DEITY OF CHRIST PROVED, ETC. 251
The sum of this answer is: — 1. It may be these words are not spoken of Christ, but of Israel ; 2. The same words are used of that which is not God ; 3. If the}'- be referred to Christ, they prove him not to be God; 4. Their sense is, that God will justify us in the days of Christ. Of each briefly : —
1. The subject spoken of all along is Christ: — (1.) He is the sub- ject-matter of whatever here is affirmed: " I will raise up a righteous Branch to David; he shall be a king, and he shall reign, and his name shall be called The Lord our righteousness." (2.) Why are these words to be referred to Israel only, and not also to Judah (if to any but Christ), they being both named together, and upon the same account (yea, and Judah hath the pre-eminence, being named in the first place)? And if they belong to both, the words should be, " This is their name whereby they shall be called." (3.) Israel was never called " our righteousness," but Christ is called so ujjon the matter in the New Testament sundry times, and is so, 1 Cor. i. 30; so that, without departing from the propriety of the words, intend- ment, and scope of the place, with the truth of the thing itself, these words cannot be so perverted. The violence used to them is noto- riously manifest.
2. The expression is not the same in both places, neither is Je- rusalem there called " The Lord our righteousness," but He who calls her is "The Lord our righteousness;" and so are the words rendered by Arias Montanus and others. And if what Jerusalem shall be called be intimated, and not what His name is that calls her, it is merely by a metonymy, upon the account of the presence of Christ in her; as the church is called " Christ" improperly, 1 Cor. xii. 12: Christ properly is Jesus only. But the words are not to be rendered, " This is the name whereby she shall be called," but, " This is the name whereby he shall call her. The Lord our righteous- ness;" that is, he who is the Lord our righteousness shall call her to peace and safety, which are there treated on. Christ is our righte- ousness; Jerusalem is not.
3. It is evident that Christ is absolutely called Jehovah in this as well as in the other places before mentioned, and many more ; and it hence evidently follows that he is Jehovah, as he who properly is called so, and understood by that name. Where God simply says his name is Jehovah, we believe him; and where he says the name of the Branch of the house of David is Jehovah, we believe him also. And we say hence that Christ is Jehovah, or the words have not a tolerable sense. Of this again afterward.
posse Jebovam simplicitei" Christum vocari, nequc ex co sequi, Christum rcipsa esse Jehovam. Sive igitur de Christo, sive de Israele postrema verba in testimonio Hieremise accipiantur, aententia ipsorum est, Turn Jehovam ttnum Denm nostrum nos justificaturum, etenim illo tempore cum Christus appariturus esset Deus id iu Israele facturus erat."
252 VINDICI^ EVANGELia^.
4. The interpretation given of the words is most perverse and opposite to the meaning of them. The prophet says not that " Je- hovah the one God shall be our righteousness/' but, " The Branch of David shall be the Lord our righteousness/' The subject is the Branch of David, not Jehovah. "The Branch of David shall be called The Lord our righteousness;" that is, say they, "The Lord shall jus- tify us when the Branch of David shall be brought forth." Who could have discovered this sense bu.t our catechists and their masters, whose words these are ! It remaineth, then, that the Branch of David, who ruleth in righteousness, is Jehovah our righteousness; — our right- eousness, as being made so to us; Jehovah, as being so in himself.
Grotius expounds this place, as that of Mic. v. 2, of Zerubbabel, helping on his friends with a new diversion which they knew not of; Socinus, as he professes, being not acquainted with the Jewish doc- tors,— though some believe him not.^ And yet the learned annotator cannot hold out as he begins, but is forced to put out the name Zerubbabel, and to put in that of the people, when he comes to the name insisted on; so leaving no certain design in the whole words from the beginning to the ending.
Two things doth he here oppose himself in to the received inter- pretation of Christians: — 1. That it is Zerubbabel who is here in- tended. 2. That it is the people who are called "The Lord our righte- ousness."
For the first, thus he on verse 15, " Germen justum, — a righteous Branch:" — " Zorobabelem, qui nov ut hie appellatur, ita et Zecharige vi. 12, nimirum quod velut surculus renatus esset ex arbore Davidis, quasi prgecisa. Justitiae nomine commendatur Zorobabel etiam apud Zechariam ix. 9;" — "Zerubbabel, who is here called the Branch, as also Zech. vi. 12, because as a branch he arose from the tree of David, which was as cut off. Also, Zerubbabel is commended for justice (or righteousness), Zech. ix. 9."