Letter 5.

LETTER 5.

All the prophets bear witness to the Messiah as the bruiser of the serpent, and the prosperous King reigning in righteousness over the subject nations: in other words, they foretell the days of vengeance, and the days of refreshing which shall succeed them, under his administration.

To open the prophecies relative to the Messiah’s glory, we must have a Divine key. I have already shown that Moses gave it us, when he described the Redeemer as the destroyer of the serpent, and as the Shiloh, the prosperous King, who, after having “laid his hands on the neck of his enemies as a lion,” shall sway the sceptre of his mercy over the submissive nations, or (to use the prophet’s laconic style) “unto whom shall the gathering of the people be,” Genesis 49:10.

The Messiah’s achievements, in this two-fold point of view, were typified by the exploits of David and Solomon, the two first of his royal ancestors. David is long poor, despised by his brethren, and unknown to Israel. When he is anointed king of Israel, he is hated and pursued by a jealous and bloody prince; but he kills the giant who defied the armies of the living God, routs the Philistines, and after having acted the part of the lion of the tribe of Judah, and given the Israelites victory on all sides, he leaves the crown to peaceful Solomon, “unto whom is the gathering of the people,” and who “builds the magnificent temple of the Lord,” and heaps upon Israel the blessings of a peaceful and prosperous reign.

St. Peter, in his second sermon, preaches the Messiah according to these two displays of his redeeming power. “It shall come to pass (says he) that whosoever will not hear that [royal] Prophet shall be destroyed from among the people. Repent ye, therefore, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord, and he shall send Jesus Christ, who was before preached unto you [under the names of Wonderful, mighty God, Prince of Peace, Emmauel, &c,] whom the heaven must receive, until the times of the restitution of all things, which God, since the world began, hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets. For all the prophets from Samuel, [who appointed David, the first royal type of the Messiah,] as many as have spoken have foretold these days” of vengeance, in which the Messiah will bruise the serpent and his brood, and these days of refreshing, when the Lord Jesus, having destroyed “those who would not have him reign over them,” will give rest to his faithful subjects in all his dominions, which “shall extend unto the ends of the earth.” For, adds St. Peter, “God said unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed,” Acts 3:19-25. As inattention and unbelief have cast a veil over this glorious part of the Gospel, permit me, sir, to remove a corner of this veil, and to show how the prophets have all spoken of the glorious days of the Messiah, and of the days of vengeance, which shall precede them. My dwelling on this point will not be a needless digression: but the very ground on which I shall rest one of my strongest proofs of your error, and of Christ’s divinity. I now begin with Samuel, whom St. Peter particularly mentions.

Before I had found the key of Scripture knowledge, I own to you, sir, that I wondered how that apostle could say to the Jews, that Samuel had prophesied of Christ. I found no such prophecy in the books of Samuel. But now I see that St. Peter had in view the most glorious typical predictions concerning Christ, as our king, prophet, and priest. I have proved that the “King of Israel,” who brought his people out of Egypt, was Christ in his pre-existent nature. Moses was the prime minister of this great King; Joshua, the general of his armies; the tabernacle his palace; the mercy seat his throne; the ark his royal standard; the priests his officers; the Levites his guards; and the shekinah the visible display of his presence. In the days of Samuel, whom he had chosen for his prophet, minister, and representative, the Jews, tired of their invisible King, said to Samuel, “Make us a king, to judge us, [personally and visibly,] like all the nations. And Jehovah said unto Samuel, Hearken to the people: they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. As they have done since the day that I brought them out of Egypt, so do they also unto thee,” 1 Samuel 8:5. And when Samuel expostulated with them, he said, Your wickedness is great, which ye have done in the sight of the Lord, in asking you a king, when Jehovah “your God was your King.” And to back this reproof, Jehovah sent such “thunder and rain for a whole day in wheat harvest,” as made the rebellious Jews afraid of instant destruction, 1 Samuel 12:12, 19. From this important passage, we learn three things.

(1.) The King of Israel, who was rejected by the Jews in Samuel’s days, is truly Jehovah, that very “Lord of glory,” whom the Jews rejected a second time, when, appearing “in the form of a servant, he came to his own, and his own received him not, “but crucified him with this remarkable title, “Jesus, the King of the Jews,” the very title given him, both by the wise men, when they inquired after him “that was born King of the Jews,” and by the “Israelite without guile,” when, seeing the form of God shining in Christ through the form of a servant, he confessed that Christ was the Son of God, “the King of Israel,” John 1:49.

