After the last of these, came a far more degenerate time (at least among
the young people), I suppose, than ever before. Mr. Stoddard, indeed,
had the comfort, before he died, of seeing a time where there were no
small appearances of a divine work among some, and a considerabl
45Eccles. 3:19. "for all is vanity."
46Rom. 8:20-21. "It shall be delivered."
[47]Horace, Odes, III. xxix. 13. "Changes nearly always please the great."
48Seneca, Epistles, xx. 8. "In order that you are satisfied with yourself
and the good that is born from you."
[49]Montaigne, Essays, ii. 12.
50Cicero, De Divinatione, ii. 58. "There is nothing so absurd that it has
not been said by some philosopher."
51Cicero, Disputationes Tusculanae, ii. 2. "Devoted to certain fixed
opinions, they are forced to defend what they hardly approve."
52Seneca, Epistles, cvi. "We suffer from an excess of literature as from an
excess of anything."
53Cicero, De officiis, i. 31. "What suits each one best is what is to him
the most natural."
54Virgil, The Georgics, ii. "Nature gave them first these limits."
55Seneca, Epistles, cvi. "Wisdom does not demand much teaching."
56Cicero, De finibus bonorum et malorum. "What is not shameful begins to
become so when it is approved by the multitude."
57Terence, Heauton Timorumenos, I. i. 21. "That is how I use it; you must do
as you wish."
58Quintillian, x. 7. "It is rare that one sufficiently respects one's self."
59Seneca the Elder, Suasoriae, i. 4. "So many gods are busy around a sin
707. But it was not enough that the prophecies should exist. It was
necessary that they should be distributed throughout all places and
preserved throughout all times. And, in order that this agreement might not
be taken for an effect of chance, it was necessary that this should be
foretold.
It is far more glorious for the Messiah that the Jews should be the
specators and even the instruments of His glory, besides that God had
reserved them.
708. Prophecies.--The time foretold by the state of the Jewish people, by
the state of the heathen, by the state of the temple, by the number of
years.
709. One must be bold to predict the same thing in so many ways. It was
necessary that the four idolatrous or pagan monarchies, the end of the
kingdom of Judah, and the seventy weeks, should happen at the same time, and
all this before the second temple was destroyed.
710. Prophecies.--If one man alone had made a book of predictions about
Jesus Christ, as to the time and the manner, and Jesus Christ had come in
conformity to thes