9. d. Before that eminent patriarch was brought into being, my existence and appearance under the character of the Messiah at this period, and in these circumstances, was so completely arranged, and so irrevocably fixed in the immutable counsels and purposes of God, that in this sense I may be said even then to have existed.

This is the interpretation proposed by the Unitarians. It is that which Dr. Clarke calls "languid and unnatural;" which Dr. Harwood styles "forced and futile, inane and chimerical;" and at which Dr. Price " wonders." It remains to be considered whether it be scriptural and true.

1.) In the first place, this interpretation well accords with the connexion and context.

Our Lord declares, ver. 56, " Your father Abraham longed to see my day, and he did see it." The Jews, foolishly or perversely misrepresenting his language, ask, "Hast thou seen Abraham?" Our Lord never pretended that he had seen him and not deigning to rectify this silly mistake, he goes on to establish the reasonableness of his assertion: q. d. Abraham did foresee my appearance, and the blessings of my kingdom. And this was possible because though I was not then born, yet my appearance under the character of the Messiah, and all the happy consequences which flow from it, had been determined in the divine counsels long before that patriarch was in existence.

2.) The words I am (yw ei) must be understood to mean, and should be translated, I was.

The connexion of the words renders this construction necessary to the sense. Before such an event I am,' is without meaning, unless the event be future: and in this instance, if the event referred to be future, it has been shown that the assertion would be trivial, and unworthy of our Lord's character.

3.) The ellipsis must be supplied by the word he, i. e.

'he

' he who cometh,' or, 'the Christ.' For it has been already stated that the verb is seldom if ever used to ειμαι express simple existence. And wherever it occurs in this elliptical form, it is commonly, and very properly, supplied by the pronoun (avtos) he. John iv. 26, "I who speak unto thee am he." John ix. 9, "The blind man said, I am he." John xviii. 5, "I am he," i. e. whom ye seek. Luke xxi. 8, "Many will come in my name, saying (εyw ε) I am he," or Christ. Compare Matt. xxiv. 5. Mark xiii. 6. Matt. xiv. 27. Mark vi. 50. John vi. 20.

The context in all cases easily determines the sense of the ellipsis. In the former part of this very discourse the phrase occurs twice, in a connexion in which the translators of the public version, being under no bias to the contrary, have supplied the ellipsis properly. Ver. 24, "If ye believe not that I am he, i. e. the Messiah, ye shall die in your sins." Ver. 28, "When ye have lifted up the Son of Man, then shall ye know that I am he." It is the very same phrase which occurs in ver. 58; which ought therefore to have been translated in the same form. "Before Abraham was born, I was he," i. e. the prophet who was to come, the Messiah.

4.) In the language of the sacred writers, a being, or a state of things, is said to EXIST, when it is the ETERNAL IMMUTABLE PURPOSE OF GOD THAT IT SHALL EXIST, at the time and in the circumstances which his infinite wisdom hath chosen and ordained.

The apostle Paul expressly teaches concerning God, that he calleth those things which are not, as though they were;" Rom. iv. 17: an observation which he applies to the promise made to Abraham, Gen. xvii. 5, "I have made thee a father of many nations," i. e. I have determined the future actual existence of this event.

1.] In the Old Testament nothing is more common than to express prophecy in the language of history, and

to

to state future events as present or even past.

Thus Cyrus is addressed before his birth as though he were actually existing; Isaiah xlv. 1, "Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, even to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden." And Babylon is represented as captured seventy years before the event; Jer. li. 41, "How is Sheshach taken, and how is the praise of the whole earth surprised! How is Babylon become an astonishment among the nations!"

These events at that time had no existence but in the divine purpose. Other future events are mentioned as already past. Exod. xv. 12-17. 1 Sam. xv. 28; xxviii. 17, 18. And in Isa. xlvi. 10, 11, the Supreme Being, in very sublime language, declares the absolute certainty of the accomplishment of his eternal purposes:

I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass: I have purposed it, I will also do it. My counsel shall stand.”