(2.) We see the ground of that “good confession, which our Lord made before Pontius Pilate,” when he declared himself both “the Son of God,” and “the King of the Jews.” Nor do I see how this confession could be true, if Christ, in his form of God, was not that very Jehovah envoy, who spake to Moses in Horeb, and who, by indefectible right, was the King of the Jews, and of the whole earth, even after his unruly subjects had rejected him. And that this was the true question in debate is evident from these taunting words of the unbelieving Jews: “If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him,” Matthew 27:42.

(3.) If this is the truth for which our Lord (as faithful witness and Divine martyr) thought it proper to lay down his life, does it not follow, that the doctrine of Christ’s divinity, or of his absolute right, as “Lord of glory,” to be the “King of the Jews,” and “of the whole earth,” is the capital doctrine of the Old as well as of the New Testament?

But, methinks you rise with indignation against this inference. What becomes of the glory of the Father, if the Son was the King of Israel in Samuel’s time, and is still the King of the whole earth? But you need not fear that our doctrine gives a wrong touch to the ark of the Father’s monarchy; for as the “Son, the Lord of glory,” is the ostensive King of the Church and of the whole earth, in and by whom the Father now governs the world: so there will come a time when the “Father of glory” will himself be the ostensive King, governing all the nations of men, whom the Son hath redeemed and brought into subjection, immediately in his own proper person, without the mediating ministry of the Son, the Son, however, still reigning in and with the Father. For, says an apostle, the Son “must reign till he hath put death,” and “all enemies under his feet.” And when the kingdoms of this world shall have been made worthy of the Father’s peculiar acceptance; when Emmanuel “shall have put down all those earthly and infernal powers destructive of the perfect order and complete happiness of the universe, “then shall come the end” of the Son’s mediatorial kingdom; then shall the Son of God “deliver up the kingdom to God the Father,” in whom nevertheless the Son and the Spirit will still have the dominion belonging to their Divine rank: and thus, while the man Christ, still united to the Word, shall be the first “subject of him who put all things under him,” God (namely the Father, including the Word, and the Holy Ghost) will be all in all for ever, 1 Corinthians 15:24, &c. But I return to Samuel.

Although, in his time, the Jews incurred already the horrible guilt of rejecting the Lord of glory from being their ostensive king, they did not, they could not put an end to his supreme authority. The theocracy, though impugned, was not destroyed. Jehovah, King of the Jews, still exercised his prerogative, in appointing worshipful types of that Divine Prophet, who was to declare and do the will of God better than Samuel, and of that Divine Priest and King, on whom he would transfer the shekinah, the Divine glory, which rested in the tabernacle, when Jehovah filled it with adorable displays of his presence. Hence he continued Samuel as his prophet, and by his means foretold, both by words and typical actions, the removal of all ungodly priests, the destruction of all wicked kings, and the appearance of Christ, the man after his own heart, who should do all his pleasure, and of whose Divine anointing, that of Aaron, David, and Elisha, was but a faint shadow.f88

As Job speaks of the Messiah, when he says, “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth,” Job 19:25; so his afflictions were a type of the tribulation of the righteous, and his happy end was an emblem of the prosperity of the Church, in the day when our Lord shall “stand on the mount of Olives,” and “gather his saints,” that they may “see the vengeance, and wash their feet in the blood of the ungodly,” Psalm 58:10.

