History of the Old Covenant. By J. H. Kurtz [pp. 451-486]

8Kurtz on the Old Covenant.
is so intermingled, and so apparently spoken of the same
subject, that while of some parts Jerome has well said that it
seems more as though we were reading a gospel than a prophecy,
it is yet impossible to make a separation, and say with accuracy
which verses refer to Christ and which to the time of the Babylonish exile. An announcement is made to David of a son, who
shall sit upon his throne and build a temple for the Lord, which
runs imperceptibly into a prediction of Him, who is the greatest
of his descendants, and the most glorious of his successors. The
Psalms appear to be describing the kingdom of David or of
Solomon, and almost before we are aware, certainly without
advising us of any change of subject, we find attributes ascribed
to it of universality, perpetuity, &c., which are the standing
characteristics of Messiah's reign, and which never pertained
and never can pertain to any other. Again, David or some
other suffering saint seems to be describing in his own person
the sorrows he has endured, and his abandonment of God, when
suddenly, with no intimation that the same description is not
continued, we light upon passages which are among the most
evident predictions of Christ anywhere to be found. Now, it is
impossible to refer these explicit predictions to Christ, and at
the same time assume that the context, with which they are so.
intimately united, has no reference, bears no relation to him,
without a violence of procedure which would be tolerated in the
exposition of no other book. Verses must be rent out of their
connexion, and applied to an entirely different subject, without
anything on the face of the passage to justify it. If no principle be laid down, no rule established, but only whenever anything is said by a sacred writer that can be applied to Christ,
(no matter what the immediate subject of which he is speaking,)
this is assumed to be a prediction of him, and the rest of the
discourse to relate to something wholly different, what is this
but to make the Scripture the mere plaything of a capricious
fancy, and to obtrude upon it as its meaning, not that which
the scope of the writer would indicate, but whatever any interpreter may choose?
The same is true of the types of Scripture. There are here
and there in the history and institutions of the Old Testament,
types so clear and manifest, that their reference to Christ will
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