SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES TO CHAP. III.

Note [A], page 214.

"Quodsi vel sublimius est in personæ illustris ac beneficii magnitudine describendâ, quàm quod cadat in Judæorum aliquem aut regem, aut prophetam, aut statum, vel alienum à conditione auctoris; tum justum, nedum necessarium, sit id ad augustius Messiæ ævum transferri.Quodsi autem formulas, quibus vates utitur, planè repugnare auctori perspicuè intellectum est; tum maximè Messiæ majestatem, fata, animum declarari evincitur." "If a prophetic description of the greatness of an illustrious person, and the blessings conferred by him, be more exalted than can belong to any king, or prophet, or any circumstances of the Jews; and if it be clearly foreign to any thing in the situation of the prophet; then it is proper, and even necessary, to consider it as belonging to the more noble dispensation of the Messiah. If it be manifest that the expressions employed by the prophet cannot, with any propriety, be applied to himself or his situation; we are authorized to regard them as declaring the dignity, character, and history of the Messiah." -Doderlein Inst. Theologi Christiani; vol. ii. p. 178. Norimberg, 1784. These declarations are deserving of the more attention, as they come from one who, if not an enemy, was a very cold friend. Döderlein belonged to the transition-class of divines, whose influence led rapidly downwards to the rationalist system of a few years farther on.

Note [B], page 215.

The Targums are paraphrastic versions of some parts of the Old Testament, made in the Chaldee language, after the Hebrew had ceased to be vernacular among the Jews. The most ancient of these, in Dean Prideaux's opinion, is that of Onkelos, who is supposed to have been a contemporary of the apostle Paul. It is upon the Pentateuch only, a very close and faithful version, and written with great purity of idiom. The Targum on the Prophets (in the Jewish phrase, including Joshua, Judges, the two books of Samuel, those of Kings, and the writings usually by us called Prophetical, with the exception of Daniel) is by Jonathan Ben Uzziel, who is generally believed to have flourished in the same age with Onkelos, and many authors maintain that his work was written first. It is more paraphrastic than the former, and has frequent amplifications for the purpose of exposition. Another Targum on the Pentateuch is ascribed to the same Jonathan, but without sufficient authority,

and against internal evidence. There is another on select passages of the Pentateuch, written at a later period, and called, from its dialect, the Jerusalem Targum. There are three others on some of the remaining books of the Old Testament, which are believed to have been written after the sixth century of our era, and are in little estimation. For a larger account, see Prideaux's Connect. of the O. and N. Test. Part II. Book viii.

Note [C], page 215.

"Si offendat prædicata subjecti alicujus quæ, in omni vi et enphasi significationis, de nemine quam de Christo intelligi queunt: de alio autem subjecto sumpta non nisi tenuem et exilem expositionem admittunt :-quid movet interpretem Christianum non potius ipsum corpus solidum manu suâ prehendere, quam fugientem et fallacem umbram sectari? Imprimis quando scriptores Novi Testamenti, ab eodem Spiritu docti et ducti, nobis monstrant et præeunt viam.— Nec tamen id ita accipi velim ut prophetiæ, quæ de aliis rebus et temporibus manifestè agunt, ad hoc subjectum vi et coactè rapiantur, et Christus Jesus ac res ejus locis non suis et propriis ostententur. Servandus hic est modus et medium, quod ipsa loca inspecta et ritè ponderata prudenti interpreti ostendent, ut in omnibus rebus aliis." "If the Christian inquirer into the sense of Scripture find the things declared concerning any subject to be capable of being understood, in their full force and energy of meaning, of no other person or subject than of Christ; and, with regard to any other subject, to admit of no application but what is extremely slender and feeble; why should he not rather take secure hold of the substance, than catch at the fugitive and deceptive shadow ? Particularly when the writers of the New Testament, who were taught and directed by the same Spirit [which actuated the ancient prophets,] point out and tread the way. Yet let me not be understood to countenance the violent and forced application of prophetic passages to this subject, which evidently refer to other times and events; thus dragging in Jesus Christ and the doctrines concerning him to places which do not at all belong to them. Here, as in every thing else, extremes are to be avoided: and the literal study and diligent investigation of each passage will bring the requisite evidence to a cautious student."-Vitringæ Doctr. Prophet. p. 192.

Note [D], page 216.

