And as the enemies of Christ knew not that they were fulfilling these prophecies respecting him, so neither, at the time, did his own disciples. Where, on the other hand, Providence thinks proper to make use of the passions and interests of man, in the fulfilment of prophecies, they are more express and plain. Thus Alexander the Great is so plainly denoted by Dan. viii. 20, 21, 22, that when this prophecy of himself was shown him by the high priest at Jerusalem, he was encouraged to proceed in his expedition against the Persians.-Vide Leslie's "Truth of Christianity Demonstrated."

The testimony of Cicero is above all exception; for as an augur, he had free access to the Sibylline Books. He therefore spoke upon the best information; and he is the more to be credited, as his frank confession fell from him in the heat of a political debate in which he took an interested part. And from this testimony we may fairly conclude that the ancient fathers of our church were not false interpreters of what the Sibylline Books contained. We have further light thrown on this interesting inquiry by the celebrated Roman poet, Virgil, who flourished in the court of Augustus no long time before our Saviour's birth, when the general expectation of a person to appear, who should abolish both physical and moral evil, was at the highest.

The fourth eclogue is addressed to his friend Pollio, who was at this time Consul, and the subject of it is the birth of some child, supposed to be near at hand, which should shed lustre on that noble Roman's Consulate. And such is the description which the heathen poet gives of the extraordinary person supposed to be forthcoming, that if any illiterate person were to hear the eclogue, or poem, read, with the omission of the names of heathen deities, and of the allusion to profane mythology, which occurs in a few passages, he would, without hesitation, pronounce it to be a prophecy of the Messiah, or a poem, at least, upon that subject, written in express imitation of the style of the Jewish prophets. Many attempts have been made to account for this coincidence; but Cicero himself refers to the oracles of the Cumæan Sibyl, as the source from which these predictions came.

"Ultima Cumai venit jam carminis ætas."

And in this lay the whole force of his compliment to Pollio-that the child, whose future greatness was the object of Pollio's ambition, would prove to be that personage whom the Cumaan Sibyl had announced as a deliverer of the world from physical and moral evil.

From the strain of the poet's compliments we gather the particulars of the Sibylline prophecy, in regard to the character which it ascribes to the person

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whose appearance is announced. He was to be of heavenly extraction.

"Chara Deûm suboles, magnum Jovis incrementum !"

A new state of things was to arise like the " new heavens and new earth."-Is. lxv. 17.

Magnus ab integro sæclorum nascitur ordo."

He was to introduce peace every where, and in his government of the whole world he was to exercise his father's virtues. The blessings of his reign were to reach even to the brute creation.

"Ipsæ lacte domum referent distenta capella
Ubera; nec magnos metuent armenta leones.
Ipsa tibi blandos fundent cunabula flores.
Occidet et serpens, et fallax herba veneni
Occidet."

What can come

nearer to the very words of Isaiah, when, describing the happy condition of the new earth, he says, that " The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy, in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord."-Is. lxv. 25.

And as God introduces the Messiah with the sublime ejaculation-" Yet once it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; and I will shake all nations, and the desire

of all nations shall come"-(Hag. ii. 6, 7); so the

heathen poet exclaims,

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Adspice convexo nutantem pondere mundum,

Terrasque tractusque maris cœlumque profundum :

Adspice, venturo lætantur ut omnia sæclo."

And to show how near the time was at hand, he has the very expressions,

"Aderit jam tempus,”—and

"Jam nova progenies cœlo demittitur alto."

But as we learn from history that neither Pollio himself, nor any distinguished friend of his, had a son born within the year of his Consulate, or even about that time; so, likewise, the words of the poet are such as will not admit of being applied to any mortal, or to the reign of any temporal prince-to no other personage, in short, but the Messiah, the Lord of heaven and earth; and to the perpetuity of His blissful kingdom.

CHAPTER XII.

THE INSUFFICIENCY OF NATURAL RELIGION.

How earnestly the greatest men of antiquity turned from the light of nature to the hope of a more distinct and satisfactory revelation, may be collected from a thousand records of their pious aspirations; the best men even appearing to have been the most acutely sensible of their own wants and imperfections, and their own utter inability to penetrate the dark recesses of the tomb. "Under the persuasion that we cannot know of ourselves what petitions will be pleasing to God, or with what manner of worship to approach Him, we find Plato declaring in his Alcibiad. ii. De Precatione-that it is necessary a law-giver should be sent from heaven to instruct us; and then exclaiming, with all that fervour which the sanguine expectation of some such person's being sent into the world inspired'Oh how greatly do I desire to see that man and who he is!' Nor can we for a moment doubt that, if such had been his felicity, he would have retired joyfully from this scene of his transitory existence with words of similar import upon his lips to those which