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| Prophecies in Isaiah and the Psalms Respecting Christ's Humiliation.
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Chapter
XVII.—Prophecies in Isaiah and the Psalms Respecting
Christ’s Humiliation.
Let us compare with Scripture the rest of His
dispensation. Whatever that poor despised body3326
may be, because it was an object of
touch3327
and sight,3328
it
shall be my Christ, be He inglorious, be He ignoble, be He dishonoured;
for such was it announced that He should be, both in bodily condition
and aspect. Isaiah comes to our help again: “We have announced
(His way) before Him,” says he; “He is like a
servant,3329
| 3329 Puerulus,
“little child,” perhaps. | like a root in a
dry ground; He hath no form nor comeliness; we saw Him, and He had
neither form nor beauty; but His form was despised, marred above all
men.”3330
| 3330 Sentences out of
Isa. lii. 14 and liii. 2, etc. | Similarly the
Father addressed the Son just before: “Inasmuch as many will be
astonished at Thee, so also will Thy beauty be without glory from
men.”3331
For although, in
David’s words, He is fairer than the children of
men,”3332
yet it is in that
figurative state of spiritual grace, when He is girded with the sword
of the Spirit, which is verily His form, and beauty, and glory.
According to the same prophet, however, He is in bodily condition
“a very worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and an outcast of
the people.”3333
But no internal
quality of such a kind does He announce as belonging to Him. In Him
dwelt the fulness of the Spirit; therefore I acknowledge Him to be
“the rod of the stem of Jesse.” His blooming flower shall
be my Christ, upon whom hath rested, according to Isaiah, “the
spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and of piety, and of the fear of the
Lord.”3334
Now to no man,
except Christ, would the diversity of spiritual proofs suitably
apply. He is indeed like a flower for the Spirit’s grace,
reckoned indeed of the stem of Jesse, but thence to derive His descent
through Mary. Now I purposely demand of you, whether you grant to Him
the destination3335
of all this
humiliation, and suffering, and tranquillity, from which He will be the
Christ of Isaiah,—a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief,
who was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and who, like a lamb before
the shearer, opened not His mouth;3336
who did not struggle nor cry, nor was His voice heard in the street who
broke not the bruised reed—that is, the shattered faith of the
Jews—nor quenched the smoking flax—that is, the
freshly-kindled3337
ardour of the
Gentiles. He can be none other than the Man who was foretold. It is
right that His conduct3338
be investigated
according to the rule of Scripture, distinguishable as it is unless I
am mistaken, by the twofold operation of preaching3339
and of miracle. But the treatment of both
these topics I shall so arrange as to postpone, to the chapter wherein
I have determined to discuss the actual gospel of Marcion, the
consideration of His wonderful doctrines and miracles—with a
view, however, to our present purpose. Let us here, then, in general
terms complete the subject which we had entered upon, by indicating, as
we pass on,3340
how Christ was
fore-announced by Isaiah as a preacher: “For who is there among
you,” says he, “that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the
voice of His Son?”3341
And likewise as a
healer: “For,” says he, “He hath taken away our
infirmities, and carried our sorrows.”3342
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