representation of the * Deut. xxviii. Isa. liii. Dan. ii. § Dan. vii. Dan. ix.

His

*

apal tyranny, in the Apocalypse, which, however nvolving some obscure circumstances, is, nevertheess, so luminous an instance as to preclude the possibility of evasion. The extreme justness of the statement respecting papal Rome must force itself on every mind at all acquainted with the usual language of the Old Testament prophets, and with the authentic facts of ecclesiastical history.

The

Among circumstantial prophecies of near events, may be reckoned Jeremiah's prediction of the taking of Babylon+ by the king of the Medes, on which the history of the event, as given by Xenophon in the Cyropedia, is the best possible comment. prophecy of the fall of Tyre in Ezekiel, in which there is the most remarkable detail of the matter of ancient commerce that is, perhaps, to be any where found. But of all such prophecies, that of our Saviour, respecting the destruction of Jerusalem, as given in repeated parables and express denunciations, is most deeply worthy the attention of the Christian reader.

A question has been started among scholars respecting the double sense of prophecy; but it seems astonishing to any plain reader of the Bible, how it could ever become a matter of doubt. What can be more likely, for instance, than that some present event in which David was interested, perhaps his inauguration, suggested to him the subject of the second psalm? Yet, what can be more evident than that he describes a dominion infinitely beyond what can be attributed to any earthly potentate? The fact seems to be, that the Jewish dispensation being, in its most leading parts, a prefiguration of the Christian dispensation, and the most celebrated persons, as well as events, being typical of what was to come, the prophetic spirit could not easily contemplate the type without being

* Chap. xvii. Jer. 1. and li. Ezek. xxvi. and xxvii.

carried forward to its completion. And, therefore, in almost every case of the kind, the more remote object draws the attention of the prophet, as if insensibly, from the nearer-the greatness of the one naturally eclipsing the comparative littleness of the other. This occurs in such a number of instances, as to form one of the most prominent characters of prophecy.

We shall conclude the subject, with observing on that over-ruling Providence which took care that the scriptures of the Old Testament should be translated into the Greek language, before the original dialect became obscure; by which means, not only a most important preparation was made for the fuller manifestation which was to follow; but the sense of the scriptures, in all important instances, was so unequivocally fixed, as to furnish both a guide for the learned Christian in after-times, and a means of confronting Jewish misrepresentations with the indisputable acknowledgments of earlier Jews, better used to the language, and uninfluenced by any prejudice. And, may we add, that the choice of the Greek for the original language of the New Testament, is not less worthy of attention? By that wise and gracious arrangement, every lineament and every point of our divine religion has acquired an imperishable character; since the learned have agreed, that no language is so capable of expressing every minute distinction and shade of thought and feeling, or is so incapable of ever becoming equivocal: the works which have been composed in it, ensuring its being studied to the end of the world!

CHAPTER XXXIV.

On the abuse of terms.-Enthusiasm.-Superstition.-Zeal for religious opinions no proof of religion.

To guard the mind from prejudice, is no unimportant part of a royal education. Names govern the world. They carry away opinion, decide on character, and determine practice. Names, therefore, are of more importance than we are aware. We are apt to bring the quality down to the standard which the name establishes, and our practice rarely rises higher than the current term which we use when we speak of it.

The abuse of terms has at all times been an evil. To enumerate only a few instances. We do not presume to decide on the measure which gave birth to the clamour, when we assert, that in the progress of that clamour, greater violence has seldom been offered to language than in the forced union of the two terms, liberty and property.* A conjunction of words, by men who were, at the same time, labouring to disjoin the things. If liberty, in their sense, had been established, property would have had an end, or rather would have been trans ferred to those who, in securing what they termed their Liberty, would have made over to themselves that property, in the pretended defence of which the outcry was made. At a more recent period, the term equality has been substituted for that of property. The word was altered, but the principle retained. And, as the preceding clamour for liberty was only a plausible cover for making property change hands, so it has of late been tacked to equality, with a view to make power change hands. Thus, terms the most popular and imposing have been uniformly By Wilkes, and his faction.

used as the watch-words of tumult, plunder, and sedition.

But the abuse of terms, and especially their unnecessary adoption, is not always limited to the vulgar and the mischievous. It were to be wished that those persons of a better cast, who are strenuous in counteracting the evils themselves, would never naturalize any terms which convey revolutionary ideas. In England, at least, let us have no civic honours, no organization of plans.

There are perhaps few words which the reigning practice has more warped from its legitimate meaning and ancient usage than the term proud. Let us try whether Johnson's definition sanctions the adopted use." Proud," says that accurate philologist, "means, elated-haughty-daring-presumptuous-ostentatious," &c. &c. Yet, do we not continually hear, not merely the journalist and the pamphleteer, but the legislator and the orator, sages who give law, not to the land only, but to the language, using the term exclusively in an honourable sense. "They are proud to acknowledge," "proud to confess." Instead of the heart-felt language of gratitude for a deliverance or a victory, we hear of "a proud day," a proud circumstance," proud event,”—thus raising to the dignity of virtue, a term to which lexicographers and moralists have annexed an odious, and divines an unchristian sense. If pride be thus enrolled in the list of virtues, must not humility, by a natural consequence, be turned over to the catalogue of vices? If pride was made for man, has not the Bible asserted a falsehood?

In the age which succeeded to the Reformation, "holiness" and " practical piety" were the terms employed by divines when they would inculcate that conduct which is suitable to Christians. The very words conveyed a solemnity to the mind, calculated to assist in raising it to the prescribed standard. But