CHAP. VI.

INVESTIGATION OF THE GENERAL RESULT OF THIS

INDUCTION.

SUCH is the picture of the MESSIAH, drawn by the pencil of prophecy, while his coming was yet the object of hope and expectation. It combines opposite, and apparently incompatible, properties; those distinctive of the Uncreated and Unchangeable God; and those of a created and dependent mortal, ascending through sorrow and death to immortal life, glory, and happiness!-Is such a combination admissible?

There are only three ways in which this question can be treated by those who acknowledge the authority of revelation.

I. The premises may be denied. It may be maintained that the prophetic scriptures do not attribute the superior class of characters to the Messiah; and, of course, that in each instance of such deductions, we have been interpreting the scriptures fallaciously.

I am well aware of the influence of preconceived sentiments, and that, "where there is neither ignorance, nor negligence, nor studied mis-statement imputable to the translator" or interpreter, "prejudices in favour of certain theories and doctrines seduce him unconsciously into a misrepresentation of his author."* I can only say, therefore, that I have placed a jealous guard against this avenue to error; and that, in all the preceding disquisitions on the particular texts which are the basis of our conclusions, I have endeavoured to observe the strictest rules of criticism and interpretation. The attentive reader will, also, perceive that in the Recapitulation, no stress has been laid upon the more dubious passages. I have rested upon what I conscientiously believe to be the true signification of each of the remaining passages, elicited by the most cautious construction. The appeal can only be made to the understanding, the critical skill, and the serious reflection, of the impartial and upright reader.

II. The justness of our criticisms, and the general validity of the principles, may, perhaps, be admitted; while the conclusion is denied, upon the ground that the exalted language of the descriptions referred to is to be understood improperly and figuratively. The word god, it may be said, is in the scriptures applied to Moses as a

* Dr. Crombie's Gymnasium, vol. i. p. 75.

divine messenger, to angels, to the false deities of the heathen, and to magistrates, even when they were wicked men :* that word, therefore, with many of the attributives which the common ideas and language of men associate with it, may, with great propriety, be applied to the Messiah,

* "An idol was only called a god, as we call a picture by the name of what it represents." (Julius Bate's Reply to Sharp, p. 58.) The following are, so far as I have been able to ascertain, all the instances of the other applications of this word. A bare inspection of them will verify the observation made in the first remark on this hypothesis.

applied to Moses; Exod. iv. 16. vii. 1.—To angels; Ps. viii. 5. xcvii. 7.-To the magistrates; Exod xxi. 6. xxii. 8, 9. (In those three passages rendered Judges.) xxii. 28. Ps. lxxxii. 1, 6. cxxxviii. 1. But these were the magistrates of the Hebrew polity, which, being a peculiar and miraculous Theocracy, would with propriety admit of this application. The civil and ecclesiastical officers of the Israelitic state were expressly the vicegerents of Jehovah. Abrabenel (ap. Buxtorf. de Nominibus Dei, § 40.) argues that, in the passages cited for this signification, there is no sufficient foundation for the application assumed; but that they are to be understood in the same manner as, according to the usage of all civilized countries, the supreme magistrate is considered by the law as present in courts of national judicature. In our English courts of record, "the king is not said to appear by his attorney, as other men do; for he always appears, in contemplation of law, in his own proper person." (Blackstone, book i. ch. vii. § 3.) So when it is said, "His master shall bring him to God," the meaning is, to the court or tribunal of God; as, in Deut. xix. 17. it is expressed, "the men between whom the controversy is, shall stand before JEHOVAH," which is immediately explained by the clause, " before the priests and the judges." See also what has been advanced in Sect. XXXII. of the preceding Chapter.

who is confessedly entitled to higher honours than any other human being.

On this hypothesis we make two remarks.

1. In all the places where the term Elohim is used in the inferior sense mentioned, it is so surrounded by circumstances of modification and explanation, that it is rendered impossible to be misunderstood; and in general the reason of the application is sufficiently intimated. On comparison of those places with the passages which ascribe the same appellative, or equivalent ones, to the Messiah, the contrast will appear most striking.

2. The solution is not sufficient, for it does not meet all the facts of the case. The Messiah is not barely termed God, in the prophetic descriptions; but a copiousness of epithet and attribute, a profusion of diversified and lofty description, is employed in connection with the names of divinity. These adjuncts do not permit us to understand the names referred to, in any lower or accommodated sense; but they incontrovertibly ascribe the most peculiar and exalted characters of Supreme Deity.

III. The remaining solution is that which, admitting without suppression or evasion all the declarations in scripture which form the phænomena

of the case, goes the full length of their conclusion; and thus ascribes to the promised Messiah the actual possession of Two NATURES, the human with all its essential properties, and the DIVINE with all its inseparable perfections.

The only objection, not already anticipated, to this inference is, that no evidence can make it credible, because it is impossible: we must, therefore, either believe that the language of the Jewish prophets was not that of sober truth, but was the exaggeration of fancy, the mere colouring of poetry; or suppose that, with all our caution and scrupulosity, we have totally failed to understand that language.

*

But, upon what grounds is this allegation of impossibility made?

Will it be held impossible that OMNIPOTENCE should form a human creature, with the express design of constituting an union or conjunction with that human creature; such an union or conjunction as shall be perpetual, while yet the distinctive

* Probably the author of the Calm Inquiry would not hesitate to accept this part of the alternative, if we may judge from the bold dogmatism of those assertions, which, for any thing that appears, he expects his readers to admit without further question: such, for example, as this; "No conclusion can be drawn from the obscure and figurative language of prophecy." P. 312.