Five Pebbles from the Brook | Page 8

represent (as Mr. Everett will not deny) that the Messiah is to be a mighty Monarch, enthroned at Jerusalem under whose reign the Jews should be restored to their country and converted from their sins and errors, and established in the most perfect and endless happiness; that he will put down all opposition to his authority, and exterminate the wicked out of the earth, and unite the pious and good of all the human race under his government, making them participators of the eternal happiness of the favoured descendants of Abraham, that all sin, sorrow, and error shall be no more, and the earth become all Paradise.
"Far more bless'd than that of Eden, And far happier days." [fn19]
The difference between Mr. Everett's and my view of this representation is, that I understand the prophets to mean that the whole will be literally fulfilled; and Mr. Everett maintains that, that part which accords with the Christian view of the Messiah is to be literally understood, but that that part which is opposed to it must be taken figuratively.
Who is so blind as not to perceive the motives for such an incoherent system, of interpretation! The passages which represent the Messiah as a Monarch reigning at Jerusalem, and whose temporal authority should extend over all the earth, Mr. Everett would interpret to signify, (by a figure) "a preacher of righteousness, and a spiritual Saviour of the souls of men;" because Jesus had no temporal authority whatever, and therefore to understand them literally would exclude the claims set up for him. The earth's being restored to a Paradisiacal state, and the extinction of all sin, violence, and misery throughout its circumference, Mr. Everett would interpret to signify, (by. a figure) "the blessed events," which have occurred, and the "changes that have taken place," since the promulgation of Christianity!! [fn20]
Mr. Everett, in support of his system of interpretation, shows us, that the Supreme Being is frequently spoken of in the Old Testament, as a King and as a victorious warrior; and therefore infers, because such passages must be understood figuratively, that the passages in the prophets which speak of the Messiah in similar terms, must be also understood figuratively.
To this it seems to me to be a sufficient answer to observe, that men who speak of the Deity, are obliged to employ human language and human ideas; because:
"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