Disc. V. Pt. II. p. 234.
Except under the dictate of a constraining inspiration, it is not easy
to conceive how the master of such a work, at the time when he had
brought it to perfection, and beheld it in its lustre, the labour of
so much opulent magnificence and curious art, and designed to be
'exceeding magnifical, of fame, and of glory throughout all
countries', should be occupied with the prospect of its utter ruin and
dilapidation, and that too under the 'opprobrium' of God's vindictive
judgment upon it, nor to imagine how that strain of sinister prophecy,
that forebodes of malediction, should be ascribed to him, if he had no
such vision revealed.
Here I think Mr. Davison should have crushed the objection of the
Infidel grounded on Solomon's subsequent idolatrous impieties. The
Infidel argues, that these are not conceivable of a man distinctly
conscious of a prior and supernatural inspiration, accompanied with
supernatural manifestations of the divine presence.
Disc. VI. Pt. I. p. 283.
In order to evade this conclusion, nothing is left but to deny that
Isaiah, or any person of his age, wrote the book ascribed to him.
This too is my conclusion, but (if I do not delude myself) from more
evident, though not perhaps more certain, premisses. The age of the
Cyrus prophecies is the great object of attack by Eichhorn and his
compilers; and I dare not say, that in a controversy with these men
Davison's arguments would appear sufficient.
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