but the nature of the business they were about in the Sanhedrim drew them from him. They were afraid that Jesus would draw all the people to him, and enterprize something against the Roman authority, which would not then fail to send a puissant army into Palestine, and totally waste it. Caiaphas thereupon urges a very common politic maxim, That it were better to destroy one man, though he were innocent, than to expose the whole state to utter desolation. In Caiaphas's sense there is nothing of prophetic or inspired. But in the gospel sense, that which Caiaphas said, signified more than he intended, and contained a true prophecy. It is very likely that more predictions of this nature may be found in the Old Testament.

For example: David says of himself and of his enemies divers things, without thinking of prophesying, which contain nevertheless predictions of that which ought to happen to Christ and his enemies. He says Psal. xli. 10, He that ate of my bread hath lift up his heel against me: he meant surely some of those who were risen against him in Absalom's conspiracy, as Achitophel or some other, and he speaks

plainly of a thing which happened to himself. It is this very thing that inspires him, if one may so say, these words; which betoken what should befal Jesus Christ by the treachery of one of his disciples, as appears by John xiii. 18. The author of the Ixixth, and cixth Psalms, whether it were David, or some other, did not probably think of foretelling what should one day befal a disciple of the Messiah, when he cursed his enemies and yet St. Peter in the Acts* applies some words of these Psalms to Judas. There needs no great sharp-sightedness to see that the author pretended not to speak of Judas, and that he was not immediately inspired by the good and merciful Spirit of God, when he said, Set thou a wicked man over him, and let Satan stand at his right hand: when he shall be judged let him be condemned, and let his prayer become sin : let his days be few, and let another take his office: let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow: let his children continually be vagabonds and beg; let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places: let the extortioner catch all that he hath, and let the stranger spoil his labour: let

* Acts i. 20.

there be none to extend mercy unto him ; neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children: let his posterity be cut off, and in the generation following let their name be blotted out: let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the Lord; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out, &c. It is plain that these are the words of a man full of excessive choler, and of an extreme desire to be revenged. Now the law of Moses permitted not, any more than the gospel, to wish ill, or do it, to children, in revenge of the injury received from their parents. Yet some famous divines have put in the title of this Psalm, That David, AS A TYPE OF JESUS CHRIST, being driven on by a singular zeal, prays that vengeance may be executed on his enemies. And where do they find that Jesus Christ does curse his enemies at that rate? have they forgotten the words that proceeded from his dying mouth, in favour of the wickedest race that ever was? Those that crucified him, were they not the greatest enemies he had, and the most obstinate adversaries of the gospel? And, far from making the imprecations against them that they deserved, did not he pray to his father to forgive them? Has he not ordered

us to imitate him, and to pray for those that persecute us? I cannot understand how it can be said, that David, as a type of Jesus Christ, made such horrible imprecations against his enemies.

I confess, I understand not the Christian religion, if it permit the pronouncing such curses, and the wishing to be revenged after so cruel a manner, as does the author of this Psalm, and those of divers others, in which we find such-like imprecations; as that of Psal. cxxxvii. O daughter of Babylon, that art to be destroyed; happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us; happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones! God forbid that we should desire to dash out the brains of infidels' children! Yet nevertheless we see that all these Psalms are indifferently sung in protestant churches, without taking notice that they are not all equally inspired. And I remember that asking a divine, how he could sing psalms full of such imprecations? He answered me slightly, that it was lawful to use them against the enemies of the church, and that for his part he made that application to them, when he sung these Psalms. Thus

you see what the Jewish opinion of the inspiration of words, and of the divinity of each verse of the Scripture, produces.

We may conceive another sort of Proph ecies, which consisted not in foretelling things to come, but in explaining the scripture, and in composing readily hymns to the honour of God. There are some examples of these hymns in the New-Testament, as that of the blessed virgin Mary, and some others. It seems as if there went only piety and zeal to the composing them. At least it is very conceivable, that a pious, zealous man may easily now a-days praise God in that manner, without any preparation. A good part of the Psalms seems to have been thus composed, as also divers other songs which are in the Old Testament. The Psalms where the verses, or the pauses, begin with the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, seem to have been composed at more leisure. For this regularity shews that there was meditation and pains used, as is in acrostics. See Psal. cxix. and the Lamentations of Jeremiah. So we see too, that in this sort of works, the holy writers do not speak in the name of God, nor begin their discourse with, Thus