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bylon as its first and more immediate object, maintains however that the terms of it involve a higher and a mystic meaning, in which it is applicable only to the great deliverance wrought for mankind by Christ, and he remarks with great truth that in this, and in other passages of the prophets, the circumstances of the two deliverances from the Egyptian bondage and the Babylonian captivity seem to be purposely blended together and confounded. In Isaiah, vol. ii, p. 557, 2. The remark is just, and worthy of its author. But I would add to it, that this confusion and mixture of the circumstances of these two transactions may be taken as an evident symptom of a mystical meaning, in every prophetic text in which it is found: for this reason, that every such texts applying in part to one thing, and in part to another, is in the whole applicable to neither. Being applicable therefore to no one thing in the literal meaning of the terms in which it is conveyed, its true application must be to that spiritual deliverance, of which the different things, to which its parts are literally applicable were in some sort types.

Though in this passage I cannot admit Vitringa's interpretation of the cleaving of the rock, and the supply of water in the desert, for I contend that

these must be images of miraculous effects of God's power; whereas the events to which he applies them, though effected unquestionably by God's providence, were effected in the ordinary way, not by miracle; yet, upon the whole, I could easily adopt his double sense of the prophecy, were it not that the scene is evidently laid in times subsequent to the return from the Babylonian captivity. The time of the prophetic scene therefore excludes any direct application of the prophecy to that event. It is true it describes the spiritual deliverance, which is its real object, in allusions to the deliverance from Babylon. And in prophecy, an allusion to a future event, as having taken place, and as an earnest of something beyond it, is indeed by implication a peremptory prediction of it.

Verse 22, an awful intimation to the Jews, that no promises to a particular family will screen the impenitent from punishment.

CHAP. XLIX.

Verse 3. "Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified;" rather, with Bishop Lowth, "Thou art my servant; Israel, in whom I will be glorified." That is, thou art my servant;

thou art Israel according to the true import of the name; thou art he in whom I will be glorified. See Bishop Lowth's excellent note.

Verse 5." though Israel be not gathered"The sense is good whether we read or . If we

read, the sense is, that notwithstanding the incredulity of the Jews, Messiah should be glorified in the conversion of the Gentiles. If we read, the sense is, that Israel shall indeed one time or other be gathered notwithstanding their stubborn incredulity in the days of our Lord's appearance in the flesh. According to the latter reading, which of the two seems preferable, the whole 5th verse after the introductory words is a parenthesis,

See Bishop Lowth's translation.

Verse 6." the tribes the preserved"- excellently rendered by Bishop Lowth, "the cions-the branches."

Verse 7." and his Holy One." For P, read, according to Archbishop Secker's conjecture, w¬p, "to his Holy One.", .

"whom man despiseth;" rather, with Bishop Lowth," whose person is despised."

"kings shall see, and arise," &c. It is a very extraordinary remark of Mr White's, what would at

VOL. II.

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least have been extraordinary had it dropped from any other pen, that "nothing of this kind ever happened to our Saviour;" as if these images of homage paid to the Messiah by the potentates of the earth were not frequent in the prophetic scriptures. And how happened any thing of this kind to Isaiah, to whom Mr White applies these images? He was honoured, it seems, by Eliakim, and other princes of Hezekiah's court. Admirable critic!

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"Est autem illud, videre,'-veritatem evangelii, ejusque nexum, decentiam, rationalitatem ocuspirituali contemplari ac perspicere; eam integrầ fide cum amore admittere; salutem eâ oblatam cum gratiarum actione amplecti; et doctrinæ salutisque auctori cum reverentiâ et obsequio cultum exhibere, quem doctrinæ puritas et præstantia et magnitudo salutis exposcunt: qui cultus significatur vocibus 'surgendi,' h. e. reverentiæ causâ assurgendi, et sé incurvandi.' Hic involvit omnem actum profundæ reverentiæ, honoris, obsequii, fiduciæ quem ver bum evangelii erga Christum Jesum, et in Christò Jesu, Deum Patrem, et Spiritum ejus; tum quoque erga veritatem evangelicam, religionem, et sacra; et erga ecclesiam et doctores ejus, præscribit. Quæ reverentia sic dispensanda est, ut cujusque objecti

ratio postulatsic tamen ut præcipuum objectum hujus cultus sit, maneatque, Christus Jesus quà doctor et mediator." Vitringa in Is. vol. ii, p. 575, 2.

Verse 8." for a covenant of the people," &c.; rather, "for a purification [or, a purifier] of the people, to restore the land, and give possession of the desolate heritages." The mention of people here (y) in the singular, clearly proves that the land to be restored is the land of Canaan; and that the latter part of this and the whole following verse contain a promise of restoration to the natural Israelites. For the distinction between y in the singular andy in the plural, the one denoting the single people of the Jews, the other all the peoples of the earth promiscuously, is, I believe, without a single exception.

Nevertheless, considering that the style here is highly figured and poetical, and considering how immediately this verse is connected with the description of the Messiah as the universal redeemer in the 6th and 7th, I am at last inclined to think that in the singular in this place may denote the Christian church, gathered out of Jews and Gentiles indiscriminately, under the image of a new peculiar people of God. The natural Israel was certainly a

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