and terrible image of earthly empire and became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.*"

When Messiah came, he emphatically applied these predictions to himself in that indignant and searching question to the chief priests and elders; "Did ye never read in the scriptures; the stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner?" For although, as the occasion led him, he especially cited one only of those prophecies, yet, when he asserted himself to be that stone, he really applied them all. In the well known and much contested passage alsot, in which he alluded to the signification of Peter's name, as the rock, he makes the confession of faith in himself, as "the Son of man, the Christ, the Son of the living God," to be the stone, on which his church is to be built; which amounts to the same thing as making himself the foundation of it.

The Apostles, following the example of their master and guided by the Holy Ghost, appropriated the same prophecies to him, either by special citation or by representing him under the figure of the stone. In their first controversy with the

* Daniel, ii. 34, 35, 44, 45.

+ Matthew, xxi. 42-44, Mark, xii. 10, 11, Luke, xx, 17. Matthew, xvi. 13-18. See Bishop Horsley's Sermon on Matthew, xvi. 18, 19.

Jewish rulers, Peter expressly asserted the sole claim of Jesus to be the corner stone of the

church of them that are saved.

stone which was set at nought of

"This is the

you builders, Neither

which is become the head of the corner.

is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men,` whereby we must be saved*." The same apostle at a later period represented the members of the Church, as "lively stones, built up into a spiritual house upon the chief corner stone Jesus Christ," citing the two predictions of Isaiah and that in Psalm, cxviii. St. Paul also assured his Ephesian converts, that they were "no longer strangers and foreigners in the city and territory of the living God, but members of his very household, built up into an holy temple upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stonet." In using the terms "the foundation of the apostles and prophets," St. Paul did not mean to say, that christians were built upon the apostles and prophets, as being the foundation on which the spiritual temple was raised; but that they were built upon the foundation, which the apostles and prophets laid in their preaching, and upon † 1 Peter, ii. 4-8. Ephesians, ii. 19, 20, 21.

*Acts, iv, 11, 12,

which they themselves stood, even Jesus Christ. Accordingly, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, he speaks of himself, "as a wise masterbuilder laying the foundation of their church; and although another," he says, "may build upon it, yet he can lay no other foundation, than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ*.” Lastly, in the epistle to the Romans, he alludes to Isaiah, viii, 14, representing Christ, as "the stumbling stone, at which the Jews for want of faith stumbledt." From this collection of passages it undeniably appears, not only that Christ himself is typified by the stone set before Joshua, but that the image is one, which the divine spirit, who inspired the prophets and apostles, regarded, if I may so speak, with peculiar complacency. In like manner David dwells with great frequency and evident delight on the idea of God, as his rock, varying the form of expression in many ways, of which we find a notable instance in Psalm, xviii. 1.

"Upon one stone seven eyes." Our english version inserts in italics the verb substantive in the future tense; "upon one stone shall be seven eyes." There does not appear to be any good reason for supposing, that the stone did not appear with the eyes actually sculptured upon it. * 1 Corinthians, iii. 10, 11. Romans, ix. 32, 33.

The preceding verb is in the past tense, and since the mention of the sculptures is immediately connected with it, and nothing is hinted to denote futurity, it is unreasonable to imagine that the stone appeared in a totally plain and unsculptured state. It might with equal probability be supposed that no stone appeared at all. The antitypes indeed were future, but the types were visible to Zechariah. The LXX and the Vulgate followed by Archbishop Newcome, express the verb substantive in the present tense, and Dr. Blaney has preceded me in entirely omitting the verb.

It is to be regretted, that the learned Professor has departed more widely from our English text. by giving a new version of these words; "From one stone seven fountains*." But he is not the

* I hope it will not be considered harsh or disrespectful to say, that the learned Professor has committed two errors in the version above given. The preposition by has not the meaning of the English one, "from," as it denotes beginning, proceeding, issuing forth. Noldius indeed gives "a, ab," as its second signification and cites fifteen or sixteen examples; but if those examples be closely examined, it will appear, that although the idiom of the Latin or English tongues may admit the use of the prepositions, ab or from, in a version which does not strictly adhere to the letter of the original, yet they do not properly express the force of the Hebrew by. Our learned translators have not rendered it by "from" in any one of the examples cited by Noldius. It is therefore not too much to say, that in the instance before us the meaning of the Hebrew is misrepresented when the preposition is rendered" from." The

original author of this rendering, for which he is indebted to Vitringa, who has endeavoured to support it by referring to a text in Genesis*, but with so little success, that we may reasonably suppose his failure to be the cause, that Dr. Blaney has passed over in silence both his authority and his citation. The learned professor supposes, that a plain allusion is here made to the rock smitten by Moses, "which rock," says St. Paul, "was Christ." But the allusion, so far as it is particularly pointed to Exodus, xvii. 6, arises out of the new version; it must stand or fall therewith; and in the notes it is shewn, how

second error is that, by which the Hebrew by is rendered fountains instead of eyes. Now the Hebrew word, although in the singular number it signifies either a fountain or an eye, whether of the two must be determined by the exigency of the passage, yet in the plural number expresses the two different significations by two different forms; the masculine form always signifying eyes, the feminine being as regularly used for fountains. Not a single instance can be produced of these forms being unfounded; nor does Dr. Blaney allege any to justify his deviation from the authorized version and the established usage of the Hebrew tongue. This is the main thing he ought to have done, and the rest of his critical annotation is nothing to the purpose without it.

* The text is Genesis, xxxviii. 14, by nba awm, which our translators render, "sat in an open place, which is by the way of Timnath," giving us in the margin, "Heb. the door of eyes, or, of enayim." The learned critic renders the word, "in apertione fontium," and cites the authority of Onkelos, whose Chaldee words he renders "in divisione fontium." The Latin version of the Targum in the London