David's throne, nor rule over the house of Jacob; then I say, Jesus of Nazareth is not the person here prophesied of, but some other. If they say, Yea, but he is the Immanuel born of the Virgin, who now is spiritually filling the spiritual throne of David, and spiritually reigning over the spiritual house of Jacob, and spiritually holding universal spiritual empire; then all I have to say is, I do not know what the spiritual throne of David means. It is the throne of a believer's heart. Where learned you to call a believer's heart the throne of David? It is the throne of the Majesty on high. How dare you blaspheme, and call the throne of God the throne of David? And what use was there to tell Ahaz, in his present straits, that a Son should be born and a Child given, who should reign in the hearts of men, and be exalted to the throne of God? And what signs of such an event were those two which were granted? Besides, these spiritualists know not where they lead themselves. If they will have all the substance of Immanuel's work to be invisible and spiritual, then I will have his birth also to be spiritual and invisible upon the earth. If they will annihilate the greater part to please themselves, I will annihilate the lesser part to vex them and then what have they left of all this bright and glorious prophecy but the shadow of a dream. But forsaking such quibbles, I desire to pursue my exposition of this prophecy by a short meditation of the manifold name which is given to this Child.

This name of the Child, which was to be born of the Virgin and given unto the Jewish nation, is "Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace;" not five names, but one name comprehensive of the being and office of Immanuel; of which the first characteristic, the Wonderful, referreth to the miraculous nature of all his works and ways. Beginning with his conception, and ending with the accomplishment and presentation of the mediatorial kingdom; yea, and going back to the announcements which were made of him from the days of old, what do we find but that it is all out of, above, and against the course of nature, and intended to deliver man from the present thraldom of the natural life into the freedom of the life spiritual and divine? In the ancient times, when he delivered the church from Egyptian bondage, they sung him "Wonderful in his praises." When he appeared to Manoah, he did wonderfully, and prayed them not to ask his name, for it was wonderful; and so was his conception, and his birth, and his life, and his resurrection, and his ascension, and his gift of the Spirit from his present unseen abode; which yet are all but a prelude and faint signification of that wonderfulness with which he shall shew himself the second time unto the world, and avenge his elect, and deliver his own people with a

mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and plant them in their own land, and rule the world in peace and righteousness. The wonders of this second appearance shall so utterly transcend all that hath been seen heretofore of the working of this wonderful one, that it is said by Jeremiah, "Therefore, behold the days come, saith the Lord, that they shall no more say, The Lord liveth which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; but, The Lord liveth which brought up and which led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all countries whither I had driven them; and they shall dwell in their own land." (Jer. xxiii. 7, 8.) The law of the natural man and of the natural course of things being opposed to the law of the Spirit of God, and that being wonderful or miraculous which opposeth the former, and establisheth the latter, every act of Christ in his progress to the redemption of the world must necessarily be supernatural, and that of all others the most so which consisteth in the casting out of Satan from his usurped dominion, and the restoring of the earth to the government of righteousness. This I judge to be the import of Wonderful, the first letter or syllable, if I may so speak, in the Lord's name.

For the second, Counsellor, I regard it as expressing, and being the fittest word to express, his prophetic office in all its amplitude, whether as exercised before his coming in his servants the prophets, or by himself in the days of his flesh, or by the Holy Spirit since his ascension into glory. And its second place in the great name teacheth that his wonderful and mighty workings are all accompanied with, and done on purpose to sustain, righteous and holy counsels; that he is the Saviour of the earth by that which he shall teach them. It pointeth, moreover, to the ordinance of preaching by which it hath pleased God to save them that believe. The power of this word, however, is not yet completely told, but hath, I make no doubt, a chief reference to that future coming in power and glory, that reign and righteousness of which it is thus written in the prophet; "And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots: And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord." (Isa. xi. 1, 2.) And not only shall these attributes of the Prophet shine resplendent in him on that day, but also in all his people, concerning whom it is prophesied, "And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." (Jer. xxxi. 34.) And to the

same effect by Paul it is said, "For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then I shall know even as also I am known." (1 Cor. xiii. 12.) It is the redemption of the mind of man, and the completion of his knowledge to which this part of the Redeemer's office, this letter in his name, hath respect. Even as the former hath respect to that command over nature, and sweet subordination of it to the law of the Spirit and the will of God, which shall be afforded to every one who shall in that day be found in his likeness; the one, redemption from the tyranny of nature; the other, redemption from the darkness of ignorance.