David, in the beginning of the 22d Psalm, describes the amazing sorrows of the Messiah, and the manner in which his heel was bruised, when “his hands and his feet were pierced” by the seed of the serpent. And at the end of that Psalm, he declares that the gathering of the people shall be unto Shiloh: that “the ends of the world shall remember themselves, and turn unto the Lord” in his Son, “and all the kindreds of the earth shall worship before him,” for (after the day of vengeance) “the kingdom shall be the Lord’s, and he shall be the Governor among the nations. Then shall the meek inherit the earth, then shall they eat, worship, and be satisfied;” enjoying without alloy the days of refreshing, which the Lord’s presence will bring to those who shall have been faithful unto the end, whether they shall be of those dead saints, who shall have a part in the first resurrection, which shall take place in the beginning of the days of refreshing; or whether they shall be among the saints, who then shall be found alive. Isaiah is full of this doctrine: take one or two instances out of a hundred. You know, sir, that in the language of the prophets, as Jacob and the house of Joseph signify the godly, so Edom and the house of Esau stand for the wicked, the enemies of God’s holy Church. Isaiah had a prophetic view of the Messiah, performing his strange work, his work of judgment, and “travelling in the greatness of his strength,” as Lion of the tribe of Judah, when he says, Isaiah 63:1-6, “Who is he that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? This that is glorious in his apparel, (Revelation 19:12,) travelling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, (answers Shiloh,) mighty to save: and I will tread [all the Edomites] in mine anger, and trample them in my fury, and my garments shall be sprinkled with their blood, for the day of vengeance is in my heart, and the year of my redeemed is come. In mine anger I will tread down the people, [who obstinately trample my blood and my followers under foot,] I will make them drunk in my fury, and will bring their strength down to the ground.” The prophet, struck with awe, breaks out into a song of praise to the Lord for his “great goodness toward the house of Israel,” the righteous to whom the Lord condescends to give rest from those who turned the earth into cruel habitations, and who made the very houses of God dens of thieves, murderers, and hypocrites, verses 7, 8. This song of thanksgiving and praise was echoed back by St. John, when he had a prophetic view of the Messiah “coming in righteousness to judge and make war” on all the antichristian powers, Revelation 19:1-11. Isaiah speaks next of the days of refreshing which shall follow those days of vengeance, which shall have such an effect upon the nations that they shall flock into the Church as pursued doves to their windows. “The Lord (says he to the righteous) shall appear to your joy; and those who cast you out for my name’s sake shall be ashamed. A voice of noise from the city! A voice from the temple! A voice of the Lord who rendereth recompense to his enemies!” Now for the effect of these voices mixed with the sound of the Gospel trumpet: “Before she [the New Jerusalem] travailed, she brought forth: before her pain came she was delivered. Shall the earth be made to bring forth in a day, or shall a nation be born at once? Yes, saith the Lord. Shall I bring to the birth and not cause to bring forth? saith thy God. [It is done!] Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, ye that love her: be glad with her, ye that mourned for her. Come, that ye may suck and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations: that ye may milk out, and be delighted with the abundance of her glory. For thus saith the Lord, Behold, I extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles, [converted,] like a flowing stream. Then shall ye suck; ye shall be borne on her sides and dandled on her knees: as one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you, and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem: your hearts shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish, when ye thus see the hand of the Lord toward his servants, and his indignation toward his enemies,” Isaiah 66:5-14. The dawn of this “day of refreshing” was seen in the earthly Jerusalem, when three thousand and five thousand people entered at once into the New Jerusalem, the holy Church, the spiritual “kingdom, which is righteousness, peace, and joy, through the Holy Ghost, in whose comfort they walked, when great grace was upon them all.”

Isaiah points out these days of the Messiah in so many ways, that you will excuse me, sir, if I copy one more of his striking pictures:—”Behold,” says he, “the Lord [Jehovah our Saviour] will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire: for by fire, and by his sword, will the Lord plead with all flesh, and the slain of Jehovah shall be many.” What follows is his last description of the days of refreshing, which Jehovah Shiloh will usher in by the destruction of the wicked. “It shall come to pass that [after those days of vengeance] I will gather all nations and tongues, and they shall come and see my glory. I will send my heralds, those that shall escape [from the great tribulation] unto the nations and to the isles afar off, which have not heard my fame; and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles. As the new heavens and the new earth, which I will then make, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, shall all flesh come [by turns ‘to my holy mountain Jerusalem’] and shall worship before me, says the Lord: and they shall go forth [to the valley of Jehoshaphat] and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me, for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence of all flesh,” Isaiah 66:15-

24. Here ends Isaiah’s account of that glorious reign of Jehovah Shiloh, which the fathers called the millennium, as being to last a thousand years, and during which it is probable that our Lord will use these extraordinary means to keep all the nations in the way of obedience.

(1.) A constant display of his goodness over all the earth, but particularly in and about Jerusalem, where the Lord will manifest his glory, and bless his happy subjects with new manifestations of his presence every Lord’s day and every new moon.

