صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

righteousness," in his nature, his person, and his offices, is in their view. After the separation of Abraham, that patriarch was told, that in his posterity all the nations of the earth should be blessed—thus intimating the incarnate nature of the Messiah. If he descended from the human family, he must partake of human nature, whilst the vast extent of the promised blessing would seem beyond the utmost powers of a mere mortal to bestow. In the last days of Jacob, the honour is restricted to Judah. Balaam calls him, in more general terms, the star, that should arise out of Jacob. David describes him as a man, afflicted, persecuted, and forsaken by his God-and again, as exalted to the right hand of the Omnipotent," a priest for ever, after the order of Melchisedek"-as the Son of the Most High, having the whole earth for a possession. Other particulars are successively disclosed. Bethlehem is designated as the place of his birth, and the very year of his public appearance is pointed out: In the reign of Hezekiah, or about that period, Micah says-" But thou, Bethlehem-Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me, that is to be Ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been of old, from everlasting!" And during the captivity, the prophet Daniel declares, at the end of seventy weeks, from the commission to Ezra, to rebuild the temple, that is according to the prophetic mode of computation, taking each day for a year-at the end of four hundred and ninety years, the Messiah should come the Most Holy should be anointed," "should be cut off, but not for himself."

*

* See Prideaux, part 1, book 5, where it is shown that this prophecy was exactly fulfilled to the very year and month.

And Haggai and Malachi, the last of the prophets, encouraging the Jews to proceed with spirit in rebuilding the temple, declare, "The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former," saith the Lord of Hosts, "for the Lord whom they sought should suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant!"

Besides this series of historical revelation, innumerable are the passages which supported the hope of Israel. Sometimes they were literal; sometimes metaphorical. Of the former, is that splendid description by Isaiah, who, for the number and explicitness of his prophecies concerning the Messiah, has been called the evangelical prophet,speaking of the glory of his kingdom, he says, "the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined." "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulders, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace, there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment, and with justice, from henceforth even for

ever."

The whole religious ritual of the Jews was a metaphorical representation of the death and atonement of Jesus Christ. Both the patriarchal and mosaical dispensations were preparatory to that which he should introduce. Distinguished men were therefore raised up from time to time, to be types, or representatives of him. David was one of these, and one of the most eminent. Hence the application

of his name, in the passage which occasioned your ques➡ › tion, and in many others, to that august personage.

Moses was another illustrious type of the Messiah. In bis last address to the Israelites, he promised them a future prophet like unto himself, resembling him in many respects, but in one characteristic so remarkable, as at once to justify the application. "The Lord your God (said he) will raise up unto you a prophet like unto me— according to all that thou desiredst of the Lord thy God in Horeb, in the day of the assembly, saying, let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not." When the Israelites were brought into the immediate presence of the Deity, to receive the written law, and the insupportable emblems of his wrath shook the earth under their feet, and burst in tremendous lightnings from the mountain; overcome with terror, they entreated that they might not, any more, hear the voice of the Omnipotent, but that a Mediator might interpose, to declare all his will. Moses became that Mediator, and thus he was the most illustrious type of that prophet who should be raised up like unto him."

66

In addition to these two classes of prophecy, or such as directly foretold a specified event, and such as spoke in symbols, in conformity to the genius of the oriental nations —there is yet a third, which are to be understood in what is called a double sense; that is, they relate primarily to one person, or event, and remotely to another: they are descriptive of both, but not so perfectly, as to admit of an exclusive application to either.

CATHERINE. Examples of these would assist our discernment when we read for ourselves.

MRS. M. In a vast variety of instances, the future peace of the Christian church is prefigured in promises to the Jewish nation, under the titles of the house of JacobJerusalem-Zion-and the mountain of the house of the Lord, in allusion to the temple, which stood on Mount Zion. Glorious days are promised to them, when Israel and Judah shall be collected from the four quarters of the globe.

Lo! these shall come from afar.

And lo! these from the north and the west,

And these from the land of Sinim.

Sing aloud, O ye heavens; and rejoice, O earth;
Ye mountains burst forth into song:

For Jehovah hath comforted his people,

And will have compassion on his afflicted.*

[ocr errors]

Such superlative pictures of the final glory of Israel, can only be referred to that time, when they, with all other nations, shall submit to the sceptre of the Redeemer, and the Millennium of the Christian church shall embrace the whole earth. The splendid passages which foretell the great prosperity of the Jews, after their deliverance from Babylon, by the Persian prince, the destruction and complete subjugation of their enemies to the very people whom they had oppressed, were never fully realised. They are not yet made "an eternal excellency," "a joy of many generations." These predictions must therefore be referred, in analogy to the whole scheme of revelation, in a secondary sense, to the glorious reign of the gospel; when both Jews and Gentiles shall be one church under Jesus Christ the deliverer-when his disciples shall be released,

* See Lowth's translation of Isaiah, chap. 49.

both from the Mosaic ritual, and from the guilt and bondage of sin. "These two events (says the elegant translator of Isaiah) the prophet connects together, and hardly ever treats of the former, without throwing in some intimations of the latter. Nay, sometimes he is so fully possessed with the glories of the remoter kingdom under the Messiah, that he seems almost to lose sight of the more immediate object of his mission."*

"Thus saith the Lord Jehovah.

Behold, I will lift up my hand to the nations:
And to the people will I exalt my signal;
And they shall bring thy sons in their bosom.

And thy daughters shall be borne on their shoulders;
And kings shall be thy foster-fathers.

And their queens, thy nursing-mothers:

With their faces to the earth they shall bow down unto thee,

And shall lick the dust of thy feet;

And thou shalt know that I am Jehovah,

And that they who trust in him shall not be ashamed."

*Lowth, chap. 40.

« السابقةمتابعة »