en's children for ever: and my servant
David shall be their prince for ever." It is trifling to pretend that
_the land promised to Jacob, and in which the old Jews dwelt_, was
a spiritual, and not the literal Palestine; and therefore it is
impossible to make out that Jesus has fulfilled any part of this
representation. The description however that follows (Ezekiel xl.
&c.) of the new city and temple, with the sacrifices offered by
"the priests the Levites, of the seed of Zadok," and the gate of the
sanctuary for the prince (xliv. 3), and his elaborate account of
the borders of the land (xlviii. 13-23), place the earnestness of
Ezekiel's literalism in still clearer light.

The 72nd Psalm, by the splendour of its predictions concerning the
grandeur of some future king of Judah, earns the title of Messianic,
_because_ it was never fulfilled by any historical king. But it is
equally certain, that it has had no appreciable fulfilment in Jesus.

But what of the 11th of Isaiah? Its portraiture is not so much that of
a king, as of a prophet endowed with superhuman power. "He shall smite
the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips
he shall slay the wicked." A Paradisiacal state is to follow.--This
general description _may_ be verified by Jesus _hereafter_; but we
have no manifestation, which enables us to call the fulfilment a fact.
Indeed, the latter part of the prophecy is out of place for a time so
late as the reign of Augustus; which forcibly denotes that Isaiah was
predicting only that which was his immediate political aspiration: for
in this great day of Messiah, Jehovah is to gather back his dispersed
people from Assyria, Egypt, and other parts; he is _to reconcile Judah
and Ephraim_, (who had been perfectly reconciled centuries before
Jesus was born,) and as a result of this Messianic glory, the people
of Israel "shall fly upon the shoulders of the _Philistines_ towards
the west; they shall spoil them of the east together: they shall lay
their hand on _Edom_ and _Moab_, and the children of _Ammon_ shall
obey them." But Philistines, Moab and Ammon, were distinctions
entirely lost before the Christian era.--Finally, the Red Sea is to be
once more passed miraculously by the Israelites, returning (as would
seem) to their fathers' soil. Take all these particulars together,
and the prophecy is neither fulfilled in the past nor possible to be
fulfilled in the future.

The prophecy which we know as Ze