(2.) A distinguished interposition of Providence, which will withhold the Messiah’s wonted blessings from the disobedient: “For it shall be that whose will not come up, of all the families of the earth, unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain,” Zechariah 14:27.

(3.) The constant endeavours of the saints, martyrs, patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, raised from the dead, and conversing with men, as Moses and Elijah did with our Lord’s disciples upon the mount, where they were indulged with a view of his glorified person, and of his “kingdom come with power.” These glorified high priests and kings, as ministers and lieutenants of the Messiah, will rule all Churches and states with unerring wisdom and unwarped fidelity.

(4.) The care that the Lord himself will take to set apart for the ministry under his glorified saints, those who in every nation shall distinguish themselves for their virtue and piety. This seems to be the meaning of his own words: “And when they shall come out of all nations to my holy mountain, I will take of them for priests and Levites, saith the Lord,” speaking to the prophet in the language of the Jewish Church, Isaiah 66:20, 21.

(5.) A standing display of the ministration of condemnation, as appears from Isaiah 66:24, above quoted, and from other parallel scriptures.

6. At the same time that the ministration of condemnation will powerfully work upon the fears of mankind to keep men in the way of duty, an occasional display of the ministration of righteous mercy will work upon their hopes. How will those hopes be fired when they shall “see the Lamb of God standing on the Mount Sion, and with him his hundred and forty-four thousand worthies, having his Father’s name [Divine majesty, irresistible power, ineffable love, and bliss inexpressible] written on their foreheads!” Revelation 14. But,

7. What will peculiarly tend to keep men from relapsing into rebellion against God, will be the long life of the godly, and the untimely death of those who shall offer to tread the paths of iniquity. The godly shall attain to the years of the antediluvian patriarchs, and the wicked shall not live out half their days, they shall not live above a hundred years, or, to speak after our manner, they shall die in their childhood. This seems to be Isaiah’s meaning in the following description of the days of refreshing: “Behold, I create new heavens, and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered. But be you glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for behold I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people [to be nothing but a] joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people, and the voice of weeping shall no more be heard in her: there shall be no more thence [a burial of] an infant of days, nor [a godly] old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die a hundred years old, but the sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed. And it shall come to pass that before they call I will answer, and while they are speaking I will hear.” The very beasts of the field will partake of the happiness and glorious liberty of the sons of God: for “the wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock, and they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord,” Isaiah 66:17-25. Having dwelt so long upon the account which the evangelical prophet gives us of the day of vengeance, and of the days of refreshing, I shall dismiss this part of the subject by giving two or three short extracts from some of the remaining prophets.

Daniel fixes, in the days of Messiah the Prince, the great tribulation which shall come upon the ungodly, of which the destruction of Jerusalem was but an emblem; God’s judgments beginning at his own house. And when the Messiah shall thus have sitten in judgment, and shall have consumed and destroyed the wicked, or bruised the serpent’s head in the person of antichrist and his adherents, “the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High,” of Jehovah Shiloh, “whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom; and all dominion shall serve and obey him,” according to the decree recorded in Psalm 2:7; Daniel 7:26, 27.

Joel also describes, in the most lively manner, the work of the Messiah, both as he is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, and the peaceful Shiloh, to whom the gathering of the people shall be. Speaking of our Lord under the first of these characters, he says: “In those days, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah, I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat,f89 [the valley of judgment,] and I will plead with them there for my people, whom they have scattered. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen. Come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat; for there will I sit to judge all the heathen, [saith the Son, the mighty God, to whom all judgment is committed, as he is Son of man.] Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe, the press is full, the fats overflow, the wickedness [of the earth] is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth shall shake:” for, as the apostle expresses it, in speaking of our Lord, “He hath promised, saying, Yet once more, I shake not the earth only, but also heaven,” Hebrews 12:26; Joel 3:1, 2, 11, 16.

As Joel hath thus described the Messiah as Son of David, shaking and destroying his adversaries, the wicked, so he represents him also as Son of Solomon, procuring days of peace and prosperity to the Israel of God. Be glad, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God, “for the Lord will do great things” for you. Fear not, for “whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered:” for “in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance.” Egypt shall be a desolation; “and Edom shall be a desolate wilderness, for their violence against Judah: but Judah shall dwell for ever, and [the new] Jerusalem from generation to generation: for I will cleanse their blood which I have not cleansed, for the Lord [Jehovah Shiloh] dwelleth in Zion.” And the prophet describes the means of this cleansing, in this noted promise, “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,” &c. A capital promise this, of which our Lord gave an earnest on the day of pentecost, when he sent a gracious shower on his little vineyard, as a pledge of the mighty rivers of righteousness which will, by and by, cover the earth as the waters cover the sea, Joel 2:21-28, and 3:19-21.

