through all the ages that separate the present moment from that in which the promise shall be fulfilled. I see the divine child, my faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, Heb. xi. 1. and, grounded on the word of that God, who changeth not, Mal. iii. 6. who is not a man, that he should lie, neither the son of man that he should repent, Num. iii. 19. I dare speak of a miracle, which will be wrought eight hundred years hence, as if it had been wrought to-day, Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."

This, my brethren, is the prophet's scope in the three chapters, which we have analyzed, and particularly in the text. But, if any one of you receive our exposition without any farther discussion, he will discover more docility than we require, and he would betray his credulity without proving his conviction. How often doth a commentator substitute his own opinions for those of his author, and by forging, if I may be allowed to speak so, a new text, elude the difficulties of that which he ought to explain? Let us act more ingenuously. There are two difficulties, which attend our comment; one is a particular, the other is a general difficulty.

The particular difficulty is this. We have supposed, that the mysterious child, spoken of in our text, is the same, of whom the prophet speaks, when he says, A virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel: and that this child is different from that, whom Isaiah gave for a sign of the present temporal deliverance, and of whom it is said, before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land, that

thou abhorrest, shall be forsaken of both her kings. This supposition does not seem to agree with the text; read the following verses, which are taken from the seventh chapter. Behold! a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel: Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.. But before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land, that thou abhorrest, shall be forsaken of both her kings, ver. 14, 15, 16. Do not the last words, before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, seem to belong to the words which immediately precede them, Behold! a virgin shall conceive and bear a son? Immanuel, then, who was to be born of a virgin, could not be the Messiah; the prophet must mean the child, of whom he said, before he knew to refuse the evil, and choose the good, Judea shall be delivered from the two confederate kings.

How indissoluble soever this objection may appear, it is only an apparent difficulty, and it lies less in the nature of the thing, than in the arrangement of the terms. Represent to yourselves the prophet executing the order, which God had given him, as the third verse of the seventh chapter relates. Go forth to meet Ahaz, thou and Shearjashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool. Imagine Isaiah, in the presence of the Jews, holding his son Shearjashub in his arms, and addressing them in this manner. The token that God gives you, of your present deliverance, that he is still your God, and that ye are still his covenant people, is the renewal of the promise to you, which he made to your ancestors concerning the Messiah: to convince you of the truth of what I assert, I discharge my commission, Behold! a vir

gin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel, that is, God with us. He shall be brought up like the children of men, butter and honey shall he eat, until he know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, that is, until he arrive at years of maturity. In virtue of this promise, which will not be ratified till some ages have expired, behold what I promise you now; before the child, not before the child, whom, I said just now, a virgin should bear: but before the child in my arms, (the phrase may be rendered before this child) before Shearjashub, whom I now lift up, shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land for which ye are in trouble, shall be forsaken of both her kings. You see, my brethren, the child, whom, the prophet said, a virgin should conceive, could not be Shearjashub, who was actually present in his father's arms. The difficulty, therefore, is only apparent, and, as I observed before, it lay in the arrangement of the terms, and not in the nature of the thing. This is our answer to what I called a particular difficulty.

A general objection may be made against the manner, in which we have explained these chapters, and in which, in general, we explain other prophecies. Allow me to state this objection in all its force, and, if I may use the expression, in all its enormity, in order to shew you, in the end, all its levity and folly.

The odious objection is this. An unbeliever would say, The three chapters of Isaiah, of which you have given an arbitrary analysis, are equivocal and obscure, like the greatest part of those compilations, which compose the book of the visionary flights of this prophet, and like all the writings, that are called predictions, prophecies, revelations. Obscurity is the grand character of them, even in

the opinion of those who have given sublime and curious explanations of them. They are capable of several senses. Who hath received authority to develope those ambiguous writings, to determine the true meaning, among the many different ideas, which they excite in the reader, and to each of which the terms are alike applicable! During seventeen centuries, christians have racked their invention to put a sense on the writings of the prophets advantageous to christianity, and the greatest geniusses have endeavored to interpret them in favor of the christian religion. Men, who have been famous for their erudition and knowledge, have taken the most laborious pains to methodize these writings; one generation of great men hath succeeded another in the undertaking; is it astonishing that some degree of success hath attended their labors, and that by dint of indefatigable industry, they have rendered those prophecies venerable, which would have been accounted dark and void of design, if less pains had been taken to adapt a design, and less violence had been used in arranging them in order?

This is the objection in all its force, and, as I said before, in all its enormity. Let us enquire whether we can give a solution proportional to this boasted objection of infidelity. Our answer will be comprised in a chain of propositions, which will guard you against those, who find mystical meanings, where there are none, as well as against those, who disown them, where they are. To these purposes attend to the following propositions.

1. They were not the men of our age, who forged the book, in which, we imagine, we discover such profound knowledge; we know, it is a book of the most venerable antiquity, and we can demonstrate that it is the most antient book in the world.

2. This venerable antiquity, however, is not the chief ground of our admiration: the benevolence of its design; the grandeur of its ideas; the sublimity of its doctrines; the holiness of its precepts; are, according to our notion of things, if not absolute proofs of its divinity, at least, advantageous presumptions in its favor.

3. Among divers truths, which it contains, and which, it may be supposed, some superior geniusses might have discovered, I meet with some, the attainment of which I cannot reasonably attribute to the human mind; of this kind are some predictions, obscure, I grant, to those to whom they were first delivered, but rendered very clear since by the events. Such are these two among many others. The people, who are in covenant with God, shall be excluded; and people, who are not, shall be admitted. I see the accomplishment of these predictions with my own eyes, in the rejection of the Jews, and in the calling of the Gentiles.

4. The superior characters, which signalize these books, give them the right of being mysterious in some places, without exposing them to the charge of being equivocal, or void of meaning; for some works have acquired this right. When an author hath given full proof of his capacity in some propositions, which are clear and intelligible; and when he expresseth himself, in other places, in a manner obscure, and hard to be understood, he is not to be taxed, all on a sudden, with writing irrationally. A meaning is to be sought in his expressions. It is not to be supposed, that geniusses of the highest order sink at once beneath the lowest minds. Why do we not entertain such notions of our prophets? Why is not the same justice due to the extroardinary men, whose respectable writings, we are pleading for; to our Isaiahs, and Jeremiahs,