pying less space in the prophecies, is intrinsically more important.

I think I have here rightly represented what they say. It is somewhat entertaining, however, as well as instructive, to observe in what light the sensible Jews of modern times, who have given attention to the question, and written in justification of their rejection of Jesus, regard this representation of the matter. They look upon it as a mere after-thought, and as an evasion of the real question between Jews and Christians. David Levi, in his "Dissertations on the Prophecies of the Old Testament," calls it a mere chimera, "an ignis fatuus, notwithstanding all the noise and pother that has been made about it."* Doubtless, premillennialists have much more spiritual views of the whole subject than an unbelieving Jew can be supposed to have. But they both oppose those views of the kingdom which we maintain; and in so doing they use arguments identical in substance, and only differing in the Christian or Antichristian point of view from which they survey their common ground; as will be evident on comparing their works together. The kingdom-say both alike—is yet to come: Jesus-say both alike—does not occupy the throne of the kingdom: The prophecies relating to Messiah's kingdom remain yet to be fulfilled-say both alike. †

I have said and I entreat the reader's attention to itthat the apostles, in pleading with their unbelieving countrymen, take up precisely our position against the premillennialists regarding the kingdom of Christ. This I now proceed

* Vol. i. p. 120. Lond. 1817.

"The Jews," says Mr Brooks, "understood them (the prophecies relating to the kingdom) in their appropriate and harmonious sense, though not perhaps in their full sense; and the wonder is, not that they should have thus understood them, but that any among ourselves should understand them otherwise; seeing that their primary and most obvious sense is so plainly accordant with the Jewish expectations."-Elem. of Proph. Interp. chap. vi. on "The Kingdom of Christ," p. 185.

to make good, taking up one or two of the apostolic addresses as they are given in the Acts. And,

I. We have the famous Pentecostal sermon.

"Men and brethren," says Peter, "let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David. . . Being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his (David's) throne.* He, seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ. . . . . . This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this. . . . . Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both LORD and CHRIST." (Acts ii. 29-36.) Here it is stated, as explicitly as words could do it, that the promise to David of Messiah's succession to his throne has received its intended accomplishment in the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus, as the fruit of David's loins, to the right hand of power; and that his first exercise of regal authority from the throne of Israel was to send down the Spirit, as had that day been done. When, moreover, he adds that God had made that same Jesus both Lord and Christ, he manifestly wished to be understood-and could not fail to be understood-as affirming, that his present exaltation was his proper lordship or royalty, as Messiah. And finally, when as if emitting a solemn testimony-he calls upon "all the house of Israel to know this assuredly," it is

I retain the received text here, instead of reading, with the eminent critics followed by Mr Wood, "that of the fruit of his loins he would set upon his throne” (omitting τὸ κατὰ σάρκα αναστήσειν τὸν Χριστὸν). Besides those mentioned by Mr Wood, Knapp, Lachmann, and Tischendorf omit the words in question. But the weight of authority, as far as I can judge, is on the other side; although in opposition to Griesbach's “certissime delenda," I should scarcely say, as in my former edition, "certissime retinenda."

L

quite clear that he knew how unwelcome his view of Messiah's lordship would be to Jewish ears-requiring them not only to believe that the predicted Messiah and king of the Jews was Jesus of Nazareth, but that their notions of the Messiahship itself, and of the royalty attached to it, were all wrong; that it was this erroneous view of the prophetic testimony respecting Messiah which had plunged them into the perpetration of the greatest of all crimes, and the removal of which, when the veil should be taken away, would revolutionize the Jewish mind.

Premillennialists scout the notion of Christ's now sitting on David's throne, and ask a great many questions as to the points of analogy between the throne on which sat the humble son of Jesse in the midst of his subjects in Palestine, and the celestial seat of the Redeemer's present power. One is pained at the flippancy with which these questions are sometimes put, and the gross principles on which the point is decided. In whatever sense the seat of Christ's present rule is termed David's throne, the fact, I will venture to say, is indisputable. That CHRIST IS NOW ON DAVID'S THRONE, is as clearly affirmed by Peter in this sermon as words could do it. Let any one read his words again, and see if it be possible to make any thing else out of them. Mr Wood tries it; but his interpretation is sufficient to show the hopelessness of the task.