Should you deny, sir, that the Lord, who will thus roar out of Sion, and then pour out his Spirit on all flesh, is the Messiah, “the mighty God” described by Isaiah, I prove it by the following reasons, which I entreat you never to forget.

(1.) The bruising of the serpent’s head belongs to the wonderful seed of the woman, to the child born to us, whose name is “the mighty God,” and not to “the Father, who hath committed all judgment unto the Son.” If you deny this, sir, you not only represent Christ as a mere man, but as a man who renounces one of the Messiah’s titles, which is “the true and faithful Witness;” for he hath expressly laid down, in John, the proposition on which I built my argument.

(2.) The nineteenth chapter of the Revelation contains a description of the strange work in the place which Joel calls the “valley of decision,” or of Jehoshaphat; and that terrible work is there declared by St. John to be specially the work of the Son, whom he calls “the Word of God.”

(3.) Joel promises that “whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered;” and St. Paul, in Romans 10:12, 13, applies the words to our Lord Jesus Christ, as appears from the apostle’s doctrine in Romans 1:16, and Acts 16:31.

(4.) The Lord, who in Joel acts the part of a deliverer, is “the Lord” who “shall call the remnant” of the Jews, and shall at last reconcile Jews and Gentiles in himself; and therefore is indubitably the Shiloh, unto whom the gathering of the people shall be: compare Joel 2:32, with Genesis 49:10. And

(5.) “The Lord who dwelleth in Zion,” and who cleanseth the blood and sins of mankind by pouring out his Spirit upon all flesh, is certainly the Messiah, or Jehovah Shiloh, to whom the very words of Joel are applied by St. Peter, in Acts 2:16, 38.

Hoping, sir, that you will not lose sight of these five arguments, I proceed to show you how some of the other lesser prophets speak of the Messiah’s days of vengeance, and of refreshing.

Amos, as the other prophets, shows the apostasy of the Church, foretells her sifting punishment, her preservation during the great tribulation, and the day of vengeance, in which “God with us,” the Messiah, will destroy all the wicked.

When the Church shall thus have been cleansed, and the wicked destroyed, the times of refreshing will come, which are thus foretold by this prophet. “In that day I will raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof, and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old,” as in the days of Solomon, a type of the Prince of Peace, who is the mighty God, the Lord of David as well as his Son. Then shall the prosperity of God’s people keep pace with their righteousness, and overflow their peaceful habitations. They “shall possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the heathen, who are called by my name, saith the Lord who doth this; then shall the ploughman overtake the reaper and the treader of the grapes him that soweth the seed, and the mountains shall drop sweet wine. I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel, and plant them in their own land [rendered like the garden of Eden:] and they shall no more be pulled out of it, saith the Lord God;” Emmanuel, the Shiloh, to whom shall be the gathering of the converted nations, Amos 9:11, &c.

Micah thus speaks of the second coming of the Messiah to do this strange work as Lion of the tribe of Judah: “Hear, all the people, hearken, O earth, and let the Lord God be witness against you from his holy temple. Behold, the Lord will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth: the mountains shall be molten under him as wax before the fire, and the valleys shall be cleft,” Micah 1:2-4. But this terrible judgment shall begin at the house of the Lord, even at Zion and Jerusalem. “Hear, ye heads of the house of Jacob, that pervert all equity, and say, Is not the Lord among us? No evil can come upon us! Zion, for your sake, shall be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps,” Micah 3:11, 12. When the Lord’s people shall have borne his indignation, Shiloh will gather the purified remnant of them, and use them as his glorious instruments for the conversion, or the punishment of the wicked: “I will surely gather the remnant of Israel, I will put them together as the flock in the midst of the fold. The breaker [the bruiser of the serpent] is come up before them; their king shall pass before them, and the Lord [Jehovah] on the head of them, to redeem them from the hand of their enemies,” Micah 2:12; 4:10. The Messiah’s strange work in the valley of decision is thus described by this prophet: “Many nations are gathered against thee, O Zion, who say, Let her be defiled. But they know not the thoughts of the Lord, neither understand they his counsel; for he shall gather them as the sheaves into the floor. Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion: for I will make thine horn iron, and thy hoofs brass, and thou shalt beat in pieces many people,” Micah 4:11-13.

