that these wise Jews would have been at all distressed by this quotation, unless the Hebrew text had read agreeably to the words “to death,” on which the argument principally depended; for by quoting it immediately, they would have triumphed over him, and reprobated his Greek version.  This, whenever they could do it was their constant practice in their disputes with the Christians.  Origen himself, who laboriously compared the Hebrew text with the Septuagint, has recorded the necessity of arguing with the Jews from such passages only as were in the Septuagint agreeable to the Hebrew.  Wherefore, as Origen had carefully compared the Greek version of the Septuagint with the Hebrew text; and as he puzzled and confounded the learned Jews, by urging upon them the reading “to death” in this place; it seems almost impossible not to conclude, both from Origen’s argument and the silence of his Jewish adversaries, that the Hebrew text at that time actually had the word agreeably to the version of the seventy.  Lowth’s Isaiah, p. 242. _________

There are other prophecies of the Old Testament, interpreted by Christians to relate to the Gospel history, which are deserving both of great regard and of a very attentive consideration:  but I content myself with stating the above, as well because I think it the clearest and the strongest of all, as because most of the rest, in order that their value might be represented with any tolerable degree of fidelity, require a discussion unsuitable to the limits and nature of this work.  The reader will find them disposed in order, and distinctly explained, in Bishop Chandler’s treatise on the subject; and he will bear in mind, what has been often, and, I think, truly, urged by the advocates of Christianity, that there is no other eminent person to the history of whose life so many circumstances can be made to apply.  They who object that much has been done by the power of chance, the ingenuity of accommodation, and the industry of research, ought to try whether the same, or anything like it, could be done, if Mahomet, or any other person, were proposed as the subject of Jewish prophecy.

II.  A second head of argument from prophecy is founded upon our Lord’s predictions concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, recorded by three out of the four evangelists.

Luke xxi. 5-25.  “And as some spake of the temple, how it was adorned with goodly stones and gifts, he said, As for these things which ye behold, the days will come in which there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.  And they asked him, saying, Master, but when shall these things be? and what sign will there be when these things shall come to pass?  And he said, Take heed that ye be not deceived; for many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and the time draweth near; go ye not therefore after them.  But when ye shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified:  for these things must first come