which were first peopled by the posterity of Japhet. Among the uncivilized descendants of Ham, and the degenerate sons of Shem, it hath not been so generally spread, or hath not so deeply taken root.

Beside this evident agreement with history and the prophetic system, another circumstance is much in favour of this interpretation; which is this, that the images of this prediction bear a near affinity to those under which later prophets have described the same event. Hear in what language the prophet Isaiah announces the conversion of the Gentiles, in words addressed to the Jewish church, as the emblem of the Christian. "Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations." Or, as the words are more significantly rendered in a late translation, "Let the canopy of thy habitation be extended. Spare not: Lengthen thy cords, and firmly fix thy stakes. For on the right hand and on the left thou shalt burst forth with increase; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles." Here, you see, Isaiah's allusion is

to the tabernacle; and the image presented to him is an enlargement of the sacred tent, to contain new crowds of worshippers; and the stakes are to be driven deep and firm -the cords are to be lengthened and drawn tight, that the sides of the tent may be able to sustain the pressure of the multitudes within it. Noah's allusion is also to the tabernacle; and the image presented to him is the admission of foreign worshippers. It is therefore one and the same scene which the patriarch and the younger prophet have before them ; and, except in the distinct mention of that particular circumstance, that the new worshippers should be chiefly of Japhet's stock, Noah's prophecy differs not from Isaiah's otherwise than as an outline differs from a more finished drawing of the same objects.

Thus, by the apostle's rules, prophecy, in that part of it which regards the family of Japhet, is brought to three senses, in each of which it hath been remarkably verified,—in the settlements of European and Tartarian conquerors in the Lower

Asia and in the East, in the settlements of European traders on the coasts of Indostan, but especially in the numerous and early conversions of the idolaters of Japhet's line (among whom, it is fit that we of this island should remember, our own ancestors were included,) to the worship of the one true God, and to the faith of Christ.

I am sensible that this variety of intent and meaning discovered in a single prophecy brings on a question of no small difficulty, and of the first importance. It is this, What evidence of a providence may arise from predictions like the one we have now been considering, in which a variety of unconnected events, independent, to all appearance, of each other, and very distant in times, seem to be prefigured by the same images? And, although it be a digression from my main subject, yet as the inquiry is of the highest importance, and spontaneously presents itself, it is to this that I shall devote the remainder of the present discourse.

I shall not wonder, if, to those who have not sifted this question to the bottom, (which few, I am persuaded, have done,) the evidence of a providence, arising from prophecies of this sort, should appear to be very slender, or none at all. Nor shall I scruple to confess, that time was when I was myself in this opinion; and was therefore much inclined to join with those who think that every prophecy, were it rightly understood, would be found to carry a precise and single meaning; and that, wherever the double sense appears, it is because the one true sense hath not yet been detected. I said-"Either the images of the prophetic style have constant and proper relations to the events of the world, as the words of common speech have proper and constant meanings, or they have not. If they have, then it seems no less difficult to conceive that many events should be shadowed under the images of one and the same prophecy, than that several likenesses should be expressed in a single portrait. But if the prophetic images have no such appropriate relations to things, but that the same image may

stand for many things, and various events be included in a single prediction, then it should seem that prophecy, thus indefinite in its meaning, can afford no proof of providence: For it should seem possible, that a prophecy of this sort, by whatever principle the world were governed — whether by providence, nature, or necessitymight owe a seeming completion to mere accident." And since it were absurd to suppose that the Holy Spirit of God should frame prophecies by which the end of prophecy might so ill be answered, it seemed a just and fair conclusion, that no prophecy of holy writ might carry a double meaning.

Thus I reasoned, till a patient investigation of the subject brought me, by God's blessing, to a better mind. I stand clearly and unanswerably confuted, by the instance of Noah's prophecy concerning the family of Japhet; which hath actually received various accomplishments, in events of various kinds, in various ages of the world, -in the settlements of European and Tartarian conquerors in the Lower Asia,