That this is a prophecy of Christ the circumstances of the place evince. The rabbins were also of the same mind, as plentiful collec- tions from them are made to demonstrate it, by Joseph de Voysin, Pug. Fid. par. 3, dist. 1, cap. iv. And the matter spoken of can be accommodated to no other, as hath been declared. Grotius' proofs that Zerubbabel is intended are worse than the opinion itself. That he is called the Branch, Zech. vi. 12, is most false. He who is called the Branch there is a king and a priest, " He shall rule upon his throne, and he shall be a priest;" which Zerubbabel was not, nor had any thing to do with the priestly office, which in his days was administered by Joshua. More evidently false is it that he is spoken of Zech. ix. 9 ; which place is precisely interpreted of Christ, and the accomplishment, in the very letter of the thing foretold, recorded, ' Socin. de Servat. p. 3, cap. iv. ; Franz, de Sacrif. p. 780.
DEITY OF CHRIST PROVED, ETC. 253
Matt. xxi. 5. The words are: " Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Ziou ; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem : behold, thy King cometh unto thee : he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass." That a man professing Christian religion should affirm any one but Jesus Christ to be here intended is somewhat strange.
Upon the accommodation of the next words to Zerubbabel, "A King shall reign and prosper," etc., I shall not insist. They contain not the matter of our present contest, though they are pitifully wrested by the annotator, and do no ways serve his design.
For the particular words about which our contest is, this is his comment : " ' And this is the name whereby they shall call him/ nempe populum ; " — namely, the people. " They shall call the people." How this change comes, " In his days Judah shall be saved, and this is the name whereby he shall be called," — that is, the people shall be called, — he shows not. That there is no colour of reason for it hath been showed ; what hath been said need not to be repeated. He proceeds, " Dominus justitia nostra," that is, " Deus nobis bene fecit," — "God hath done well for us, or dealt kindly with us." But it is not about the intimation of goodness that is in the words, but of the signification of the name given to Jesus Christ, that here we plead. In what sense Christ is " The LoED our right- eousness" appears, Isa. xlv. 22-25, 1 Cor. i. 80.
The second testimony is Zech. ii. 8, in these words, " For thus saith the Lord of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you : for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye. For, behold, I will shake mine hand upon them," etc., verses 9-12.
Briefly to declare what this witness speaks to, before we permit him to the examination of our adversaries : The person speaking is the Lord of hosts: " Thus saith the Lord of hosts." And he is the person spoken of. "After the glory," saith he (or, "After this glorious deliverance of you, my people, from the captivity wherein ye were among the nations"), " hath he sent me;" — " Even me, the Lord of hosts, hath he sent." " Thus saith the Lord of hosts. He hath sent me." And it was to the nations, as in the words following. And who sent him? "Ye shall know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me;" — " The people of Israel shall know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me, the LoRD of hosts, to the nations." But how shall they know that he is so sent ? He tells them, verse 11 , it shall be known by the conversion of the nations: "Many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day." And what then ? "They shall be my people ;" — " mine who am sent ; my people ; the people of the Lord of hosts that was sent;" that is, of Jesus Christ. "And I," saith he whose people they are, "will dwell in the midst of them" (as God promised to do), "and
251 VINDICIiE EVANGELICiE.
thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me." I omit the circumstances of the place. Let us now see what is excepted by our catechists : —
Q. What dost thou answer to this second testimony?
A. The place of Zechariah they thus cite : " This saitli the Lord of hosts ; After the glory hath he sent rae to the nations which spoiled you : for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of mine eye;" which they wrest unto Christ, because here, as they suppose, it is said that the Lord of hosts is sent from the Lord of hosts. But these things are not so; for it is evident that these words, " After the glory hath he sent me," are spoken of iinother, namely, of the angel who spake with Zechariah and the other angel. The same is evident in the same chapter a little before, beginning at the fourth verse, where the angel is brought in speaking ; which also is to be seen from hence, that those words which they cite, " This saith the Lord of hosts," in the Hebrew may be read, " Thus saith the Lord of hosts ; " and those, " Toucheth the apple of mine eye," may be read, " The apple of his eye ; " which of necessity are referred to his messenger, and not to the Lord of hosts." '