CHAPTER XVI

THE COMING OF CHRIST WAS PREDICTED BY THE PROPHETS; AND WAS ORDAINED TO BE THE OVERTHROW OF IDOLS AND IDOLATROUS CITIES

LONG since had His passion, as well as His advent in the flesh, been predicted by the prophets. The time, too, of His incarnation had been foretold, and the manner in which the fruits of iniquity and profligacy, so ruinous to the works and ways of righteousness, should be destroyed, and the whole world partake of the virtues of wisdom and sound discretion, through the almost universal prevalence of those principles of conduct which the Saviour should promulge, over the minds of men; whereby the worship of God should be confirmed, and the rites of superstition utterly abolished. By these not the slaughter of animals alone, but the sacrifice of human victims, and the pollutions of an accursed worship, had been devised: as, for example, by the laws of Assyria and Egypt, the lives of innocent men were offered up in images of brass or earth. Therefore have these nations received a recompense worthy so foul a worship. Memphis and Babylon (it was declared) shall be wasted, and left desolate with their fathers’ gods. Now these things I speak not from the report of others, but having myself been present, and an actual witness of the wretched fate which has befallen these cities. Memphis lies desolate; that city which was the pride of the once mighty Pharaoh, whose power Moses crushed at the Divine command, and destroyed his army (which had proved victorious over numerous and mighty nations, an army strong in defences and in arms), not by the flight of arrows or the hurling of hostile weapons, but by holy prayer alone, and quiet supplication.