SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE ΤΟ SECT. XVI. 1 Note [A] p. 253. Annot. Impr. Vers. The same interpretation is given by the old Socinians, and has been generally adopted by their followers. The Calm Inquirer's words will serve instar omnium. "These words are a quotation from Ps. cii. 25, and are certainly addressed to the eternal God. The writer of this epistle having cited the promise, Ps. xlv. 6. that God would support the throne of the Messiah, in an eloquent apostrophe he addresses the Supreme Being in the language of the Psalmist, acknowledging and adoring that immutability of the divine nature, and of his wise and benevolent purposes, which constitute the surest pledge of the stability of the Messiah's kingdom."-P. 172. Enjedin prefers another solution. He considers the passage as addressed to Christ, by accommodation, as the Founder and Head, and so in a sense the Creator, of the new world, or gospel dispensation. This was, also, Grotius's notion. We shall, in another place, inquire into the doctrine of scripture on the new creation.- To what deplorable distress must Grotius have been reduced when he could bring himself to write:"this world being created for the sake of the Messiah, I should think that the expression, thou hast founded, may signify, thou hast been the cause of the earth's being founded; and, the work of thy hands, the same as, made for thy sake." Annot. in Heb. i. 10. SECT. XVII. THE LORD; THE IMMORTAL PRIEST AND CONQUEROR. Psalm cx. 1. Jehovah saith to my Lord [Adon,] Sit thou at my right hand, Until I make thine enemies thy footstool. Jehovah out of Zion shall send the sceptre of thy strength: 5. Thy people [shall present] voluntary offerings, in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness: From the womb of the morning, thine shall be the dew of thy youth. Jehovah hath sworn and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever, After the constitution of Melchisedek. The Lord [Adonai] is on thy right hand : 10. He smiteth kings in the day of his wrath; He will execute judgment on the nations, filling them He smiteth the chieftain over a great country: And will therefore [triumphantly] lift up his head.* THE Messiah is here represented as a person distinct from Jehovah, and as receiving from him a dominion the most extensive, a dominion the exercise of which is described in characters which we cannot, without difficulty, conceive as inherent in a merely created and dependent being. He is represented as a Sovereign, no less than a Priest; as receiving the homage of his devoted subjects; and as employing irresistible powers in discomfiting and punishing his persisting opposers. These descriptions may, indeed, after undergoing considerable reduction, be considered as a symbolical picture of the progress and efficacy of Christian doctrine, declaring the favourable regards of the Most High to those who dutifully receive it, and his displeasure upon those who reject and resist it. But it would remain to be considered, whether the abatements and reductions necessary for such a purpose, could be vindicated on the grounds of fair and just interpretation. Perhaps an impartial and cautious inquirer, supposed to know nothing of the prophetic characters of the Messiah except what is here declared, would think it expedient to suspend his judgment, and to pursue his investigation in the hope of finding some RECONCILING PRINCIPLE, which might shew the compatibility of these vast extremes in the same subject, and thus rationally unite the dependence and the supremacy. 66 Jesus certainly proposed this passage, as involving his enemies in an unanswerable difficulty. How, then, doth David, by the Spirit, call him Lord, saying, Jehovah said to my Lord, sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool?' If David then call him Lord, how is he his son?"* This difficulty is not removed by saying, with the Calm Inquirer, that David in prophetic vision saw things future as if they were actually present. For this answer proceeds on a wrong assumption of the point under consideration. Had the question been, How could David speak of the Messiah, many ages before he had existence? this supposed answer would have been appropriate. But it is evident that the perplexity, which Jesus put upon his opponents, lay in the fact of David's representing the Messiah, who was confessedly his own descendant, as being his Superior, his Sovereign. I cannot perceive that it would have been "the proper answer," or any answer at all, to the question founded on this statement, to say "that the Psalmist was transported in vision to the age of the Messiah, and speaks as though he were contemporary with Christ." Yet this is all that the writer advances to nullify whatever argument might be deduced from this passage, in favour of the supposition of a superior nature in the Messiah of whom David prophesied. * Matt. xxii. 43-45. Impr. Vers. "If this Psalm is a prophecy of Christ, and if our Lord is not merely arguing with the Jews upon their own principles, as in the case of demoniacs, Matt. xii. 27, the proper answer to this question seems to be, that the Psalmist was transported in vision to the age of the Messiah, and speaks as though he were contemporary with Christ. This mode of writing was not unusual with the prophets. See Isaiah liii. David, like Abraham, was permitted to see the day of Christ. John viii. 56."—-Calm Inquiry, p. 271. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE TO SECT. XVII. Note [A] p. 257. L. 1, 9. Adon and Adonai denotes a Sovereign, one who exercises a sole dominion. It is applied to a husband, father, master of a family, teacher, or magistrate, and very frequently to the Supreme Ruler. L. 5 and 6 (v. 3.) are thus translated by Dr. Kennicott, on the authority of the Syriac, Lxx. and Arabic: "With thee shall be royalty, in the day of thy power; "In majesty and holiness from the womb : "Before the morning star, I have begotten thee." "Præ rore, But I cannot venture to deviate so far from the Hebrew, which, though somewhat involved, presents, to attentive consideration, a good and noble sense. Bishop Lowth, with strong examples of such a construction, maintains an ellipsis of bu before, producing the sense above adopted. qui ex utero auroræ prodit, ros tibi erit prolis tuæ; copiosior nimirum et numerosior.-Roris autem imago significat fœcunditatem, multitudinem, copiam fœcundantem (conf. Mich. vi. 7.): numerosa tibi nascetur proles, et numerosam tibi sobolem porro propagabit." Thy youthful progeny shall be to thee as a dew, exceeding, in number and abundance, the dew which issues from the |