This prolepsis, this anticipation of future events, is particularly remarkable in the prophecies which relate to the Messiah, who is frequently represented as actually existing, and executing his divine commission, many ages before his public appearance and ministry. Isa. ix. 6, "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given." Ch. xlii. 1, "Behold my servant, whom I uphold; my elect, in whom my soul delighteth: I have put my spirit upon him." And in that celebrated prophecy in the fifty-third chapter, the humiliation of the Messiah, his rejection and sufferings, are described throughout in the language of history. "He is despised and rejected of men. He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows. wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities. He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter. He was cut off out of the land of the living 58." chap. xlix.

He was

59 The argument from the prolepsis is not at all invalidated if, as the Jews and some modern writers (to whose opinion however I do not accede) suppose, this prophecy is not applicable to the Messiah, but to Jeremiah, or to the present state of the Jewish nation.

5-10. The Messiah himself is introduced as speaking and stating the promise of God to him, that "he should be a light to the Gentiles, and salvation to the ends of the earth 59." And again, chap. Ixi. 1-3, "The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted," a prophecy which our Lord declares to have received its accomplishment in his own person: Luke iv. 21.

In these instances, and in other similar prophecies, the Messiah is described as actually invested with the insignia of his office, and performing its duties. To the Jews, therefore, who were familiar with the language and imagery of their own prophets, our Lord's declaration of his existence as the Messiah before the birth of Abraham would not sound so harsh and offensive as it does to modern readers; who, not being accustomed to the bold dramatic language of prophecy, are apt to understand that of actual existence which the Jews would easily perceive to be figurative. The prophetic representations in the Jewish Scriptures amply justify the language of Christ in reference to them. If the prophets describe the Messiah as contemporary with them, Christ might with propriety speak of himself under that character, as their contemporary. If Isaiah writes as having seen the Messiah, having heard his complaints, and having been witness to his labours, his miracles, and his sufferings; our Lord might with equal propriety represent himself under his official

59 The character and office of the Messiah was exhibited in general terms at the beginning of chap. xlii.; but here he is introduced in person, declaring the full extent of his commission, which is not only to restore the Israelites, but to be a light to lighten the Gentiles, to call them to the knowledge and obedience of the true God." Bishop Lowth in loc. See Cardale's True Doct. of the New Testament concerning Christ, p. 84-87.

character,

character, as having existed in the days of Isaiah. If Abraham saw his day; he, as the Messiah, must have coexisted with the patriarch, and, by parity of reason, before Abraham's birth. But all allow that the prophetic representations of the Messiah's existence are figurative: they only express what existed in the divine purpose, and imply nothing more than certainty of event. Let it then be granted, that, when our Lord speaks of himself as the Messiah before Abraham was born, he means the same thing that his language only implies that he was the Messiah in the divine purpose. No reasoning, I think, can be more conclusive.

2.] The same language of anticipation occurs in the New Testament, in which persons, and things, and states of things, are described as actually existing, which only existed in the divine mind and declared purpose; parti cularly those which relate to the Messiah, and the dispensation of the Gospel 60.

Of this language a very remarkable instance occurs, Luke xx. 38. Our Lord argues against the Sadducees the doctrine of the resurrection, from the declaration of God to Moses, Exod. iii. 6, " I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob: for he is not a God of the dead, but of the living." And to obviate the objection that the patriarchs were now in fact dead, he adds,

for all live to him:" that is, As it is the determined purpose of God to raise them to life, they are in his allcomprehending view actually alive.

The Gospel and its blessings are represented as peculi

Nothing is more common with the writers of the New Testament than to represent those things as having had existence from the beginning, which were always designed by God to come to pass, and were promised in the prophets. And as this was more especially the case in the Gospel, so we find it represented throughout the Scripture as having existed in the eternal counsels of the Almighty." Dr. Dawson at Moyer's Lectures, p. 68, 69.

arly