Hahn (Dr. U.), Geschichte der Ketzer im Mittelalter, nach den Quellen bearbeitet. Vol. II. Geschichte der Waldenser. Map. 8vo. Stuttg. 158. (Vol. I. u. II. 11. 6s.) Hoffmann (W.), Missions-Fragen. Vol. I. Ist es Zeit zur Evangelischen Missions-Thätigkeit. 6s.

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Kromm (Dr. J. J.) Prakt. Commentar über die historischen Schriften des Neuen Testamentes. Vol. I., part 1. 8vo. Altenburg, 4s.

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THE

JOURNAL

OF

SACRED LITERATURE.

No. IV.-OCTOBER, 1848.

ON THE CITATIONS FROM THE OLD
TESTAMENT IN THE NEW.

BY DR. J. T. GRAY.

Γνωστὰ ἀπ' αἰῶνος ἐστι τῷ Θεῷ πάντα τὰ ἔργα αὐτῶν. Acts xv. 18.

It will

'KNOWN unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.' We have not transcribed this declaration of the divine prescience so much on account of any importance it possesses in itself, as with a view to the connection in which it occurs. be seen, on reference, immediately to follow a citation by the Apostle James from ancient Scripture, which he applies to the novel circumstances of the Christian church. Thus introduced, it seems to claim our regard as the principle on which the propriety of such applications is to be vindicated. The coincidences which are observable from time to time between the events of actual history and the terms of prophetical description are not casual coincidences. The events were foreseen by one who knows the end from the beginning,' and in such proportions as pleased him, pre-recorded.

The strict letter of the preceding text would confine these remarks to such events as are direct results of divine causation, pya E. Little objection, however, will, we presume, be made to widening somewhat the applicability of this phrase. Human

actions

actions being absolutely subject to the divine control, may be regarded as, permissively, divine ordinations: in this sense

Quicquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas,
Gaudia, discursus-

all the events to which these various and often contending passions give rise, may, without any very violent straining of language, be styled pya OEOU. They are, at all events, equally with the former class, objects of the divine prescience, and the applications of prophetic descriptions to them stand on an equal basis of credibility and reason. Be the actors in such historical scenes more or less disposed to subserve the ends of a gracious providence, be the actions themselves of more or less interest and complexity, He to whom all varieties of event are 'known from the beginning,' can have had no difficulty in putting on previous record such particulars as may have pleased Him.

It is, however, to applications of Scripture of a somewhat different nature that we propose devoting a few remarks in the present paper. Certain of the coincidences which are remarked on in the New Testament between occurrences then taking place, and passages of ancient prophecy, may be considered as rather verbal than real-as rather circumstantial than essential. The case is this :-out of an apparently connected portion of prophetical Scripture, some detached expressions may be cited which have an appearance of parallelism to New Testament events. The New Testament writers then speak of such events as 'fulfilments' of the prophecy. Can the propriety of such applications be sustained? To adopt the turn of expression used by the Apostle (Gal. iii. 8) in a somewhat different instance of citation, can it be said that these descriptions of prophecy were penned in view of the Christian events ? Προϊδοῦσα ἡ γραφὴ . . . προευηγγελίσατο. If the question were one of mere naked possibility, the allegation of the divine prescience would, of course, as before, dispose of every difficulty arising. We have, however, to consider not simply what the natural divine perfections, but what the moral also, will allow. In the discussion thus brought before us, is virtually involved the whole question of Scripture Hermeneutics. The question is involved whether any unity can be said to belong to prophetical Scripture, or whether it must be subdivided into a number of infinitesimal fragments, each a sort of Sibylline leaf. The question is involved, so often raised by the Romanists, (raised, too, not seldom with a triumphant insinuation, or rather proclamation of its negative,) of the intelligibility of Scripture of the sufficiency, at least, of private judgment for its exposition. We must beware, in considering these questions, of accepting any conclusion which

may

may even remotely seem to implicate revelation in a charge of mystifying the subjects of which it treats. An inspired interpreter of Scripture disclaims most solemnly the 'imputation (2 Cor. iv. 2) of using the word of God deceitfully;' we may be, at least, as sure that in the inspired authorship of Scripture there is no similar use of the word of man.

