The Jew, appealing to the prophets, says, The tribes of Israel have not been gathered—the kingdom of David not restored-the reign of universal peace and holiness not begun. Appealing to the same prophecies, we reply, You are mistaken in the time. The prophets announce two advents: one to suffer the other to reign in the manner you expect; and we thus make good our assertion. If it can be shown that the predictions concerning Messiah's advent differ with regard to place, time, and circumstance, and of each give a twofold description, it will necessarily follow that there must be two distinct advents. But that this is the fact cannot be denied, even by the adversaries of Christianity. The prophet Daniel (vii. 13, 14) declares that Messiah is to come from heaven. 'I saw,' says he, 'in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.' The prophet Micah, on the contrary, declares that he should come forth from Bethlehem, of Judah; and the numerous promises that he should be born of the family of David, as necessarily determine that this earth must be the scene of his entrance into his office. If the Son of David is to come from heaven, as in that holy place none are born of women, he must previously have been born upon earth, and thence ascended up thither; that is, before the advent here described by Daniel, he must have come once already in order to be born, and therefore his advent to receive the kingdom promised him must be the second. The Jews, therefore, must either admit two advents, or believe that Messiah is a merely celestial being; and then deny that he is that which Daniel declares him to be, 'The Son of man,' and that which the prophets announced he should be, 'The son of David.' The very same doctrine follows inevitably from Jewish tradition. The Jerusalem Talmud says expressly, that Messiah was born long since in Bethlehem of Judah, and gives the name of a Jew who went and saw him.* The Babylonian Talmud† and the book of Zohar also imply that in the times in which they were written, Messiah had been born and already grown up to man's estate, and was then in Paradise interceding for Israel. The former book says that he was seen by a celebrated rabbi, and asked concerning the time of his advent. The popular faith, therefore, of the Jewish people, founded upon the prophetic writings, proves that those writings contain intimations of two distinct advents, one for the purpose of being born in Bethlehem of Judah, the other a return from Paradise, where for centuries he has tarried. A consideration of the times marked out by the prophets will lead to the same conclusion. Jacob, by declaring that 'the sceptre should not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet * Berachoth, fol. 5, col. i. Old Paths, No. 50. H until Shiloh come,' fixed the time of the advent to a period before the destruction of the Jewish polity. Haggai, by predicting that the glory of that temple at whose building he assisted, should be greater than the glory of the first temple; and Malachi, by promising that the Lord should suddenly come to his temple and execute judgment upon the sons of Levi, both determine that Messiah was to come before the desolation of the temple and the dispersion of the people; and yet other predictions imply that Messiah was to come after a period of long and total dispersion of the people, and desolation of the temple and city. Thus Isaiah, lix. 20, says, that 'the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and to them that turn from transgression in Jacob;' and then follows the promise, Thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side the isles shall wait for me, the ships of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons from far, their silver and their gold with them, unto the name of the Lord thy God,' which implies dispersion; and that other promise, 'The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir-tree, the pine-tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary; and I will make the place of my feet glorious. ... whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, so that no man went through thee, I will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations,' necessarily implies a previous desolation both of the temple and the city. The prophet Micah describes the time of Messiah's glory also as consequent upon the desolation of the temple. He announces that 'in the last days the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains,' which the Jews universally apply to the days of the Messiah; but the preceding verse says, 'Therefore shall Zion for your sake be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the Lord's house as the high places of the forest.' Daniel declares, that when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished,' thus expressly fixing that great deliverance by Messiah to the end of their present dispersion. Here, then, are two periods of time fixed for the advent of Messiah, which yet are separated by the long interval beginning with the desolation of the holy city, and extending to the time of the restoration of the Jews. As the prophets assert that in each period Messiah is to come, and the periods are not identical, it follows that there must be two advents. The difference between heaven and earth, between the time before the destruction of the temple and after its destruction, is, however, not more clear than the distinction of circumstances under which the advent of the Messiah is to take place. In one class of prophecies he is described as in a state of the most profound humiliation; in another, as exalted to the highest degree of glory, and the throne of universal empire. The very same prophet presents Messiah in shapes the most opposite. David in one place describes him as a worm and no man: a reproach of men and despised of the people;' and in another place speaks of him as universal king, having dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth, before whom all kings shall bow down, and whom all nations shall serve.' Isaiah describes him in similar language, as 'exalted and extolled, and very high,' and yet 'as despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.' In one place, as an example of meekness, saying He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the streets. A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench;' and in another, as the merciless destroyer of his enemies, exclaiming, 'I will tread them in my anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment.' The most careless peruser of the prophecies must know that antithetic passages of this nature are so frequent that to adduce proof at all is almost superfluous, and the wayfaring man, though a fool, must perceive that the two states here described can be neither identical nor synchronous. How then are they to be disposed of? Are they two different states of the same person, or are there two Messiahs, to one of whom belongs the humiliation, and to the other the glory? And here be it remarked, that this apparent contrariety is not the mere offspring |