After this day of vengeance the days of refreshing shall come, and they are thus foretold by Micah, who had the brightest discoveries of the glory of Shiloh, and of the gathering of the people unto him, after the destruction of the antichristian powers. But “in the last days,” saith that prophet, “the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains; people shall flow unto it, and many nations [both awed by the Lord’s tremendous judgments, and encouraged by his offers of grace and pardon] shall come, and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law [of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus making men free from the law of sin and death] shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he [Jehovah Shiloh] shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off, and they shall beat their swords into plough shares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more: but they shall sit every man under his vine, and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it: and the Lord shall reign over them in Mount Zion, from henceforth even for ever,” Micah 4:1-7. That the Lord Jehovah, who shall thus reign in Mount Zion, when all spears shall be beat into plough shares and into pruning hooks, is our Melchisedec, the King of Salem, the Solomon of the Christian Church, “the Prince of Peace, whose name is called the mighty God,” by Isaiah, and “of whose government and peace, upon the throne of David, there shall be no end,” can be proved even to a Jew by the following reasons:—

(1.) This Divine King is described as doing the things which characterize the Messiah, namely, bruising the serpent, destroying the wicked, gathering Israel, and reigning over the nations: for “unto him shall the gathering of the people be.”

(2.) Micah calls him the “Ruler of Israel,” the Messiah, and describes his human and Divine nature as clearly as does Isaiah: “Thou Bethlehem, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall come forth He that is to be ruler in Israel, [here we see the child born unto us in Bethlehem,] whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.” And in these last words we behold the eternal generation and divinity of the Son of God, Micah 5:2. And that Herod himself, with the Jewish priests and the scribes, made no doubt but this prophecy related to the Messiah, is evident from the account given by St. Matthew: for when King Herod had heard that “the King of the Jews was born,” and when he “had gathered the chief priests,” &c, by quoting this very prophecy of Micah, they proved to him, that the Messiah, he “whose goings forth have been from everlasting,” was to be born at Bethlehem. The Prophet Habakkuk, in that sublime hymn called his prayer, has many expressions very descriptive of the days of vengeance. “God came from Teman (says he) and the Holy One from Mount Paran. His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise. Before him went the pestilence, and burning coals went forth at his feet. He stood and measured the earth: he beheld and drove asunder the nations, and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow: his ways are everlasting. I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction; and the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble. The mountains saw thee, and they trembled: the deep uttered his voice, and lifted up his hands on high. The sun and moon stood still in their habitation. Thou didst march through the land in indignation, thou didst thresh the heathen in anger. Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people, even for salvation with thine anointed. Thou didst wound the head out of the house of the wicked.” And as the prophet considers these desolating judgments as being preparatory to the salvation of God’s people, so, speaking in the name of the whole Church, he describes the greatness of that salvation, when he says, a few verses after, “Although the fig tree should not blossom, and there should be no fruit in the vine; yet will I rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds’ feet, and he will make me walk upon mine high places.” For, as he assures us in the preceding chapter, “The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea,” a passage which contains a most glorious testimony to the days of refreshing, during which, as Isaiah bears witness, “the people shall be all righteous, the work of his hands, and the branch of his planting, that he may be glorified.”

Zephaniah is very express upon this subject. Having described, at large, in the first and second chapters of his prophecy, the ruin that should come upon Judea, and the neighbouring countries, he proceeds, chap. 3:3, to foretell the vengeance that should come upon all nations. “Wait ye upon me, saith the Lord, until the day that I rise up to the prey: for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy. Then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him with one consent. From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, my suppliants, the daughter of my dispersed, shall bring mine offering. The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies; neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth: for they shall feed and lie down, and none shall make them afraid.” In prospect of this glorious time, the prophet calls upon the Church under the ancient name of Zion, Jerusalem, and Israel, to break forth in praise to Jehovah the Redeemer, who will then be indeed “Emmanuel, God with us. Sing, O daughter of Zion: shout, O Israel: be glad and rejoice with all thine heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. The Lord hath taken away thy judgments: he hath cast out thine enemy: the King of Israel, even Jehovah, is in the midst of thee: thou shalt see evil no more. In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not; and to Zion, Let not thine hands be slack. The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty: he will save: he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love: he will joy over thee with singing. Behold at that time, (adds the Lord,) I will undo all that afflict thee, and I will save her that halteth, and gather her that was driven out; and I will get them praise and fame in every land where they have been put to shame. At that time I will bring you again, even the time that I gather you, for I will make you a name and a praise among all people of the earth, when I turn back your captivity before your eyes, saith the Lord.” Now, sir, who is this King of Israel that is in the midst of us and is mighty, and who declares he will save, but the “Word made flesh, that dwelt among us, and came to save his people from their sins?”