Many have rejected the argument from prophecy, because they had read the objections which several theological writers have

advanced against the application of certain passages in the prophets to Christ. It is, indeed, not to be denied, that many parts of the Old Testament have been heretofore drawn to such an application, which closer examination and a more exact system of interpretation have proved not to lie within the compass of prophecies of the Messiah. But, because we reject spurious metal, is there no genuine gold upon earth? Because some have failed in explaining the prophets, are we to represent the prophets themselves as visionaries? A principal reason why so many persons have not been able to comprehend the proof of the truth of Christianity, which may be deduced from the fulfilment of prophecy, has lain in their own inaccurate acquaintance with the prophetic writings, and in their ignorance of the universal connexion and system which belong to the predictions that lie as it were scattered through the writings of Moses and the prophets." Seiler über die Weissagung und ihre Erfüllung, (on Prophecy and its Fulfilment ;) Vorrede, p. iii. Erlangen, 1813.

"On a correct acquaintance with the scripture scheme of prophecy depends the just explication of all those places of the Old Testament which contain particular predictions from God. A scripture critic who admits no real predictions, fulfilled in Christ and going on to be fulfilled in the kingdom of Christ, sees, in all the passages which describe the future, nothing but the earthly hopes of a people longing after power and riches: he imposes upon the words of the prophets a sense with which they have not the least association: he has no perception of the real constitution and state of that divine reign, moral and natural, which is given by the Father to Christ as the invisible King and Ruler of mankind: he does not distinguish the divine meaning of the oracle from human imaginations of its contents: he admits into the texts of the prophecies subjects of which they do not treat, and is thus seduced into absolutely false interpretations. What strange ideas have been fabricated to misinterpret the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. How many falsehoods have been written, to make it appear that in the Old Testament there is nothing about Jesus Christ. Who is he, in Psalm cx. that sits at the right hand of Jehovah?' David. Then David calls himself his own Lord! Who is he that is called by Isaiah, in chap. ix. Mighty God, Father for ever,' or Eternal Father of his people, the ever-enduring Sovereign of an everlasting kingdom? Hezekiah. A king who had not power enough to drive a single enemy out of his country! And were the twenty-nine years of his reign, an eternity; or even an age?-Who is this, in Zechariah, chap. ix. that enters Jerusalem

as a King?' Zerubbabel. A very poor provincial governor, under a heathen king, and who had the command of about forty thousand men! But did not Zechariah speak of a yet future King, who should have 'dominion from one sea to another, from the Euphrates to the ends of the earth?' chap. ix. 10.

"Now what pretences are brought forwards, to put a colour upon such false expositions?—The prophets wrote as other poets do; they have laid on bright and glowing colours; they have presented things past or then actually existing, as if they were future, in order to give their poems the shape and air of predictions.—And is such base dishonesty deliberately imputed to those upright and holy men? How rashly will men treat the Bible, the most important of all books! We know that the prophets expressed themselves in the tone of a sublime poetical enthusiasm: but did they, therefore, cease to be prophets? If they had dressed up the petty affairs of their own and of previous times, as the great things of future ages; if they had given themselves out to be Prophets, and played the tricks of pious fraud, as is thus imputed to them; would they not have merited the severest punishments, for such a course of lying and hypocrisy, at the very time when they were professing to receive revelations from GOD?

"Thus, the man who rejects the true doctrine of the Prophecies and their Fulfilment, sees every thing perverted and crooked, when he casts his careless glance upon the passages of the prophets where divine oracles are; and he turns the prophets themselves into visionaries.

"Just so it is with those places of the New Testament, in which predictions are cited. A distinction is made between Accommodations and Real Prophecies: it is assumed that Jesus and the apostles explained the Scriptures according to Jewish opinions, while they were, in the most direct and open manner, opposing Jewish opinions: and thus these persons bring themselves into the dangerous alternative, to maintain either that Jesus and the apostles did not understand the true sense and meaning of the prophets, or that they, with deliberate intention, perverted it. Let their ulterior design, then, be admitted to have been the best possible, the consequence inevitably would follow from their conduct, that not the least reliance could be placed on their assertions; and the solid basis of historical interpretation, on which Christianity so essentially rests, would be undermined and shaken.

"If there were no prophets, no persons who really predicted future things with definite certainty; was then JESUS a Prophet?

Did he receive his doctrine from God; or did he invent it out of his own mind? What right had he to give himself voluntarily to death, and thereupon to affirm that he had power to take his life again; when he had no divine mission; when he was nothing but the philosopher of Judæa?' How could he promise his disciples that he should HIMSELF hear their prayers? John xiv. 14. That He would give to them eternal life?' chap. x. 28.”—Пb. pp. 366 -368.

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