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BY

SAMUEL HORSLEY,

LL.D. F.R.S. F.A. S.

LATE

LORD BISHOP OF ST. ASAPH.

VOL. II.

New-York:

PRINTED AND SOLD BY T. AND J. SWORDS,

No. 160 Pearl-Street.

1811.

SERMON XV.

2 PETER i. 20, 21.

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time-or, as it is in the margin-" came not at any time”—by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

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IN the verse which immediately precedes my text, the apostle mentions a sure word of prophecy," which he earnestly commends to the attention of the faithful. This word of prophecy, I conceive, is to be understood, not of that particular word of the psalmist,* nor of that other of Isaiah,† to which the voice uttered from heaven at the baptism, and repeated from the shechinah at the transfiguration, hath by many been supposed to allude;not of either of these, nor of any other particular prediction, is St. Peter's prophetic word, in my judgment, to be understood; but of the entire volume of the prophetic writings of the whole body of the prophecies which were extant in the Christian Church, at the time when the apostle wrote this second epistle. You are all, I doubt not, too well acquainted with your Bibles, to be told by me, that this epistle was written at no long interval of time before the blessed apostle's martyrdom. He tells you so himself, in the fourteenth verse of this first

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chapter. The near prospect of putting off his mortal tabernacle, was the occasion of his composing this epistle, which is to be considered as his dying charge to the church of God. Now, the martyrdom of St. Peter took place in Nero's persecution, when his fellow-labourer St. Paul had been already taken off. St. Paul, therefore, we may reasonably suppose, was dead before St. Peter wrote this epistle, which, by necessary consequence, must have been of later date than any of St. Paul's. Again, three of the four gospels, St. Matthew's, St. Mark's, and St. Luke's, were all published some years before St. Peter's death; for St. Luke's, which is beyond all controversy the latest of the three, was written about the time when St. Paul was released from his first imprisonment at Rome. It appears from these circumstances, that our Saviour's prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem and his last advent, which is recited in the gospels of the three first evangelists, and St. Paul's predictions of Antichrist, the dreadful corruptions of the latter times, and the final restoration of the Jewish people, delivered in various parts of his epistles, must have been current among Christians at the time when this second epistle of St. Peter was composed. These prophecies, therefore, of the Christian Church, together with the prophetic writings of the Old Testament, the books of the Jewish prophets, the book of Psalms, and the more ancient oracles preserved in the books of Moses, make up that system of prophecy which is called by the apostle "the prophetic word," to which, as it were, with his last breath, he gives it in charge to the true believer to give heed. If I seem to exclude the book of the Apocalypse from that body of prophecy which I suppose the apostle's injunction to regard, it is not that I entertain the least doubt about the authenticity or authority of that book, or that I esteem it less deserving of attention than the rest of the prophetic writings;

but for this reason, that, not being written till many years after St. Peter's death, it cannot be understood to make a part of the writings to which he alludes. However, since the sentiments delivered by St. Peter are to be understood to be the mind of the Holy Spirit which inspired him,—since the injunction is general, prescribing what is the duty of Christians in all ages, no less than of those who were the contemporaries of the apostle, since the Apocalypse, though not then written, was nevertheless an object of the Spirit's prescience, as a book which, in no distant time, was to become a part of the oracular code, we will, if you please, amend our exposition of the apostle's phrase: we will include the Apocalypse in the word of prophecy; and we will say that the whole body of the prophecies, contained in the inspired books of the Old and New Testament, is that to which the Holy Spirit, in the admonition which he dictated to St. Peter, requires all who look for salvation to give heed, as to a lamp shining in a dark place;". a discovery from heaven of the schemes of Providence, which, however imperfect, is yet sufficient for the comfort and support of good men, under all the discouragements of the present life; as it furnishes a demonstration

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-not of equal evidence, indeed, with that which the final catastrophe will afford, but a certain demonstration -a demonstration drawn from fact and experience, rising in evidence as the ages of the world roll on, and, in every stage of it, sufficient for the passing generation of mankind, "that the Most High ruleth in the kingdoms of the earth,”—that his providence directeth all events for the final happiness of the virtuous,-that " there is a reward for the righteous,-that there is a God who will judge the earth." In all the great events of the world, especially in those which more immediately concern the true religion and the church, the first Christians saw, and we of these ages see, the extended arm of Providence

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