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what was written of Elijah; from whose history it might be foreseen, what would become of John the Baptist; namely, that a wicked and powerful woman should thirst after his blood, and that a king should send his officers to take away his life. This was what they listed to do against Elijah: therefore when Herodias persecuted the Baptist, and Herod sent an executioner to behead him, they acted according as it was written. Elijah was miraculously preserved to be carried up alive into heaven whereto John followed him, in a way more agreeable to the spirit of the Gospel, the way of martyrdom *.

We find another figurative character in the person of Isaac the son of Abraham, whose sacrifice and deliverance were descriptive of Christ's death and resurrection. Abraham, says the apostle, offered up Isaac, accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure. The history of this transaction informs us, that on the third day Abraham lift

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"If the reader should be pleased with what is here said, he will be much more pleased with Considerations on the Life and Death of John the Baptist, by Dr. Horne, the present D of Canterbury.

+ Hebrews xi. 19.

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his eyes, and saw the place where his son. was to be offered up. He laid upon Isaac the wood on which he was to suffer, as Christ carried his own cross: and when the knife was lifted up to slay him, the angel of the Lord interposed, and Isaac was received, as it were, from the dead; having been actually devoted to death in the mind of his father for three days. In his substitute the ram, a real sacrifice was offered, as Abraham had expected, and Isaac was still alive; so that in the one we have a figure of the death of Christ, in the other of his resurrection. And to render this transaction more descriptive, the providence of God directed Abraham on this occasion to the mountains of Moriah, where the temple of Jerusalem was afterwards built; in which the lamb Christ Jesus was daily offered up for many hundred years in the sacrifices of the law; and where Christ himself at length suffered; accomplishing all the offerings of the law, and fulfilling the sacrifice and figurative resurrec tion of Isaac. The 11th chapter * of the

epistle

* A learned Dignitary of this Church, who is mighty in the scriptures, hath composed a series of discourses, equally excellent and edifying, upon the several characters of the faithful in this chapter; which I hope he will not forget to publish in due time.

epistle to the Hebrews, in which the history of Isaac is treated of, would afford us many other examples of illustrious persons whose actions and sufferings were conformed to the character of that Saviour in whom they believed. But of all the personal histories which have a prophetic relation to the sufferings and exaltation of Jesus Christ, none are so full to the purpose as those two characters of Joseph and Moses, which were selected by the blessed martyr St. Stephen in his apology against the Jews which apology, when rightly considered, opens a wonderful scene, and carries us very far into the prophetical imagery of the scripture. St. Stephen, in his disputes with the adversaries of the gospel, had argued in such a manner from the figures of the Old Testament, to vindicate the sufferings and demonstrate the verity of the mission of Jesus Christ, that none could resist the wisdom and the spirit with which he spake*. And at length, in his speech, before the high priest at his trial, we have the method and substance of his reasoning: of which I am now to make my use, so far as it relates to the present part of our subject. The design of this discourse, and the drift of

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* See Acts, chap. vi. 7.

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the argument may be collected by comparing some passages of it together.

Having reminded the Jews, in the first place*, that the promises of God, and the hopes of the fathers, did not rest in a temporal or worldly inheritance, as they had falsely flattered themselves; he lays down the histories. of Joseph and Moses, with the persecutions they underwent from their people, and the interposition of God for their exaltation and then, to shew his meaning in all this, he makes the following application, for the conviction of his hearers, who had been the persecutors of Jesus Christ. "Ye stiff necked, and uncir"cumcised in heart and ears (who from your "disobedience are not able to hear and under"stand what the law has declared to you) ye "do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your "fathers did, so do ye. Which of the pro

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phets have not your fathers persecuted? And "they have slain them which shewed before "of the coming of the Just one, of whom ye "have been now the betrayers and murder"erst." This application shews with what design he had reminded them of the reception which Joseph and Moses, those two emi

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* See the beginning of the 7th chapter of the Acts:
+ Acts vii. 51.

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nent characters of the law, had met with. He meant to shew them, that as these favourites of heaven, whom God had commissioned to be the Saviours of their people, were opposed and persecuted; so had they now, in like form and manner, opposed and persecuted the Just one Jesus Christ; and in so doing had fulfilled the scripture, and done all that was wanting to confirm the truth of his divine mission; inasmuch as none could be the true Saviour, according to the scriptures, but a person rejected by them, as these holy prophets had been rejected by their forefathers.

Such is the purport of St. Stephen's apology; and, with this key, we are prepared to examine the particulars. He enters on the character of Joseph with these remarkable words: the patriarchs moved with envy sold Joseph into Egypt. Who were the enemies of Joseph ?The patriarchs; his own brethren, all against him to a man. Having first plotted together to take away his life, they sold him, and then shewed the marks of his blood, that his father

might be assured he was dead.

The strangers,

to whom he was given up, carried him far from his family, and placed him among heathens in the land of Egypt. All these particulars were exactly

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