Julian Pe- Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Nazareth.
riod, 4709. Before the Vulgar Era,
we can comprehend the mystery of the creation of the second Adam. But we may as reasonably disbelieve the one as the other, if our understanding must comprehend the difficulty before we receive it. The whole doctrine of creation is one of the truths which baffles the intellect of man. We must, in this stage of our being, be contented to believe, and to be ignorant. If we believe only what we comprehend, we must believe nothing but mathematical demonstrations.
The declarations of Scripture from the very beginning assert, that the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head. It is evident this term, "the seed of the woman,' cannot be ap- plied to mankind in general. It must refer to a Being to whom it could be applied in some peculiar sense: and the ingenuity of man has never yet devised a mode in which this passage can be properly applied to any of the human race, unless in that manner in which the believers in divine Revelation have ap- plied it to the promised deliverer, the second Adam. The first Adam was called the Son of God, because he was created in the image of God, in a way different from his descendants. Christ also is called the Son of God, on account of his miraculous conception. Both were created spiritual beings; and the true worshippers of God, in various parts of Scripture, are called by the same name, in an inferior sense, because they aspire to the recovery of that superior nature which the first Adam lost, but the second restored.
The ancient Jews were decided, and, so far as we can ascertain from their remaining books, were unanimous in their opinion; that the divine person who was appointed to deliver man, should be the seed of the woman in some manner differing from mere men. This they principally learned from two passages in their prophets, which have consequently been much discussed; these are Isa. vii. 14. and Jer. xxxi. 22. both of which require attention.
When the invasion of Rezin and Pekah had reduced the Israelites to extremity, their king, Ahaz, who in the days of his prosperity had sacrificed and burnt incense to the gods of the surrounding nations, in the groves and in the high places of their worship, and consequently had paid little attention or respect to the prophet Jehovah, now in this period of distress and calamity applies for relief to Isaiah. The Prophet assures him that he shall be delivered from the two kings; but that, within sixty-five years, the ten tribes should be carried away captive, (Isa. vii. 9.) The king is incredulous, doubting perhaps the inspiration of the prophet; who requests the king to require any miraculous proof he pleases that the prophecy he had delivered should be accomplished. The king refuses to do so, when Isaiah immediately declares the Lord himself shall give you a sign-Behold a Virgin, (or more properly, the Virgin, byn, with the emphatic ) should conceive and bear son. That the name of this son should be Emmanuel; and before he was of sufficient age to discern between good and evil, the country should be delivered from its invaders. The Virgin in question is supposed, by Abrabanel, and other Jewish writers, to denote Mahershalalhashbaz, whom Isaiah married soon after. By others the word by is rendered damsel, instead of virgin, and is supposed to refer to the queen of Ahaz, who was then pregnant of Hezekiah. Dr. Pye Smith (c) fol
Julian Period, 4709. Before the
28 And the angel came in unto her, and said', Hail, Nazareth.
Vulgar Æra, lows the authority of Trypho, Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, and Abrabanel, in giving this last signification to the word The inspired writings, however, do not appear to confirm this interpretation; for they give us no account of a child born at that time who either received the name of Emanuel, or a name that would bear the same signification.
If the prophecy had ended at the 16th verse of the seventh chapter, it might perhaps bear a literal interpretation. But it seems to have been forgotten by those who would thus limit its signification, that it is only a part of one prophetical discourse which is completed at ver. iv. chap. 10. and includes that still more eminent prophecy, rendered in our translation, "Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Won- derful, Counsellor, the mighty God." The object then of the Prophet in pronouncing the words, a Virgin shall conceive, &c. must be collected from the scope of the whole discourse. If it be thoroughly examined it will appear, like other prophetical discourses, to make the present distress and predicted deliver- ance serve as a figure of some more distant and more glorious event. No king of Israel could be justly styled the Wonderful -Counsellor-the mighty God, (which latter epithet is ren- dered, by a learned critic (d), God, the mighty man)-the Everlasting Father-the Prince of Peace. These prophecies from necessity must be, as they always have been, both by Jewish (e) and Christian writers, referred to the Messiah, and as such is quoted by St. Matthew in his Gospel, i. 23. (f.)
