Five Pebbles from the Brook

by George Bethune English

"What can we reason but from what we know?" and therefore a great part of such language will be necessarily figurative; but it by no means follows from this, that the writers who are obliged to use this figurative language when speaking of the Deity, intend to be understood in the same sense when they apply the same expressions to describe men and their actions. On the contrary, as they were writing to men and for men, it is natural to presume, that they meant to be understood in the way that such expressions are universally understood by all men, when they relate to men and their actions. Such a system, of interpretation as this of Mr. Everett's, turns the Bible into a Babel of confusion: a man proceeding upon this system, might with equal plausibility turn all the good and prosperous kings of Israel and Judah into "Spiritual Saviours."[fn21]

"What, says Mr. Everett, p. 63. would be thought of one, who after making a collection of passages which ascribe these attributes of royalty and conquest to God, such as Mr. English has made of those which ascribe such attributes to the Messiah, should infer as he does, that God is a just, beneficent; wise and mighty monarch reigning on a throne in Jerusalem?"

To this I answer by asking in my turn, what should we think of one, who after making a collection, of passages which ascribe these attributes of royalty and conquest to God, as Mr. Everett has done, should therefore think himself authorised to infer, that the history of David the son of Jesse, contained in the Bible, (which, as all the world knows, is an oriental book abounding in figurative expressions) was not to be understood literally, but that it was very possible that this supposed monarch of Israel, who is represented as having "saved it from its enemies on every side," was after all, probably only a spiritual saviour of the souls of the Israelites, by having distinguished himself as a prophet, a preacher of righteousness, and a composer of Psalms!! [fn22]

As Mr. Everett says, I "cheerfully leave this part of the controversy, with the answer to this question which every rational inquirer will give;" p. 63.

Mr. Everett, however, in maintaining that the Messiah, was to be merely a preacher of righteousness, a founder of a new religion, and a. spiritual saviour of the souls of men, not only opposes dicta of the prophets of the Old Testament, but is expressly contradicted by the doctrine of the New, which maintains the same ideas of the Messiah that the prophets teach and the Jews believe; and this with the indulgence of the reader's patience I will plainly show.

The angel is recorded, Luke, ch. i. 31, to have told Mary, concerning Jesus whom the author of that Gospel supposes to have been the Messiah, that "the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end." Now this is precisely the doctrine, concerning the Messiah, believed by the Jews from that time to the present; for we see that Luke represents that the Messiah was not to be merely a spiritual saviour of the souls of men, but was actually to set upon the throne of David, and reign over the house of Jacob for ever; which is precisely what the prophets teach and the Jews believe.

Again, in the same ch. 68, the writer of that Gospel represents Zecharias, when filled with the Holy Ghost, as predicting concerning Jesus as follows. "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he hath visited and redeemed his people, and hath raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David: as he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets which have been since the world began: that we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us: to perform the mercy promised to our Fathers, and to remember his holy covenant: the oath which he swore to our father Abraham, that he would grant unto us, that we being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life."

Here we see again that in Luke's opinion the Messiah was not to be merely "a spiritual saviour of the souls of men," but that he was to "save Israel from their enemies and from the hand of all that hated them," and this too is precisely what the prophets teach and the Jews believe.

Again, from the first ch. of Acts 6. it is evident, that the primitive Christians did not believe that the Messiah was to be merely a spiritual saviour of the souls of men, but that he would perform for Israel what was promised by the prophets. For the Apostles are represented there as asking Jesus, previous to his ascension, saying "Lord wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?"

The way the writers of the New Testament, get over the objection to the Messiahship of Jesus, founded on the nonfulfillment by him of the splended visions of the prophets relative to the restoration of the dispersion, the punishment of their oppressors, and the diffusion of universal happiness to the tribes and of the world, (which they represent as the consequence of the coming of the Messiah) is, not by maintaining that the Messiah was to be merely "a spiritual Saviour of the souls of men," but by affirming that Jesus would shortly come again into the world to fulfill them. "The Lord Jesus," says the writer of the second Epistle to the Thessalonians ch. i. 7, "shall be revealed from Heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of our Lord, and from the glory of his power: when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired of all them that believe."[fn23]