cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the over- spreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand; a nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favour to the young. And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and 229 235 they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stum- bling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to re- store the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth. (Isaiah xlix. 6.) . 256 ERRATA. Page 77, line 22, for production, read productions. 163, line 4, insert they before approach. 242, line 8, for sahll, read shall. JESUS, THE MESSIAH. CHAPTER I. I will put enmity between thee and the Woman, and betweed thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.-Gen. iii. 15. THIS is the first intimation we meet with of the promised Messiah, and within this one verse is contained, as in the bud, the embryo flower, that goodly plant of renown,* which the Lord hath planted, and not man; he who is the rose of Sharon and the valley's lilly. It is an epitome of the whole plan of Redemption, and contains truths of the first importance; we shall do well to consider them in reference to Jesus of Nazareth. The prophecy declares there shall be enmity between the seed of the woman and the serpent. The incarnation and birth of Jesus have, by the Evangelists Matthew and Luke, been so fully stated, that none but a strongly prejudiced mind can * Isaiah liii. 2. Ezek. xxxiv. 29. ↑ Cant. ii. 1. B deny that he was the son of Mary, then a virgin, and that Joseph was only his supposed father, because he married his mother.* The old serpent, or as he is frequently called, Satan, discovered his enmity towards Jesus from his birth; he stirred up the mind of Herod to destroy the holy child, Jesus, and thus originated the massacre of the infants of Bethlehem. Though disappointed, he personally attempted his destruction, and for forty days and nights did he try the force of his arts to tempt Jesus to sin.† And, though foiled, he again resumed the attack, and suggested to the minds of the Scribes and Pharisees, priests and people, to persecute the man "who spake as never man spake." It is said he entered into, i.e. took full possession of, the mind of Judas, who betrayed Jesus, and also acted as guide to those who took him. Was not Satan the ringleader of those who crucified him, in whom his Judges declared, they could find no fault worthy of death? Let us now behold the opposition displayed by Jesus towards the serpent and his seed. A great part of his life appears * Matthew i. 18-25. + Matthew iv. 1-11. Luke i. 27. 30-35., ii. 5,6,7. Mark i. 12, 13. Luke iv. 2-13. Luke xxii. 3. John vi. 70., xiii. 2—27. |