4

severally to become the fathers of great nations; and the history of these nations was also to be signally connected with the history and fortunes of mankind. The Jews were the prophetic offspring of the blessing to the younger, the Arabians of that to the elder son. The promise to Isaac had, in point of fact, first, a temporal fulfilment in the establishment of his race in Canaan ; and, secondly, a spiritual fulfilment in the advent of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, and in the establishment of Christianity throughout the world. In the promise to Ishmael, from the literal correspondence of the terms, coupled with the peculiar circumstances under which it was made, there seems to be just reason to look for an analogous double fulfilment. But the history of the Arabians, from the remotest antiquity, down to the seventh century of the Christian era, affords no shadow of a parallel.* At this advanced point of time, a full and exact parallel is presented, in the appearance of Mahomet; and in the establishment, through his instrumentality, by the descendants of Ishmael, first, of a temporal, and, secondly, of a spiritual dominion over a vast portion of the world. Here, in point of fact, there obtains a parallelism of accomplishment, in per

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So notoriously is this the case, that Mr. Ockley prefaces his History of the Saracens, with a remark on the obscurity and insignificance of Arabia, prior to the time of Mahomet; see Hist. of the Sar., preface, p. ix.

fect accordance with the verbal parallelism which subsists between the two branches of the original promise. And the matter comes shortly to this plain issue that either the promise to Ishmael has had no fulfilment analogous with that made to Isaac, with which it yet so singularly corresponds; or it has found its fulfilment, as the facts of the case so strongly indicate, in the rise and success of Mahomet, and in the temporal and spiritual establishment of the Mahometan superstition.

A most remarkable twofold prediction on the one hand, and an equally remarkable double and corresponding issue on the other, thus lie over against each other like two answering tallies. The facts of the analogy are incontrovertible; they require to be solved; and they admit of but the one satisfactory solution. We have only to receive the original promise to Abraham, according to the terms of it, as germinant and parallel in both its parts; and to recognise in Christianity and Mahometanism its twofold fulfilment t; and the whole doubts and difficulties of the question disappear.

The principle of this argument, it will be observed, is doubly sustained; first, by its perfect

• See section i.

+ For a full exposition of the argument founded on these parallel covenants and fulfilments, see section i.

correspondence with the promises and prophecies of Scripture, and, secondly, by its accordance with the actual phenomena.

But the circumstances under which the twofold promise to Abraham was made, necessarily suppose, together with a marked analogy, a wide interval in the characters of the two accomplishments. Isaac was the son of the free-woman, the legitimate seed, the true child and heir of promise: Ishmael was the son of the bond-woman, the illegitimate seed, and neither the offspring nor inheritor of any promise preceding his natural conception.* The nature of the case, therefore, requires a distance to be preserved between the blessings, suitable to that which obtained between these brethren; and points out, at the same time, what, apparently, this distance ought to be. If from Isaac was to spring the true religion; from Ishmael there might be expected to arise, as the counterpart, a spurious faith. If the true Messiah, the descendant of Isaac, and who, like him, came by promise, was to be the founder of the one creed; a counterfeit Messiah, the descendant of Ishmael, and who, like him, should come without promise, could be the only appropriate founder of the other. These anticipations are obviously

* The birth of Ishmael, by name, was foretold to Hagar; but this prediction followed, instead of preceding, conception. See Gen. xvi. 11.

suggested, antecedently, by the circumstances of the case; and they are accurately met, by the whole phenomena of Christianity and Mahometanism.

Christ and his religion, conformably with the dignity of his heirship, are infinitely perfect, pure, and holy Mahomet and his superstition, consonantly with the disadvantages of his natural descent, are debased and degraded by an inordinate mixture of alloy. The two creeds, in a word, maintain throughout, the distance implied by the original relation between the two brethren. Christianity is, in every feature, the genuine offspring of the legitimate son Isaac: Mahometanism, in all its lineaments, the meet progeny of the spurious son Ishmael, 84 Accordingly, the creed of Mahomet is found to be composed, in its better features, from the Jewish and Christian Scriptures; and in its worse, from rabbinical and heretical corruptions of the one and the other.* Generally, where his doctrine departs most grossly from the true religion, he is to be traced in the Talmuds, or in the apocryphal gospels. His deflexions, no less than his approximations, thus confirm the relation of his lie to the truth.

It is remarkable, that one of the greatest ex

• See sections iv.-ix. passim.

ceptions which has been taken to Mahometanism, namely, its plagiarisms from the Old and New Testaments, and its sweeping adoption of the dreams of the Talmudists, and the diseased speculations of Christian heretics, proves a main essential towards the establishment of a preordained connection between the two systems, growing out of the original twofold promise.

But the distance and distinctness preserved in all the circumstances of agreement, are not merely appropriate as suited to the original contrast between the sons of Abraham: they are essential, further, to guard the truth and dignity of the greater prophecy concerning the Messiah, and to vindicate the consistency of the divine proceedings. Had Mahometanism approached more nearly to Christianity, in the soundness of its principles, and the purity of its precepts; had the personal character of Mahomet been at all assimilated to the holy and undefiled character of Jesus; painful and perplexing doubts must inevitably have arisen, not only as to the consistency of the divine government, but as to the claims of the rival prophets. Let us beware, therefore, to what extent we carry our unqualified reprehension of Mahomet and his superstition, lest we be found, in so doing, to cast reflections on the unerring wisdom, which has