It is clear that the prophet promises a sign to be very shortly given, from which Ahaz was to know that his deliverance would very shortly take place. Such was not the promise of the Messiah, to be born of a virgin above seven hundred years after. The solutions which have been devised for answering this objection, are extremely improbable, and manifestly wrest the prophet's words. I think, then, the weight of evidence to be in favour of those who interpret the passage thus: that the prophet pointed out some virgin who was present and well known to all the persons addressed; that he predicted that she should, in a miraculous manner, bring forth a son, for a confirmation of the promise given; and that this miracle, while it immediately respected the times of the prophet, was a TYPE of the birth of Christ of the Virgin Mary.-As the brazen serpent was a type of the crucifixion of Christ, and Jonah of his being three days in the grave; is it incredible that God should have been pleased thus to prefigure his miraculous birth?" Dathii Propheta Majores; Hale, 1785, p. 22-25.

SECT. XX.

JEHOVAH, THE OBJECT OF CONFIDENCE AND OF REVERENCE.

Is. viii. 13, 14.

1. To Jehovah of hosts himself pay holy homage, Even Him your fear, and Him your dread:

And He shall be for a sanctuary,

And for a stone of judicial plague, and for a rock of ruin, 5. To both the houses of Israel;

For a snare and for a net,

To the inhabitant of Jerusalem.

It may,

only in

and it

THE middle clauses of this passage are certainly introduced by the apostles Peter and Paul, with an explicit application to Christ.* however, be said, that the application is the way of allusion and accommodation is admitted that examples of such allusive citations do occur in the New Testament. But this admission must be limited by the principles of reason and religion. We cannot carry it so far, as to impugn the good sense or the piety of the sacred writers, if we even did not regard them as inspired. It was one of the first doctrines of their

*Rom. ix. 33. 1 Pet. ii. 8.

66

religion, both as Jews and as Christians, that the things of God" are ever to be treated with reverence, and that, in no respect, is "his glory to be given to another." Can we suppose that they would, without scruple and without any qualifying intimations, take up the attributes and descriptions appropriated to the Great God, and promptly apply them to an inferior being, to a mere fellowmortal? Yet this strange inadvertence, to give it the mildest name, we must impute to "the apostles of the Lord and Saviour,"-men who claimed to "have the mind of Christ," "and to speak in the words which the Holy Spirit taught;" -men who demanded assent to their testimony, under the solemn declaration, that "he who despiseth, despiseth not man but God!" If we cannot accept this side of the alternative, the remaining part is that there was a sense in which the awful peculiarities of the Deity might strictly and properly be attributed to the Messiah, and that the inspired apostles felt no restraint or difficulty in making such attributions.*

* The excellent and learned Vitringa offers a body of argument to shew that the paragraph (Is. viii. 14,—ix. 6.) refers immediately and exclusively to the Messiah. His principal reasons may be thus reduced to a bare sketch.

1. Express N. T. authority. Luke ii. 34. Rom. ix. 33. 1 Pet. ii. 7. Heb. ii. 13. In the latter passage, v. 18, is adduced as a basis of doctrine, to prove that the Messiah must partake the nature of those whom he came to redeem. This of necessity requires that the passage should have an original reference to him.

2. The just interpretation of the terms will apply naturally to

SECT. XXI.

THE WONDERFUL, THE MIGHTY GOD, THE ETERNAL, THE SOVEREIGN.

Is. ix. 5, 6.

1. For a child is born to us;

A son is given to us:

And the sovereignty is upon his shoulder;
And his name is called, Wonderful, Counsellor,

5. God the Mighty, Everlasting, Prince of peace:

To the extent of [his] sovereignty, and to [his] peace, [shall be] no end,

Upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom,

To fix it and to establish it, in judgment and in righteousness, From henceforth and for ever.*

THE Connection of this distinguished passage, the citation of a part of that connection in the New Testament as an express prediction of

Christ and his dispensation, but to any other objects only in a forced and tortuous manner.

3. The apostrophe in v. 16. definitely respects the doctrine of the Messiah communicated to mankind.

and

grace

4. The analogous prophecy; ch. xxviii. 13, 16.

5. The confessions of ancient Rabbinical writers that the Messiah is the subject of this portion of the prophet. See Vitr. Comm. in loc.

* See Note [A] at the end of this Section.

Christ,* and the terms of the description so absolutely exclusive of any other application,-leave the rational and impartial reader in no doubt of its true meaning. Few have been perverse or hardy enough to reject this application. Interpreters ancient and modern, Jewish and Christian, and of almost every sect and community, have agreed in regarding it, to use the language of Dr. Priestley, as "evidently a reference to the MESSIAH."†

Is it, then, extravagant to affirm that, if there be any dependence on the clear meaning of words, the Messiah is here drawn in the opposite characters of humanity and DEITY;-the nativity and frailty of a mortal child, and the incommunicable attributes of the Omnipotent and Eternal GOD?-Justly is his name called WONDERFUL.

* Matt. iv. 14-16.

+ Notes on SS. in loc..