The next letter in this name, "El-gebor, the mighty God," consisteth of two parts; the one essentially Divine, the other essentially human; being according to the original, "God mighty," the word mighty being commonly used of a hero or mighty conqueror, as we would say, "God the heroic one." Its first half hath reference, no doubt, to his name Immanuel, which also hath in it the same name of God, with the addition of his local habitation with us; while its second half hath reference to those heroic acts and achievements of war for Israel's redemption, which had just been predicted of him in the preceding verses. In this Prophet we have the same combination of words in the 21st verse of the xth chapter, and used in like manner of his great and powerful demonstration in behalf of Israel, when, as I judge, he shall begin to be their Immanuel: "The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God, El-gebor (Isa. x. 21): where, by perusing the context, it will be perceived that it is introduced in the train and sequel of that great exploit with which he shall reveal himself to his people, by breaking the Assyrian upon the mountains. This gives him a right to the title of Gebor, the Mighty One. And this mightiness maketh the people" to take hold upon his strength, and to make peace with him, and they shall make peace with him." It is by the same title of Gebor, the Mighty One, that he is described in the xlv th Psalm, as coming to conquer the love of his spouse, and to marry her for ever. And there also he introduceth himself to her by great exploits of war and conquest, wrought on her behalf. Now whatever may be said of the two former letters of his name, I do say of this one, God the Heroic One, that it hath not been accomplished, and that it is yet future: for as the man of war, the Virgin's Son, hath not revealed himself; as the Lord of hosts accomplishing whatever was foreshewn in a figure by the victories of his people Israel, when he marched at their head in the pillar of fire, the Son of Mary hath not yet appeared. We wait for him in this character, and he waiteth until the time shall come, when, as it is written in all the Prophets, he shall awake and come in his strength, and

accomplish that of which old things were but the emblem and prelude, as it is written a hundred times in this Prophet. 'Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon? Art thou not it which hath dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; that hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over? Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away.' (Isa. li. 9-11.) Then his people shall call him not only Immanuel, God with us, but Elgebor, God the Mighty One.

The next letter in this comprehensive name is, "the_everlasting Father," or as it is, being truly rendered, "the Father of eternity, or of the eternal age." Time by the Jews was divided into two great portions, the age that is, and the age that is to come; meaning by the former the duration of their captivity, affliction, and waiting for Messiah; and by the latter, the eternity of their triumph, and rejoicing, and kingdom, in the presence of Messiah. The eternal age of which the child is here called the Father, is the latter of these two, according to the word of St. Paul," For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world (age) to come, whereof we speak." (Heb. ii. 5.) The character of that age is thus described by the Lord, "And Jesus answering, said unto them, The children of this world (age) marry, and are given in marriage: but they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world (age), and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage: neither can they die any more; for they are equal unto the angels, and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection " (Luke xx. 34-36); which is spoken, not of the sojourners who shall then be upon the earth, but of the raised, in answer to the question of the Sadducees, concerning those of this present age who shall be thought worthy of the resurrection, and the eternal life of that age to come. For it was a universal opinion among the Jews, that at the commencement of the future age the dead should be raised who had lived and died in the fear of God, and in the hope of Messiah: who, they believed, would not disappoint their faithful expectations, but bring them along with him. Of this age it is here said that he is to be the Father, even as Satan is the father of this age, and all save those be"Ye gotten unto Christ are his children : are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do:" "According to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience."-This the third syllable of Immanuel's name conveyeth to my ear the sweet and blessed

intelligence, that when, in his character of the mighty God, he shall have cast out all his and our enemies, and the chief of them, that piercing serpent, as is set forth in due order in the xixth and xxth chapters of the Apocalypse, he will rule the earth as a father doth his children, in righteousness and peace; and they will obey him as children, in all love and obedience. His power, his counsel, his Divine might shall pervade every thing and make it blessed, even as Satan's power, and counsel, and devilish might do now pervade every thing and make it cursed. In which age to come there shall be a first period, during which his enemies are under his feet, trampled upon but not destroyed, imprisoned but not executed, in order that his royal clemency may be displayed; and a latter period, during which they are utterly cast out and overwhelmed with the passive horrors, and inactivity of the second death. The Child shall be with them all the while the Father of the age, for his name is Immanuel, God with us. He is not now with us, but absent "for a little while," and therefore the age is still under Satan's fatherhood but he shall be with us again, and for eternity; then shall he be acknowledged as the Father of all the earth. And we who are now begotten to him by the Spirit are his children, the first-fruits, the honoured heirs of his sufferings, that we may also become the heirs of his glory. Finally, He is the Prince of Peace. This is the last syllable of his name, and ariseth to the highest pitch of honour and dignity. It addeth the awful attribute of sovereignty, the singular majesty of royal power, to the wonderfulness of working, the wisdom of council, the almightiness of power, the graciousness and propriety of Father. It invests him with the sovereignty of the world, and crowns him Lord of all; and by adding thereto the epithet "of Peace," it takes out of sovereignty those attributes for which it is dreaded; and invests it with those for which it is constituted and upheld of God as most necessary to human well-being. And as the final consummation of every scheme is that for which it is undertaken, and towards which it struggles through every impediment, this last characteristic of Immanuel to become the Prince of Peace doth shew us, that the great end and purpose for which he became incarnate of the virgin, and hath travailed in such humility, and is to come again in such fearful and terrible acts of war and destruction upon all the earth, is to bring about peace, against which Satan is so determined, and the devilish nature of wicked men so determined, that before it will give place to the power of our King, it will writhe the whole world and bring it to an agony like that of death itself. But as the devils, though they struggled to the last and almost destroyed the frame of their wretched victims before they would come forth, were yet fain to