I shall close this part of the present note with a statement of Dr. Kennicott's hypothesis.
He conceives that "the text contains two distinct prophe- cies; each literal, and each to be understood in one sense only; the first relating to Christ, the second to Isaiah's son." The one is contained in v. 13, 14, and 15; and the other in v. 16. Dr. K. paraphrases them thus:
"I. Fear not, O house of David, the fate threatened you: God is mindful of his promise to your Father, and will fulfil the same in a very wonderful manner: Behold! a virgin (rather the virgin the only one thus circumstanced) shall conceive, and bear a son; which son shall therefore be, what no other has been or shall be, the seed of the woman, here styled THE VIRGIN and this son shall be called (i. e. in Scripture language he shall be) IMMANUEL, God with us: but this great Person, this God visible amongst men, introduced into the world thus, in a manner that is without example, shall be truly man: he shall be born an infant, and as an infant shall he be brought up: for butter and honey (rather milk and honey) shall he eat; he shall be fed with the common food of infants, which in the East was milk mixed with honey, till he shall know (not that he may know, as if such food was to be the cause of such knowledge, but) till he shall grow up to know how to refuse the evil and choose the good."
"II. But before THIS child (pointing to his own son) shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good; the land that thou abhorrest, shall be forsaken of both her kings."
y should be rendered, THIS child :—a son of Isaiah, Shear-jashub; whom God had commanded the prophet to take with him; but of whom no use was made, unless in the application of these words; whom Isaiah might now hold in his arm; and to whom therefore he might point with his hand when he
Julian Pe- thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: Nazareth. riod, 4709. blessed art thou among women.
addressed himself to Ahaz, and said, But before this child shall grow up to discern good from evil; the land, that thou abhor- rest, shall be forsaken of both her kings."
"The child's name is evidently prophetical; for it signifies, a remnant, or the remainder, shall return. This prophecy was soon after fulfilled. And therefore this son, whose name had been so consolatory the year before, was with the utmost pro- priety brought forth now, and made the subject of a second prophecy-namely, that before that child, then in the second year of his age, should be able to distinguish natural good from evil, before he should be about four or five years old; the lands of Syria and Israel, spoken of here as one kingdom on account of their present union and confederacy, should be forsaken of both their kings: which, though at that time highly improba- ble, came to pass about two years after; when those two kings, who had in vain attempted to conquer Jerusalem, were them- selves destroyed, each in his own country."-Kennicott's Ser- mon on Isa. vii. 13-16. Oxf. 1765.
The celebrated prophecy of Micah (ch. v. 2.) which St. Matthew likewise, as his countrymen would approve (g), applies to Christ, was written twenty years after the event by which this prophecy of Isaiah (Isa. vii. 14-16, &c.) was occasioned. Both Dr. Hales (h) and Bishop Lowth (i) are of opinion, that Micah in this passage alludes to the former passage previously delivered by Isaiah. "Micah," says Bishop Lowth," having delivered that remarkable prophecy which determines the place of the birth of the Messiah, the Ruler of God's people, whose goings forth have been of old, from everlasting, adds, that nevertheless God would deliver them up to their enemies, till she who is to bear a child brings forth." Archbishop Newcome also confirms the authorized version (k).
The uncommon expression also, "the holy offspring," Luke i. 35. seems to be especially adapted to denote that the child would be produced in a way different from the generation of the rest of mankind. On the appellation, Son of the Most High, Kuinoel, a very cool and cautious critic, observes, "that it seems to be used to signify that Christ was procreated by an immediate divine intervention: in which sense Adam also is called "the Son of God (().”
The next prophecy which our present subject leads us to consider, is given by Jeremiah, (xxxi 22.) The Lord hath created a new thing on the earth, a woman hath compassed a man. That new creation of a man is therefore new, and therefore a creation, because wrought in a woman only, without a man, compassing a man; which interpretation is antient, literal, and clear (m)." This is the opinion of one of our most eminent divines, who proceeds to demonstrate, from the rabbinical and talmudical writers, that the antient Jews gave the same interpretation to this passage, and referred it to the miraculous conception of the expected Messiah.
