he prophecies contained in the sacred Scriptures, and fulfilling to this day, fully demonstrate that they are divinely inspired. These form a species of perpetual miracles, which challenge the investigation of men in every age; and which, though overlooked by the careless and prejudiced, cannot fail of producing conviction proportioned to the humble and reverential attention paid to them. The prophecies of the Messiah, which are found in almost all the books of the old Testament, when compared with the exact accomplishment of them, as recorded in the authentick writings of the Evangelists, abundantly prove them to have been written under the guidance of the Holy Spirit: while the existence of the Jews as a people differing from all others upon the face of the earth, and their regard to these writings, as the sacred oracles handed down !from their progenitors, sufficiently vouch for their antiquity: though that admits of full and clear proof of another kind. According to the predictions of these books, Nineveh has been desolated; Babylon swept with the besom of destruction; Tyre become a place to dry nets in; Egypt the basest of the kingdoms, which has never since been able to "exalt itself above the nations." These, and many other events, fulfilling ancient prophecies, very many ages after they were delivered, can never be accounted for; except by allowing, that Ele, who sees the end from the beginning, thus revealed his secret purposes, that the accomplishment of them might prove the Scriptures to be his word of instruction to mankind.
In like manner, there are evident predictions interwoven with the writings of almost every writer of the New Testament, as a divine attestation to the doctrine contained in them. The destruction of Jerusalem, with all the circumstances predicted in the Evangelists; (the narrative of which may be seen in Josephus's History of the Jewish wars;) the series of ages, during which that city has been "trodden down of the gentiles;" the long continued dispersion of the Jews, and the conversion of the nations to Christianity; the many antichristian corruptions of the gospel; the supcrstition, uncommanded austerities, idolatry, spiritual tyranny, and persecution, of the Roman hierarchy; the division of the emipre into ten kingdoms; the concurrence of those who ruled those kingdoms during many ages, to support the usurpations of the church of Rome; and the existence of Christianity to this day, amidst so many enemies, who have used every possible method to destroy it: --all these occurrences, when diligently compared with the predictions of the New Testament, do not come short of the fullest demonstration, of which the case will admit, that the books, which contain those predictions, are the unerring word of God. . . .
The predictions of Scripture, if carefully examined, will be found to contain a prophetical history of the world, as to all the grand outlines, from the beginning to this present time; not to speak of such, as are yet unfulfilled. --from the introduction to Thomas Scott's Bible
Content last modified 1994