It is essential to understand the _same_ "elect servant" all along. He is many times called Israel, and is often addressed in a tone quite inapplicable to Messiah, viz. as one needing salvation himself; so in ch. xliii. Yet in ch. xlix. this elect Israel is distinguished from Jacob and Israel at large: thus there is an entanglement. Who can be called on to risk his eternal hopes on his skilful unknotting of it? It appeared however to me most probable, that as our high Churchmen distinguish "mother Church" from the individuals who compose the Church, so the "Israel" of this prophecy is the idealizing of the Jewish Church; which I understood to be a current Jewish interpretation. The figure perhaps embarrasses us, only because of the male sex attributed to the ideal servant of God; for when "Zion" is spoken of by the same prophet in the same way, no one finds difficulty, or imagines that a female person of superhuman birth and qualities must be intended. It still remained strange that in Isaiah liii. and Pss. xxii. and lxix. there should be _coincidences_ so close with the sufferings of Jesus: but I reflected, that I had no proof that the narrative had not been strained by credulity,[6] to bring it into artificial agreement with these imagined predictions of his death. And herewith my last argument in favour of views for which I once would have laid down my life, seemed to be spent. Nor only so: but I now reflected that the falsity of the prophecy in Dan. vii. (where the coming of "a Son of Man" to sit in universal judgment follows immediately upon the break-up of the Syrian monarchy,)--to say nothing of the general proof of the spuriousness of the whole Book of Daniel,--ought perhaps long ago to have been seen by me as of more cardinal importance. For if we believe anything at all about the discourses of Christ, we cannot doubt that he selected "_Son of Man_" as his favourite title; which admits no interpretation so satisfactory, as, that he tacitly refers to the seventh chapter of Daniel, and virtually bases his pretensions upon it. On the whole, it was no longer defect of proof Which presented itself, but positive disproof of the primitive and fundamental claim. I could not for a moment allow weight to the topic, that "it is dangerous to _dis_believe wrongly;" for I felt, and had always felt, that it gave a premium to the most boastful and tyrannizing superstition:--as if it were not equally dangerous to _believe_ wrongly! Nevertheless, I tried to plead for farther delay, by asking: Is not the subject too vast for me to decide upon?--Think how many wise and good men have fully examined, and have come to a contrary conclusion. What a grasp of knowledge and experience of the human mind it requires! Perhaps too I have unawares been carried away by a love of novelty, which I have mistaken for a love of truth.