The greater part of the events which are predicted in the Old Testament are shadowed forth by types, or partial, intended resemblances, to the event prefigured. The miraculous conception also is repeatedly typified in the Old Testament. Various women, Anna the wife of Elkanah, Sarah of Abraham, the wife of Manoah, and others, as well as Elizabeth the wife of Zacharias, are recorded to have brought forth children after their old age had begun. The design of this seems to have been, to
Julian Pe- riod, 4709. Before the Vulgar Æra,
29 And when she saw him, she was troubled at his Nazareth
afford the Church of God, which expected a Messiah who should be in a peculiar sense the seed of the woman, a certain and miraculous proof, that as nothing was impossible with God, he would in his own time give them the promised Messiah; of whose birth, the birth of the children of these women were but types.
That the doctrine of the miraculous conception of the Mes- siah is laid down in the New Testament, as well as the Old, the Christian reader does not require to be informed. The account is contained in the commencing chapters of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke; which are to be found in every version and manuscript of the New Testament extant. As these chapters maintain the divinity of Christ, by asserting the fact of his miraculous birth, they have been attacked with a variety of theoretical arguments by the Socinian writers; as well as by all, whether Deists or nominal Christians, who would reduce the Gospel to a good and valuable system of morality; and re- present the promised Messiah as merely the blameless man, the exemplary teacher, and possibly a superior prophet (n). On the same authority which induced the first ages to receive these chapters as authentic and genuine, and to believe the narra- tive contained in them, Christians in all ages have made the doctrine of the miraculous conception an article of their faith. They have believed in Him "who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary."-See the whole of the admirable third article of Pearson on the Creed.
(a) The infection of our nature, the póvnμa σapkòs, spoken of in the 9th Article of the Church of England. (b) Moses acquaints us that Adam begat Seth IN HIS OWN LIKENESS AFTER HIS IMAGE, Gen. v. 3. can it be supposed that an accurate writer as Moses is, when he had said, that God created man, in his own likeness after his image, Gen. i. 26, 27. and here says, that Adam begat Seth IN HIS OWN LIKENESS AFTER HIS IMAGE, did not set this expres- sion in opposition to the other? Nothing else appears from the words being so exactly repeated. He must therefore design to acquaint as that Adam having lost the image and likeness of God, could not for that reason beget Seth after the image and likeness in which himself had been created; but in his own likeness after his image, a miserable mortal man like himself, an heir of his toil, care, sorrow, and death. Extracted from a manuscript letter from the first Lord Viscount Barrington, thor of the Essay on the Dispensations, to the celebrated Dr. Larduer, with which I have been favoured by his son, the present Hon. and Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Durham. See also on the same subject Jones' figurative language of Scripture. (c) Scripture testimony to the Mes- siah, vol. i. p. 271; but this supposition is founded on the idea that some error has crept into the account in the sacred text of Hezekiah's age, 2 Kings xvi. 2. 2 Chron. xxviii. 1.—and it is scarcely admissible to build the right interpretation of one part of Scripture on the possible error of another. (d) Horsley's Biblical Criticisms, vol. ii. p. 65. (e) Quoniam puer datus est-Targum: Dixit propheta ad domum David: Puer natus est nobis, &c. &c. Deus potens vivens in secula xn'vo, Messiah, cujus temporibus pax multa erit. Debarim rabba sect. i. fol. 249. 4. In Sanhedrin, fol. 94. 1. Deum constituisse Hiskiam facere Messiam, quæ quidem fabulosa sunt, sed tamen nobis in tantum utilia, quia ostendunt, Judæos in lectione horum verborum de Messiacogitasse. Schoetgenius, vol. ii. p. 160. It cannot be necessary to refer to Chris- tian writers. But see Kidder's Demonstration of the Messiah, Part ii. p. 97, 1726, folio. (f) The quotation in St. Matthew agrees almost word for word with the Hebrew,
Year of the saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation Nazareth. Julian Pe- this should be.
