been ftricken for our Tranfgreffions, and to have had the Iniquity of us all laid upon him? How could it be faid of him, who shall declare his Generation? And that he should fee his Seed and prolong his Days? And also that he should divide the Spoil with the Mighty? with the like Expreffions.

Why yes, fays our Expofitor, he was exalted, and very high, because the Chaldeans had him in Admiration, which is yet more than we read of, and Thanks to a good Invention for it tho' it must be confeffed, that upon his being drawn out of the Dungeon he was fomething higher and more exalted than he was before. In the next place he was stricken for Tranfgreffion, and had our Iniquities laid upon him, because by the Sin and injurious Dealing of the Jews he was cruelly and unworthily used, as indeed all or most of the Prophets were both before and after him. And then for that Saying, Who fball declare his Generation? The meaning of that we are told is, who fhall reckon his Years? For he shall live to be very aged: tho' yet we know no more of his Age, but that he prophefied about Forty Years; whereas fome others have prophefied much longer, and particularly Hofea, who prophefied about Fourfcore. As Z 4

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for the other Expreffion of seeing his Seed, and prolonging his Days, that we are taught muft fignify, that he should see many of his Converts in Egypt, where he should live for a long time. Tho' yet we read not of any one of those Converts, nor of any fuch prolonging his Days there, but that it is a conftant Tradition of Antiquity that he died an untimely disastrous Death, being knock'd on the Head in Egypt by his wicked Country-men with a Fuller's Club. And in the laft place, for his dividing the Spoil with the Mighty, that we are informed was fulfilled in this, that Nebusa radan Captain of the Chaldean Host (as we find it in Jeremy 40. 5.) gave him a Reward and fome Victuals (that is to fay, a small Supply or Modicum of Meat and Money for his prefent Support) and fo fent him away. A worthy glorious dividing of the Spoil indeed, and much after the fame rate that the Poor may be faid to divide the Spoil, when they take their Shares of what is given them at rich Men's Doors.

So then we have here an Interpretation, but as for the Senfe of it, that, for ought I fee, muft fhift for itself. But whether thus to drag and hále Words both from Sense and Context, and then to fqueeze whatsoever

Mean

Meaning we please out of them, be not; (as I may speak with fome change of the Prophet's Phrase) to draw Lies with Cords of Blafphemy, and Nonfenfe as it were with a Cart-rope, let any fober and impartial Hearer or Reader be Judge. For whatfoever Titles the Itch of Novelty and Socinianifm has thought fit to dignify fuch immortal, incomparable, incomprehenfible Interpreters with, yet if these Interpretations ought to take place, the faid Prophecies (which all before Grotius and the aforefaid Rabby Saadias unanimously fixed (in the first Sense of them) upon the

* Having had the Opportunity and Happiness of a frequent Converfe with Dr. Pocock (the late Hebrew and Arabick Profeffor to the Univerfity of Oxon, and the greatest Master certainly of the Eaftern Languages, and Learning, which this or any other Age or Nation has bred) I asked him (more than once, as I had occafion) what he thought of Grotius's Expofition of Ifaiah 53, and his Application of that Prophecy, in the firft Senfe and Defign of it to the Perfon of the Prophet Feremy? To which, fmiling and fhaking his Head, he answered, Why, what else can be thought or faid of it, but that in this the Opiniator over-ruled the Annotator, and the Man had a mind to indulge his Fancy? This Account gave that great Man of it, tho' he was as great in Modefty as he was in Learning (greater than which none could be) and withal had a particular Refpect for Grotius, as having been Perfonally acquainted with him. But the Truth is, the Matter lay deeper than fo, for there was a certain Party of Men whom Grotius had unhappily engaged himfelf with, who were extremely difgufted at the Book de Satisfactione Chrifti, written by him against Socinus, and therefore he was to pacify (or rather fatisfy) thefe

Men,

the fole Perfon of the Meffiah) might havebeen actually fulfilled, and confequently the Veracity of God in the faid Prophecies ftrictly accounted for, tho' Jefus of Nazareth had never been born. Which being so, would any one have thought that the Author of the Book de Veritate Religionis Chriftianæ, & de Satisfactione Chrifti, could be alfo the Author of fuch Interpretations as these? No Age certainly ever produced a mightier Man in all forts of Learning than Grotius, nor more happily furnished with all forts of Arms, both offenfive and defenfive, for the Vindication of the Christian Faith, had he not in his Annotations too frequently turned the Edge of them the wrong way.

Well therefore, taking it for manifeft, and that upon all the Grounds of rational and unforced Interpretation, that the Perfon here spoken of was the Meffias, and that this

Men, by turning his Pen another way in his Annotations, which alfo was the true Reafon that he never answered Crellius; a fhrewd Argument, no doubt, to fuch as fhall well confider thefe Matters, that thofe in the Low Countries, who at that time went by the Name of Remonftrants and Arminians, were indeed a great deal more.

Meffias

Meffias could be no other than Jesus of Nazareth, the great Mediator of the Second Covenant, very God, and very Man, in whom every Tittle of this Prophecy is most exactly verified, and to whom it does moft peculiarly and incommunicably agree: We shall proceed now to take an Account of the feveral Parts of the Text, in which we have these three Things confiderable.

First, The Suffering itself, he was ftricken. Secondly, The Nature of the Suffering, which was penal, and expiatory: he was stricken for Tranfgreffion: And,

Thirdly, The Ground and Caufe of this Suffering, which was God's Propriety in, and Relation to the Perfon for whom Chrift was stricken, implied in this Word, My People: For the Tranfgreffion of my People was he stricken. Of each of which in their order: And,

First, For the Suffering it felf: He was ftricken. The very Word imports Violence and Invafion from without. It was not a Suffering upon the Stock of the meer internal Weakneffes of Nature, which carries the Seeds and Caufes of its Diffolution in its own Bowels, and fo by degrees withers and decays, and at length dies, like a Lamp that

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