We may now advance to make some further inquiries concerning this great King in his kingdom, and this must be done with all practicable brevity.

First, then, let us inquire concerning the reality and identity of the King's person in that day. Here I begin to address a different class of persons: I mean those who have agreed with me in all I have hitherto advanced, but who, on the subject, of the King's person, do not agree one with another. This point has been strenuously debated, and some of you, my brethren, well know that the hinge of the controversy among ourselves, turns upon this pivot. Now I do not dogmatize to any of my brethren; I examine carefully, I declare my mind freely and boldly but I neither set up my opinion as a standard, nor do I think or feel less kindly towards any of my fellow-students in the word of God, because they form and maintain opinions different from mine. "I speak as to wise men, judge ye what I say."

On the subject of the King's person, then, in the great day of triumph, I refer to the first prophecy addressed to the devil in the Garden of Eden, Gen. iii. 15: “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman; and between thy seed and her seed: it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." I refer to the prophecy reiterated to the Patriarch, Gen. xxii. 17: "That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon

the sea-shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice." I refer to the prophecy addressed by the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary, Luke i. 31, 32; "And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David; and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end."

From these passages we learn that he who is to bruise the serpent's head is the seed of the woman —that he who is to possess the gate of his enemies, is the seed of Abraham-that he who is to sit on the throne of his father David, is that man child conceived in the womb of the Virgin, and called Jesus. What is this seed, this holy thing, but the human nature of our Lord? And how shall the prophecy be fulfilled, if the human nature of Jesus be not the conqueror and the king? If the victory be gained, and the kingdom established and administered by the out-pouring of the Holy Ghost in the absence of the human nature of Jesus; then it is not the seed of the woman who does these things, for Jehovah the Holy Ghost was never incarnate. The prophecy says distinctly, that the seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham, the child Jesus, shall do these things; and the conclusion

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which I draw from this is, that our Lord Christ, in his human nature, returning to this earth in like manner as he quitted it from Mount Olivet, will confound his adversaries, perfect his elect, restore his dispersed nation, still beloved for the fathers' sake, and establish his kingdom in righte

ousness.

To others, this will appear an unwarrantable conclusion; and they will consider the prophecies referred to satisfactorily fulfilled, if the great consummation be brought about after a spiritual manner; seeing that the seed of the woman, by his obedience unto death, hath procured and sent the Holy Ghost to this work; and that consequently, all that is done directly by the Spirit, may be said to be done by the Saviour, in his human nature.

But according to this view, a most unwarrantable liberty is taken with our text: it makes the first clause of this passage to be literally fulfilled; the king to be literally of the stock of David, (for the literal incarnation is not denied,) and it makes the fourth and fifth clauses of the same passage to be spiritually fulfilled; the king not literally executing judgment and justice in the earth, after a visible manner, so as to overwhelm gainsayers, and vindicate his friends in the eyes the world; but spiritually establishing righteousness in the hearts of his people. Is this distinction authorized or warranted by the prophecy itself? or is it introduced, in order to accommodate the pro

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phecy to the supposed interpretation? We reject it, and maintain consistently, that the reign of the seed of David, will be as literal as his incarnation. The angel Gabriel said to the virgin Mary, 1. thou shalt bring forth a son; 2. the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David. Here were two prophecies. Had Mary applied to the former the canon of interpretation, now commonly applied to the latter, she could not have believed, that she was literally to bear a son. If we would apply to the latter the canon of interpretation which history has shown to belong to the former, we could not deny the personal, literal reign of Jesus Christ, over the twelve tribes of Israel in Jerusalem. The only objection which can be urged against this is unbelief. Thus saith the Lord God concerning Mary, "Blessed is she that believed; for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord."

2. Let us inquire concerning the appearance of the king's person in that day. On this point it seems to me, that the history of the transfiguration of Jesus on Mount Tabor, was intended to instruct us; that transfiguration being, as I think, a specimen and earnest of the glorious appearance of our Lord the King in his kingdom. It was a prophecy by a fact. God reveals his purposes in two ways there are prophecies in words, and prophecies by facts. When God said, by his servant Daniel, "Messiah shall be cut off, but not for him

self;" there was a prophecy in words, of the vicarious death of the Lord Jesus. When the Jewish people "took every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house.

a lamb without blemish and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel killed it in the evening, and they took of the blood, and struck it on the two side-posts, and on the upper doorpost of the houses," there was a prophecy by a fact, of the same vicarious death. Compare Exod. xii. 1-14, with 1 Cor. v. 7.

When David said, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption ;" there was a prophecy in words, of the resurrection of Jesus Christ: (Acts ii. 2430:) when Jonah was enclosed in the whale, and the third day vomited forth again on the dry land, there was a prophecy by a fact, of the same resurrection. (Matt. xii. 39, 40.)

When the Holy Ghost, by the mouth of Jeremiah, said, "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers. But this shall be the covenant.

I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts," &c.—there was a prophecy in words, of the new covenant. When Sarah, the free-woman, bare a son to Abraham, against the course of nature, according to the promise, and