The grand principle which has been laid as the corner-stone of natural theology, viz., that 'adaptation infers design,' will be found of most service, we apprehend, in guiding to a present decision: but before proceeding to its application, it may be as well, by producing one or two of the citations which we have remarked on, to observe more particularly the nature of the difficulties which we have to meet. We will take, then, as fair specimens of these difficulties, the quotations which occur in the two opening chapters of the New Testament. We find no less than five such examples within this compass. Of these the original of one (Matt. ii. 23) is nowhere to be met with; another (ii. 6) deviates considerably from verbal fidelity; the remaining three are applied to facts, to which, in their original connection, the passages quoted appear to have little or no relation.

Dismissing from present consideration the two former passages, let us now look somewhat more minutely at the three latter. The first of these (ch. i. 23), being also the first citation in the New Testament of any kind, is the well-known prophecy by Isaiah (ch. vii. 14) respecting the conception and parturition of a virgin, which the evangelist applies to the circumstances of our Saviour's birth. Very serious objections, it must be confessed, present themselves to this application. If we examine the connection of the original passage, it seems plain that its direct reference is to some contemporaneous event. The preceding context, e. g., speaks of the birth as to be a sign to the then generation, its professed object being to reassure the confidence of Ahaz and his subjects. This view is strengthened almost to certainty by the succeeding context. In v. 15, 16, the space of a few years is named as, so to speak, the range of the prophecy: Butter and honey shall be eat, that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land which thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.' It appears here as clear as language can make it, that the Immanuel just before promised was to be a contemporary personage. A difficulty exists in determining who is the virgin alluded to, whether the bride of the monarch, or the prophetess (vide ch. viii. 3), or some private female; but this cannot affect the validity of the other inferences.

The two remaining citations which we have referred to, are those

P 2

6

those which are made by the evangelist in verses 15 and 18 of the 2nd chapter respectively. The first, out of Egypt have I called my son,' is from the 11th chapter of Hosea, being the latter clause of the first verse. The second is from Jeremiah xxxi. 15, and is as follows:- 'In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation and weeping and great mourning: Rachel weeping for her children and would not be comforted, because they are not.'

ད

Both these texts of ancient Scripture are said by the evangelist to have received their fulfilment in the early life of Jesus: the one in his return with his parents from his temporary sojourn in Egypt, the other in the distress occasioned to the mothers of Bethlehem by Herod's barbarous massacre of their infants.

Now, when we turn to the original connection of these passages in the Old Testament, it seems undeniable that their reference is to events in the Old Testament history. The one appears plainly a retrospective reference to the national Exodus; the other a prospective one to the national captivity. It will be almost impossible, we conceive, for any reader to escape these conclusions who shall examine the original passages with a due attention to their context and historical parallels.

It will be observed further, that in two out of three of the passages thus noticed, the important events related are stated to have occurred for the purpose of fulfilling the prophecy. Thus the incarnation of our Lord, with all its circumstances (TOUTO Oλov), took place, we are told, that what had been spoken by Isaiah might be fulfilled, and similarly his return from Egypt. This is a sufficiently startling view, it must be owned, of the mutual relations of fact and prediction. According to our ordinary notions of things, the means are altogether of inferior importance to the end; but here we have the most stupendous event which either earth or heaven had ever witnessed placed in the former position, the credit of prophetic Scripture being assigned the latter.

We shall not, however, embarrass ourselves seriously with this additional difficulty. It has been shown satisfactorily, we think, by Tittmann and others, that the particle vz has often an' ecbatic' as well as a 'telic' force; that it denotes often a simple result, such as we express by the conjunction 'so that; but, independently of this, we consider every requirement of passages like the above answered by supposing in each case a secondary design to be the one intended. It is by no means unusual with the sacred writers, whether of the Old or of the New Testament, thus to bring forward secondary reasons as if they were the sole ones. They sometimes do this in enforcing preceptive truth. Be not forgetful,' says the apostle, 'to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares' (Heb. xiii. 2). We are not to suppose that the

obligation