"We maintain," says he, "that this passage asserts that David knew that Christ was to sit upon his (David's) throne, and that moreover he had himself prophesied that he should sit at God's right hand until his enemies were made his footstool; that is, as we believe, until the time should come when he should sit down on the throne of David, and therefore he prophesied of the resurrection of Christ, and not of his own, just as it was of Christ, and not of himself, that he said, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool." * This strange style of interpretation reminds me of a dis

* Affirmative Answer, p. 50.

cussion I once had with a zealous follower of Joanna Southcote, who applied to the child of that deluded woman the words of the prophet, "Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” But are we not (said I) expressly told of the birth of Christ, that it was done in fulfilment of this prediction? Not at all, replied our ingenious disputant. Look again at the evangelist's words, "This was done," not in fulfilment of the prediction, but "that it might be fulfilled" in another person, and at a future time: Christ's birth, then, merely prepared the way for, or was a necessary step in the march of events which were to bring about the fulfilment of that famous prediction. And what else is the character of Mr Wood's version of the words of Peter? "David," says the apostle, "knowing that God would raise up Christ to sit upon his throne, spake of the resurrection of Christ: This Jesus (accordingly) hath God raised up." So he has, says Mr Wood, but only to sit on David's throne at some future time. "Christ's resurrection," says Peter, was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by David, that he would sit upon his throne." Yes, says my respected brother, but it was done, not in fulfilment of the prediction, but only that it might be fulfilled— to prepare the way for the future fulfilment of the prediction."

On the contrary, Peter evidently wished the people to understand, that Christ was already swaying the only sceptre they had to look for in their Messiah:-saying in effect, The kind of royalty ye have been looking and longing for is a phantom; but the reality is already in being. "MESSIAH THE PRINCE" already sits enthroned on high, in the person of the crucified but risen Nazarene, ready to dispense, not the poor honours of an earthly sovereignty-for the rule of David's Successor is not like the rule of David himself— but "repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins:" "God

* In his "Last Things," Mr Wood only reiterates his former statements, and confirms the above interpretation of them (pp. 113, &c.) Mr Birks takes precisely the same view of the passage (pp. 197-199.)

hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both LORD and CHRIST."

In this view of the apostle's meaning, it is but a translation, into New Testament language, of Zechariah's majestic prediction,

"Behold the man whose name is The Branch; and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord: Even he shall build the temple of the Lord; and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne; and he shall be A PRIEST UPON HIS THRONE: and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.” (Zech.vi. 12, 13.) *

* Mr Wood throws this glorious prediction of Messiah's royal priesthood into the millennium, and he thinks the context proves it future. I wish I could say that in this he stands alone. But there is too much of this tendency, in the whole premillennial school, to futurize the most precious prophecies of the Old Testament. In the "Quarterly Journal of Prophecy" (No. I., Oct. 1848), there is a paper entitled "Objections and Difficulties," in which this prophecy of the union of the kingly and priestly offices in the person of Messiah is declared to be a prediction of Christ's millennial glory-" He shall be a priest upon his throne.” "This verse," says the writer, "is commonly " (he should have said universally, and in all time, with the sole exception of a handful of premillennialists) "interpreted of the present time. Christ, it is said, is now upon his throne, and is executing at once the offices of a priest and of a king This interpretation, however, appears to be entirely erroneous." He then assigns some reasons for holding the union of offices therein set forth as wholly future-reasons, on the strength of which (as I have elsewhere said) it were easy to expel the Christianity which we fondly thought we had found in fifty other prophecies, till at length we were within sight of the Jews' conclusion, that Christianity in the Old Testament is an impertinence, which a thorough-going literal interpretation of it, with proper regard to the context and scope of each prophecy, would show to have no place and no business there.

.....

It is the vice of the premillennial theory, that it of necessity hands over to the future, and to a new and unique dispensation, whole masses of prophecy, which, in the view of the great bulk of the true Church in all time, belong to the dispensation of the Spirit-to the economy of the Gospel-to Christianity just as it now exists, with its present Word and its present Spirit, as competent to effect all that is predicted. Once make the throne of David, as occupied by Christ, future and local, and it will go hard with us if we do not find ourselves compelled to futurize one