Westminster Annotations, Isaiah · Argument
THE ARGUMENT.
BY two sort of persons did God anciently make known his minde and will to his people the Iews; by ordinary Ministers, and by extraordinary Messengers. The ordinary Ministers were the Priests and Levites: both these, all of one Tribe, the linage of Levi; the former of them, all of one house in that Tribe, the off-spring of Aaron. The extraordinary Messengers were the Prophets, so tearmed of foretelling future events by Divine Revelation; men immediately called by God himself, and by him immediately inspired. These were of any house, tribe, or profession indifferently, as God was pleased to cull and call. The Prophets, whose monuments we have severally booked in Scripture, are in number sixteen: whereof the foure former are called, in regard of the largenesse of their Prophecies, the greater; the latter twelve, in regard of their shortnesse, the lesser.
Of the foure larger, Isaiah, as in place and rank, so in order of time, is without question the first; one of the first, …f not the first, of the whole sixteen: no one of them, whose times are expressed, rising higher then the reign of Vzziah King of Iudah, in whose time he began his Propheticall employment; and of Ieroboam the second, King of Israel, who reigned fifteen yeer together with Vzziah. What Tribe he was of, or of what estate and profession, before his entrance upon this Office, is uncertain: no mention being made of his pedegree, either here or else-where, further then his next progenitor. So that what the Iewish Doctors tell us, concerning his being of the Tribe of Iudah, and of the blood royall; as also, of his Fathers being a Prophet and brother to King Amaziah, are matters of no certaintie, having no footing in Scripture. His Sermons, or Prophecies here recorded, abound with great varietie of religious instructions, serious admonitions, sharp r…proofes, severe menaces, and comfortable promises. And these all delivered in a style, sutable to the subiect matter, very lofty and stately; full fraught with rhetoricall garnishes, and such native elegancies, as in other languages can not easily, if at all, be expressed. Besides his Predictions of Gods iudgements to befall his own nation for their sins, partly by the Assyrians, and partly by the Chaldeans; and concerning the utter destruction of the adversaries of Gods people, as well ioyntly as severally; he is most plentifull in foretelling their deliverance from the Babylonian captivitie by Cyrus, whom by name he mentioneth above an hundred yeers before he was born, and well-neer two hundred before the thing it self effected: and withall in declaring the restitution and enlargement of the Church, whereof that was a figure; together with the calling in of the Gentiles by Christ.
Whose incarnation, birth, breeding, calling, offices, (royall, priestly, propheticall) life, teaching, courses, sufferings, death, rising again, glory ensuing, kingdoms length and extent, he so largely and lively describeth, that he may seem to write rather a Story of things already done, then a Prophecie of things to come. In regard whereof he is by the Ancients not undeservedly tearmed, An Evangelicall Prophet, and A Propheticall Evangelist. Even his menacing predictions being usually tempered and closed with some gracious promises of the Gospel. His continuance in the Propheticall function, is from the times of the Kings, under whom he prophecied, not improbably deemed to have been about threescore yeers. Howsoever, that which is from the Iewish Doctors received, concerning his prophecying under Manasseh, and suffering death by him, seemeth groundlesse: the inscription of his Prophecies making no mention of any King, under whom he prophecied, lower then Hezekiah; toward the latter end of whose reign, it is not unlikely that he died.