but varies from the Septuagint, from which the New Testament writers so often quote, in two words only-Matt. E-Sept. Anerai-Matt. Kaλéoovoi-Sept. Kaλéoɛç. (g) Since the application of this passage to the Christian Messiah, the Jews have been accustomed to refer the words to other circumstances, than their ancestors had done. Noli Lec- tor (says Schoetgen, vol. ii. p. 213,) banc diversitatem mirari-(I con- sider myself as possibly addressing some of the sons of Israel in these notes, and I omit therefore the next clause of the quotation)-Hic au- tem Marcus Marinus, Censor a Pontifice constitutus, textus ad confir- mationem religionis valentes corrupit. In loco Sanhedrin (fol. 98. 2. had been just quoted) signum castrationis, lacuna scilicet, ubi vox nyn, impium omissa est, aperte conspicitur: in loco autem priore longe plura deesse videntur. Dixit R. Giddell. Quare autem Hillel excipiatur a consortio istius beatitudinis? Quia dixit: nullum amplius Messiam Israeli expectandum esse: (Glossa Quia Hiskias fugerit Mes- sias, et de ipso dicta sint Prophetiæ Ezek. xxix. 21. et Micha v. 3.) Meuschen N. T. ex Talmude illust. 4to. Leipsic 1736. p. 30. (h) Hales' Analysis of Chronology, vol. ii. p. 462, 463. (i) Lowth's Isaiah, notes, 4to. edit. p. 64. (k) Newcome's Minor Prophets in loc. (1) Comment in Libros. Hist. N. T. vol. ii. p. 271. Apud Smith's Scripture Testi- mony to Mess. vol. ii. p. 48. (m) Pearson on the Creed, Oxford edit. Svo. vol. i. p. 270, and vol. ii. p. 201. It is not to be denied, he ob- serves, that the proper signification of 2D is circumdare, or cingere. R. Judah has observed but one interpretation of the verb, and Kimchi says that all the words which come from the root aad, signifying en- compassing, or circuition. Those words therefore (Jerem. xxxi. 22.)
must literally import no less than that a woman נבר תסובב נקבה
shall encompass or enclose a man: which, with the addition of a new creation, may well bear the interpretation of a miraculous conception. On this account the Jews applied the passage determinately to the Messiah. This appears in Berashith Rabba Parash. 89. where, shewing that God doth heal, with that, with which, he woundeth, he saith, as he punished Israel in a virgin, so would he also heal. By the testimony of R. Huna, in the name of R. Idi, and R. Josuah, the son of Levi. Ånd again in Midrash Tillim, upon the second Psalm, R. Huna, in the name of R. Iddi, speaking of the sufferings of the Messiah, saith, nwon ba ni, Iste est rex Messias, that when his hour is come,
עלי לבראתו ברית חדשה וכן הוא אומר אני היום ילדתיך:God shall say
"I must create him with a new creation;"" and so (by virtue of that new creation) he saith, this day have I begotten thee." From whence it appeareth that this sense is of itself literally clear, and that the ancient Rabbins did understand it of the Messias; whence it follows that the later interpretations are but to avoid the truth which we profess, that Jesus was born of a virgin, and therefore is the Christ. Vide also Schoetgenius, vol. ii. p. 99. Locum general: 50. 2. In Sohar. Genes. fol. 13. col. 52. apud Schoetgen, vol. ii. p. 202, the words Die sexto applicat se
.are applied to the Church נקבה תסובב נבר
uxor (Ecclesia) ut præsto sit marito suo (Deo) qui vocatur justus, eique die Sabbathi mensam instruat. Et hoc ipsum est, quod Scriptura innuit, dicens: (Creabit Dominus). Et hoc fit temporibus Messiæ, qui sunt dies sextus. Dr. Blayney, in his new translation of the prophecies of Jeremiah, renders the phrase" a woman shall put to the rout a strong man," and defends this interpretation by observing, that the words (even if 20 be translated to encompass,) can only mean to contain or comprehend in the womb; and as this is not a wonderful thing, he concludes the pas
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