1st. Old Testament prophecies concerning, (1.), the present state of the Jews. — Hosea, ix., 17 ; Jer. xxiv., 9, and (2.); Tyre, Isa. chap, xxiii. ; Joel iii., 4-6 ; Ezek. chaps, xxvi.-xxviii. ; Amos i., 9 and 10 ; Zech. ix., 1-8. (3.) Nineveh, Nahuro, i., 8, 9 ; ii., 8-13 ; iii., 17-19, and Zeph. ii., 13-15. (4.) Babylon, Is. chaps, xiii., xiv., xliv., and xlv. ; Jer. chaps. 1. and li. (5.) The Chaldean, Medeo-Persian, Grecian and Roman empires, Dan. ii., 31-45 ; vii., 17-20, and chaps, viii. and ix.
2d. The Old Testament predictions concerning Christ. Gen. xlix., 10 ; Is. vii., 14 ; ix., 6 and 7 ; xi., 1 and 2 ; xlii., 1-4, and chap. liii. ; Dan. ix., 24-27 ; Ps. xvi., 10 ; Zech. xi., 12, 13 ; Hag. ii., 6-9 ; Mai. iii., 1 ; Micah, v., 2.
3d. The predictions uttered by Christ and the Apostles. (1.) The destruction of Jerusalem, Matt. chap, xxiv ; Mark, chap, xiii., and Luke, chap. xxi. (2.) The anti-Christian apostacy, 2 Thess. ii., 3-12 : 1 Tim. iv., 1-4. — Homes' Introduction.
13. Show that the relation which the different books of Scrip- ture and their contents sustain to each other prove them to con- stitute one divinely inspired ivhole.
This wonderful constitution of the sacred volume is a miracle of intelligence, the authenticating evidence of which is, therefore, analogous to that furnished by prophecy. It consists of sixty- six separate books, including every form of composition on every variety of subject, composed by about forty different writers of every condition in life, from peasant to prince, writing at intervals through seventeen centuries of time, from Moses to the death of the Apostle John. These men develope a revelation which is constantly unfolding itself through all those years. The pre- paratory portions served a temporary purpose in the immediate circumstances under which they were written, yet their true sig- nificance lay hid in their typical and prophetical relation to the parts that were to come. Now that we possess the whole, we can easily see that during all those years those various writers elabor- ated, without concert, one work ; each subordinate part finding its highest reason in the great center and keystone of the whole, the person of Christ. Each successive part fulfilled all that has preceded it, and adjusted itself prophetically to all that came after. The preparatory system as a whole is fulfilled in the gos-
58 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.
pel ; each type in its an ti- type, each prophecy in its event. This intelligence is the mind of God, which is the same through all times, and which, adjusting all details, comprehends all in one end. — Dr. R. J. Breckenridge in University Lectures.
14. In what other respects do the Scriptures present the phe- nomena of a supernatural intelligence ?
Every other ancient writing, attempting to set forth the origin, nature and destiny of man, whether it be professedly divine, as the Hindoo Veds, or simply the record of human speculation, as the works of Aristotle and Plato, betrays total ignorance as to astronomy, geography, terrestrial physics, and as to the intellec- tual and spiritual nature of man. Modern science overthrows the claims of every uninspired ancient writing to authority on these subjects. But observe,
1st. The Scriptures teach us all we know concerning the early history of the human race and the colonization of the principal divisions of the earth. The facts which they reveal explain much otherwise dark, and they come in contact with not one well estab- lished fact otherwise known. — Gen. chap. 10.
2d. This early history gives us the only known, and, in the view of reason, a transcendently luminous explanation, of many questions growing out of the painful mystery of man's present moral condition and relations.
3d. These writings alone, of- all ever written, are entirely free from all the errors and prejudices of the age and people from whom they sprang ; and from the earliest ages the results of human science, in its gradual advance, have without a single exception fallen into perfect harmony with them, so that the writings of Moses, sixteen centuries b. c, stand fully abreast of the last attain- ments of the human mind in the ninteenth century after Christ.
4th. The Ten Commandments, as a generalized statement of all human duties, the Proverbs of Solomon, as the highest lessons of practical wisdom, the Psalms of David, as utterances of the most profound religious experiences, all have remained for thirty centuries unapproachably the best of their kind.
5th. No other writing has exercised such power over the human conscience, or probed so deeply the human heart. This power it has tested upon the ignorant and the learned, the savage and the
MORAL EVIDENCE. 59