pass on to the consideration of the validity of the mode in which we attempted to shew that Jesus, who was one of the prophets of God, was also the predicted prophet of the Mosaic covenant.

4. Now the proof of this proposition, that Jesus was the Christ, we made, in obedience to the doctrines of our Lord and his Apostles, to depend entirely upon his fulfilment of the prophecies of the Old Testament; and so numerous and unequivocal, and yet singular, did their fulfilment appear to be, that it is wonderful how a doubt could ever be entertained of the certainty of their completion. But by turning away his face from light unto darkness; by forgetting the accomplishment of every prediction which relates clearly to Christ, and fixing his attention upon those alone in which the reference to him is less evident, one ingenious writer* has ventured to assert, that "the prophecies cited from the Old Testament by the authors of the New, do plainly relate, in their obvious and primary sense, to other matters than those which they are produced to prove." He therefore holds that they are "to be applied only in a secondary or typical, or mystical, or allegorical, or enigmatical sense."

Admit, for a moment, the whole of this state

*Collins.

ment to be true. Admit that every prediction, which is alleged in the New Testament as a prediction of the Messiah, can be applied only in a typical sense, and what, after all, will this prove against the pretensions of Jesus to be that Messiah? Nothing. Jesus did many mighty and merciful works. Jesus preached amost holy and wise religion. Jesus lived a most godly and blameless life, and proved himself, by all these marks, to be a prophet of God. Now it is this Jesus, this prophet of God, who, in the New Testament, declares that he was predicted, as the Christ, in the Scriptures of the Old. The only fair and satisfactory way, therefore, of overturning his claims, would be, by producing some express and direct prediction of the Messiah which the life and actions of Jesus contradicted and belied. that case, we could neither believe him to be the Christ, nor even a prophet of God, however numerous or astonishing his works; because one main part of his pretensions having been found to be absolutely false, we could have little reliance upon his truth in the remainder. But there is no such contradiction to be found in the case of Christ. The only conclusion, therefore, to which the fact, if correct, of the prophecies relating to the Messiah being fulfilled only in an allegorical sense, can lead, is this; that the mind of the Holy Ghost, when speaking of the Messiah, was expressed,

In

under the Old Testament, only in an allegorical manner-a conclusion which may indeed render the interpretation of these prophecies less evident, but when explained or asserted by a prophet of God, by no means the less just or sure.

But is the whole statement true? Are the prophecies of the Old Testament applied to Jesus by the Evangelists either universally or even generally in a secondary sense? Far otherwise. Turn again to the writings of Isaiah, and read once more his description of the man of sorrows,* and tell me what there is in it that is either secondary or typical. He speaks of a servant of God; and that servant a man; and that man an individual whose acts and sufferings and circumstances were obviously and literally fulfilled in that righteous servant of God "the man Jesus Christ," and in him alone. David also speaketh thus: "The Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.". Of whom speaketh the monarch this? Not of himself as a child of God by creation, nor of any other common man; but of some more especial and appropriate, because begotten, Son of God; and that Son a child who should be possessed of so much of his Father's greatness, as to make David afterwards cry out and say, "When his wrath is kindled but a little, blessed are all + Acts xiii. 33. Psalm ii. 7.

* Isai. liii.

they that put their trust in him.”*

Of none but

Jesus could this truly be spoken, and in none but Jesus was it truly fulfilled. Hear the king of "The LORD said unto my

Israel once more. Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thy foes thy footstool." He saith also in another psalm, “Thou shalt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption." Now of himself David would never have spoken these things, for he could not call himself his own Lord, and would not, in modesty, have called himself the Holy One of God. Neither in David were these things fulfilled. For "David is not ascended up on high," but," after he had served his own generation, fell on sleep and was laid unto his fathers and saw corruption." But Jesus was both the Lord of David and the Holy One of God. Jesus also saw no corruption in his death; but, being raised from the dead, did ascend up into heaven, and sit down at the right hand of the Father, waiting until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled. Now all these passages are produced by the sacred writers in direct confirmation of the Messiahship of their Master, and in all, the prediction had a primary reference to Christ, and a literal fulfilment in Jesus. In these passages alone, therefore, we have a satisfactory demonstration that

Jesus was the Christ, and it matters little how many others may be produced in which the reference appears to have been only secondary, and the fulfilment only figurative.

I have hitherto permitted it to be taken for granted that several of the prophecies of the Old Testament, which are cited in the New, received their accomplishment only in a typical or secondary sense.

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But what reason have we to allow that even this limited assumption is true? That a virgin should conceive, that Rachel was heard weeping for her children, and that out of Egypt God called his Son, are prophecies distinctly urged by the Evangelists as having been literally fulfilled in Jesus. What reason, then, have we to suppose that they were not primarily also, if not exclusively, spoken of him? Because as Collins says, they seem to bear," in the Old Testament, a sense different from that in which they are taken in the New, and to relate to other matters than those which they are produced to prove. But what of that? Who are we, that we should make what seems to us to be the meaning of an ancient prediction, the true and only rule of interpretation, when it is opposed by others, who were much better able to judge and yet differ from us in our views. Whatever difficulty there may be in proving the interpretation which is given of