s affair, and a
conscious suppression of truth, but it is not I who tell the first, or
conceal the latter.

Mr. Everett then proceeds. "Priestley and Grotius are all he
claims, [the reader may see by the above that I might have
claimed more,] Priestley was a learned man, but he has no
pretentions as a Hebrew scholar, and though Mr. English quotes
Grotius, he does it incorrectly." He declares that "Grotius has
applied it to Jeremiah, and says, that Jesus Christ has nothing to
do with it except in a secondary sense, but that the whole of it
from beginning to end refers to Jeremiah." "There are but few to
whom I need say" continues Mr. Everett, "that the words of Grotius
in his commentary are, "These marks have their first fulfillment in
Jeremiah, but a more especial, sublime, and often indeed more
literal fulfillment in Christ." Mr. Everett's work p. 148. I do not see
how this passage of Grotius contradicts my representation of his
opinion. The passage from Grotius quoted by Mr. Everett
declares, "that these marks [i. e. the 53d. of Isaiah] have their first
fulfillment in Jeremiah;" of course they could not be fulfilled by any
other except in a secondary sense, as I have asserted. As for the
"more especial, sublime, and often indeed more literal fulfillment in
Christ," I have always supposed that this and similar expressions
in other parts of Grotius' Commentary, were understood, by all
who were acquainted with Grotius' history and the times in which
he wrote, to be intended for a mere salvo, as a tub thrown out to
that great whale the vulgar; to contradict directly whose opinions
with regard to the prophecies, was in the time of Grotius very
dangerous, as he himself, notwithstanding all his precaution and
truckling, seriously experienced.[fn64]

"Also, [Mr. Everett goes on to say,] in adducing the authority of
Priestley for his interpretation without reference or qualification,
Mr. English gives cause to think, that he did not know, or knowing
forbore to state, that Priestley pronounces it impossible, in one of
his works, to explain this prophecy of any but Jesus Christ. What
Hebrew scholars are to be named with Lowth and MICHAELIS,
who both assert the literal application to Christ, Mr. English may
one day learn, that asseverations like these whatever immediate
effect they produce, will finally stand in the way of his character for
veracity." p.149.

This has been to me the most irritating passage in Mr. Everett's