ever to have been wrought. All miracles were external, and the reflection on them -produced its natural effect on the minds of those who gave due attention to them; and who were fuitably impreffed with them.

As to the proper time for working miracles, and making this or that age the witneffes of them, and of courfe the vouchers of their reality to others, it is a question which we must acknowledge we are not able to anfwer. But neither does it concern us to answer it, any more than to affign a reason why it pleased the Divine Being to create the world, or men and other animals, at one time rather than another, or why he did not make more or fewer planets to attend the fun, &c. &c. Of Of every thing of this nature, he alone is the proper judge. It is enough for us if we be fatisfied, on fufficient evidence, that miracles have been wrought at any time, and if we have been informed of the purpose for which they were wrought. If they were actually feen by others, though at ever fo great a distance of time, they ought, in reason, to have the fame effect as if seen by ourselves, and we are as inexcufable, if we be not as

much influenced by them. And if God has spoken, it cannot be a matter of indifference, whether we will attend to his voice or not. In this cafe I may say, after our Saviour, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

DISCOURSE

DISCOURSE XI.

The Proof of Revealed Religion
from Prophecy.

I have even from the beginning declared it unto thee. Before it came to pass I fhewed it thee, left thou fhouldeft fay mine idol has done them, and my graven image, and my molten image, bave commanded them.

ISAIAH xlviii. 5.

For

THERE is not, perhaps, any thing more exclufively within the province of the Supreme Being than the foreknowledge of future events, depending on the volitions of men. though all things future may be said to exift in their causes, which are present, those caufes are not apparent, and their operations and combinations are fuch as no human intellect can trace; fo that to us they are as contingent, and uncertain, as if the caufes did not exist. They who know mankind in general, and even particular perfons, the best,

can only conjecture how they will act in given circumstances, and are often mistaken; but how they will act in future time, when it cannot be known in what circumstances they will then be, is what no man will pretend to, and this ftill lefs with refpect to perfons then unborn. A prediction of a future and distant event, depending on the voluntary actions of men, has therefore the effect of a miracle of the most indifputable kind. Now many such are recorded in the fcriptures, and confequently ought to be enumerated among the clearest proofs of their divine authority, and of the truth of the religion they contain. For this reason I shall make them the fubject of this difcourfe, fhewing, from the circumstances of the predictions, that they are not liable to any just fufpicion of imposture, that in this respect they were the reverse of the oracles of the heathens, and that they have been clearly verified by the events.

There were two ways in which the knowledge of future events was communicated to the Hebrews. One was by confulting the oracle, as it may be called, when answers to particular queftions were given to the highprieft; and the other by prophets, who were

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raised

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raised up from time to time to fpeak to the people in the name of God. I fhall confider the circumftances of both.

1. The regular method of confulting the divine oracle, called inquiring of the Lond, was by the chief magiftrate attending in the fanctuary along with the high-priest in his proper vestments, directing him what queftions to put; when the answers were equally heard by them both. Thus when Joshua was appointed to fucceed Mofes, it is faid, Num. xxvii. 21, And he fhall fland by Eleazar the priest, who shall ask counsel for him, after the judgment of Urim, before the Lord. From this it is obvious, that it was not in the power of the high-priest to impofe upon the country what he thought proper, as a divine oracle. It does not even appear that he ever went of his own accord to confult the oracle, but only when required to do fo by the civil magistrate, who attended along with him, and heard the anfwer as well as himself, Of this we have feveral examples in the courfe of the fcripture hiftory. Indeed, it is evident from the whole hiftory of the Hebrews, that neither by this, nor by any other means, was it in

the power of the priests to acquire any more

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authority