"The children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and
without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image,
and without an ephod, and without teraphim; afterwards shall the
children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and David
their king, and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter
days." Hos. iii, 4, 5.
"I will set up one shepherd over them, even my servant David, he
shall feed [or govern] them, and he shall be their shepherd: and I
the Lord will be their God, and my servant David, a prince among
them." Ezech, ch. xxxiv. 23.
"David my servant shall be king over them, and there shall be one
shepherd,"------" my servant David shall be their Prince for ever."
Ezek. ch, xxxvii. 24, 25.
"They shall serve Jehovah their God, and David their king, whom I
will raise up unto [or for] them." Jer. xxx. 9.
"Incline your ear and come unto me: hear and your soul shall live;
and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure
mercies of David. Behold I have given him for a witness, to the
peoples, a leader and commander to the peoples." Is. Iv. 3, 4.
From such passages I inferred, in my first publication, that the
name of the true Messiah, was to be DAVID, and not Jesus. To
avoid the force of these passages Mr. Everett has recourse to
allegory and analogy.
Jesus is prophecied of in these passages, says he, by the name
of DAVID, because "there was an analogy between these two
distinguished servants of God. David, from a low and humble
estate, was raised to be the founder of the temporal glories of his
kingdom; and Christ, not less humble in his origin, was the author
of the spiritual distinction of Israel; David was the most illustrious
political and Christ the most distinguished moral instrument of the
Lord. David was commanded to entrust to his successor the
election of the famous temple, which was the centre of the Jewish
worship; and Christ has founded through the agency of his
apostles that CHURCH by which his religion has been preserved,
and diffused in the world."
"To laugh, were want of dignity, or grace, "And to be grave
exceeds all power of face."
I assure Mr. Everett, that the days of Type and FIGURE are gone
by, and have been succeeded among Biblical Critics by a stricter
style of reasoning, and are now considered as "pious
whims."[fn76]
In the present advanced state of sacred Criticism even the
beautiful allegory in Paul's Epistle to the Gal. ch. iv. which makes
Hagar, Abraham's maid, nothing less than "Mount Sinai in Arabia;"
and Sarah, Abraham's wife, to be the "Jerusalem, that is above
the mother of us all!" has come to be regarded as "rather queer."
I had also objected that the coming of the true Messiah, was
according to the Old Testament, to be preceded by the
appearance of Elijah the prophet on earth; and that he had not
appeared before the era of Jesus, nor ever since.
In answer to this, Mr. Everett endeavours to show 173. & seq.,
that a man named John the Baptist--a righteous person,--whose
raiment was of camels hair,--and whose meat was locusts and
wild honey, who lived in the age of Jesus of Nazareth, was Elijah,
and had a right to be so considered--by a figure.
To this I answer, that the prophecy of Malachi does not say
"Behold I will send you one like Elijah, or "an Elijah,"---but it says
explicitly, and expressly, "Behold, I will send you Elijah the
Prophet, before the coming of the great and terrible day of the
Lord; and he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,
and the hearts of the children to their fathers." Mal. iv. 5,6.
Now who is "Elijah the Prophet?" undoubtedly the great prophet of
Israel, who called down fire from heaven--who raised the dead to
life--and who ascended alive to heaven in a chariot of fire; God by
such a translation sufficiently intimating that he had in reserve for
him, some extraordinary commission. Moreover the coming of this
Elijah the prophet, was to be followed by. "the great and terrible
day of Jehovah," by which name the prophets call the personal
descent of Jehovah upon the earth, to take vengeance on the
wicked, and to punish the oppressors and persecutors of his
people.[fn77] Was the appearing of John the Baptist followed by
this event? or has it yet occurred, though that man lived eighteen
hundred years ago? His appearance, instead of being followed by
the interposition of God to avenge Israel of its enemies, was on
the contrary, followed by giving Israel into the hand of its enemies,
who, "for the overspreading of abominations," made Jerusalem a
desolation, and delivered over its sinful population to the chains of
slavery, and the bands of Death.
Elijah the Prophet is to turn the hearts of the fathers to the
children, and the hearts of the children to the fathers." Did John
the Baptist do this? On the contrary, the morals of his countrymen,
in His age, instead of growing from bad to better, went on from
bad to worse, till there was no remedy, and the Sword of God did
his work.
Indeed, and indeed Mr. Everett you are wrong; And your
superannuated allies, TYPE and FIGURE, whom I disdain to
combat, cannot aid you to defend what is indefensible.