that in the passage in question, where God is not immediately spoken of, the words should be translated the mighty God, and that the Child therein said to be born should, from the force of the words alone, be considered to be the very Jehovah. The word according to the best investigated etymologies signifies originally strength, might; whence in the concrete signification strong, mighty, it is applied to men in authority, such as princes and magistrates, and likewise to the gods of the heathen, as well as to the true God. It is used rather as the epithet of God, than as the real name of God himself, and is by no means equivalent to his true names Jehovah and Elohim. Nor, for a similar reason, can the word a great, powerful, be taken for the name of God himself, being only an epithet of God in common with any beings possessed of greatness and power. Agreeably to this explanation we find, that in the Alexandrian copy of the Septuagint, which is the only one of the two primary texts we can refer to in this case in consequence

of the corruption of the whole passage in the Roman, these words are rendered by ισχυρός, εξουσιαστης, [although it will not be denied that these words appear evidently to have been interpolated;] and in similar terms in the versions of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, as also in the Judæo-Arabic version of Saadias Haggaon. In short, it is only in those versions that were made or used by Christians that the word God appears, excepting indeed the Chaldee Paraphrase, where we have before seen, that by an unparalleled perversion of the natural sense the whole character of the passage is changed. Hence, I presume, it will appear, that the expression of our version the mighty God represents the sense of the original words as standing in the Prophecy somewhat too strongly, and that it should not be immediately assumed as proved by that expression that the Messiah was consubstantial with God. For it For it may be observed upon consideration of the whole system of the divine dispensation in the Old Testament, that Prophecy,

for wise purposes no doubt, is usually veiled in a certain degree of obscurity and ambiguity, and can never be fully understood unless with reference to its accomplishment, and that God has not permitted any doctrine to be revealed in clear and positive terms until after due time the œconomy of the world was prepared to receive it. It was, therefore, not until the doctrine of Christ's divinity had been first clearly revealed in the New Testament, that the expression of Isaiah could have been understood to refer to that doctrine, and that it could have been translated by the words the mighty God; so that such a translation of it may be considered to be an anticipation of the meaning which was not revealed till long after. It would, then, I think, be more consistent with the general nature of Prophecy, if the words in question were rendered mighty powerful one, or by some similar expression, without the article prefixed; for there is no reason why in our received version the article should have been placed before the words mighty God, more

than to Wonderful, Counsellor; since in the original none of those words have the article, a circumstance indicating that they are indefinite predicates. It may, however, be objected, that the term Emmanuel, which is applied to the Messiah by Isaiah in two other places, and is explained by St. Matthew μs' μeos, "God with us," or rather, "God is with us," is sufficient authority for translating the same word God in the other passage of Isaiah. To this it may be replied, that, though the word is rightly so explained by the Evangelist, who was fully acquainted with the divinity of Christ, it does not follow that the same word should be so translated in the Old Testament, in which that doctrine was not clearly revealed. Nor is the translation of the next epithet, the everlasting Father, altogether free from objection; since from its form it would appear to imply the unity of Christ with the Father, a sense which the original words by no means admit. The simple and grammatical meaning of these is Father of eternity, in which

F

certainly the principal idea must be considered to be that of eternity, and not that of Father, as would necessarily be the case in the phrase the everlasting Father. The expression Father of eternity may be explained, according to an idiom common to the oriental languages, to be nothing more than possessor of eternity, one who is eternal, so that the use of the word Father would here be only metonymical. For which reason, no doubt, it has been rendered by a learned prelate, the Father of the everlasting age. Other explanations have been given of the same expression, but in none of these is the word Father used in its proper signification. There remains only one epithet, the Prince of Peace, but it is unnecessary here to say any thing of it, as no doubt can be entertained concerning the right translation and true signification of it.

Upon consideration of the preceding epithets, it is manifest that the doctrine of the divinity of Christ is certainly implied in them, although it does not appear that that doctrine could