Zechariah speaks to the same purpose. In the second chapter, having mentioned the vengeance that should be taken upon the Babylonians and other nations, that had spoiled God’s people of old, an emblem of wrath that will be poured upon the modern Babylon, he describes the days of refreshing in the following words:— “Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion. For, lo! I come, and dwell in the midst of thee, saith the Lord: [this seems to refer primarily to the coming of Christ in the flesh:] and many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day, [viz. the Gentile nations,] and shall be my people. And I will dwell in the midst of thee, and thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto thee. And the Lord shall inherit Judah, his portion in the holy land, and shall choose Jerusalem again;” which plainly foretells the conversion of the Jews, and their restoration to their own land. And, perhaps, the following words, “Be silent all flesh before the Lord, for he is raised up out of his holy habitation,” may be intended as an intimation of the conversion of all mankind, their attendance upon the Lord in his ordinances, and their worshipping him in spirit and in truth.

Malachi, also, the last of the prophets, foretells, and that with great clearness, this two-fold work of the Messiah. Having pointed him out as “the Lord that should come to his temple, the messenger of the covenant, in whom (to be shortly revealed) the pious Jews delighted, rejoicing, like faithful Abraham, in the foresight of his day;” he next informs us what would be the effect of his manifestation in our flesh. “But who,” says he, “may abide the day of his coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like refiner’s fire, and like fuller’s soap, and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, [and by the spirit of judgment, as well as spirit of burning,] he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.” Then the times of refreshing shall succeed the days of vengeance, “and the offering of Judah and Jerusalem shall be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in the former years.” For while the Lord comes “near to judgment,” and is a “swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, and that turn away the stranger from his right, and fear not the Lord;” they that fear him “speak often one to another, and the Lord hearkens and hears, and a book of remembrance is written for those that fear the Lord and think upon his name; and they shall be mine, saith the Lord, in the day when I make up my jewels. Then shall ye turn and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God, and him that serveth him not.” And he speaks more clearly still in the next (the last) chapter. He first describes the days of vengeance. “Behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, and all that do wickedly, shall be as stubble: the day cometh that shall burn them up, and leave them neither root nor branch.” He then foretells the days of refreshing which shall succeed. “But unto you that fear my name, shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings, and ye shall go forth and grow up as calves of the stall. And ye shall tread down the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet, in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts.” Now, sir, he before whose face Jehovah’s messenger, John the Baptist, was sent, and before whom he cried, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight;” he who suddenly comes to his temple, and, appearing in it as the Desire of all nations, gives it a glory, such as even Solomon’s temple had not, though beside the splendour and magnificence of the wonderful fabric, overlaid with silver and gold, it had five signs of the Divine presence, as the Jews themselves have acknowledged, which were wanting in this second temple, viz. the Urim and Thummim, by which the high priest was miraculously instructed in the will of God; the “ark of the covenant,” containing the two tables of the law written with the finger of God; the “fire upon the altar,” which came down from heaven; the “shekinah, or visible display of the Divine glory, and the “Spirit of prophecy.” He, who is like refiner’s fire and fuller’s soap, and who sits upon the souls of men, as a refiner and purifier of silver, purifying them from all pollution of flesh and spirit: he who comes near, by his spiritual presence, as a swift witness against sinners of every description, while as the “Sun of righteousness” he rises upon those that fear the name of the Lord, with healing in his wings, so that they go forth and grow up as calves of the stall: he surely must be more than a mere man. Leaving you to reflect, sir, on the contrariety of your doctrine, to that of the prophets, I remain, &c.