05.27. Chapter Fourth
Chapter Fourth.—Historical Developments. IN the course of the preceding discussions, we have so often had occasion to refer to the greater events in Israelitish history, that it would be alike needless and unprofitable, as regards our present object, to go at any length into the consideration of its particular parts. It will be enough to take a brief survey of the more prominent points connected with the state of the covenant people, while under the law and the promises. And we shall do so under two leading divisions,—the one having respect to their actual settlement in the land of Canaan, and the other to their subsequent condition, as placed under the Theocratic constitution, with its peculiar privileges and obligations of duty. The two subjects together will afford opportunities for meeting various objections against the history of the Old Testament, and also for exhibiting the distinctive excellences of its economy, and the gradual preparation made by its actual working for the kingdom of Christ.
Section First.—The Conquest Of Canaan. The conquest and actual possession of Canaan by the children of Israel, both in point of time and importance, deserves the first place. The possession of that hind formed one of the things most distinctly promised in the Abrahamic covenant; and as matters actually stood when the fulfilment came to be accomplished, the possession could be made good only by the overthrow and destruction of the original inhabitants. This mode of entrance on the possession has been often denounced by infidel writers as cruel and unjust, and has not unfrequently met with a lame defence from the advocates of a Divine revelation. Even heathen morality is said to have been offended at it; and we learn from Augustine and Epiphanius, that the ancient sect of the Manicheans, who were more Pagan than Christian in their sentiments, placed it among “the many cruel things which Moses did and commanded,” and which went to prove, according to their view, that the God of the Old Testament could not be the God of the New. All the leading abettors of infidelity in this country—Tindal, Morgan, Chubb, Bolingbroke, Paine have decried it as the highest enormity; and Boling broke, in his usual style, did not scruple to denounce the man “as worse even than an atheist, who would impute it to the Supreme Being.” Voltaire, and the other infidels, with their allies the neologians on the Continent, have not been behind their brethren here in the severity of their condemnation and the plentifulness of their abuse. And it would even seem as if the more learned portion of the Jews themselves had been averse to undertake the defence of the transaction in its naked and scriptural form, as we find their elder Rabbinical writers attempting to soften down the rugged features of the narrative, by affirming that “Joshua sent three letters to the land of the Canaanites before the Israelites invaded it; or rather, he proposed three things to them by letters: that those who preferred flight, might escape; that those who wished for peace, might enter into covenant; and that such as were for war, might take up arms.”[405] [405]
Another series of attempts has been made to soften the alleged harshness and severity of the Divine command in reference to the Canaanites, by asserting for the Israelites some kind of prior right to the possession of the country. A Jewish tradition, espoused with this view by many of the Fathers, claims the land of Canaan for the seed of Abraham, as their destined share of the allotted earth in the distribution made by Noah of its different regions among his descendants. Michaelis, justly rejecting this distribution as a fable, holds, notwithstanding that Canaan was originally a tract of country that belonged to Hebrew herdsmen; that other tribes gradually encroached upon and usurped their possessions, taking advantage of the temporary descent of Israel into Egypt to appropriate the whole; and that the seed of Abraham were hence perfectly justified in vindicating their right anew, when they had the power, and expelling the intruders sword in hand. This opinion has found many abettors in Germany, and quite recently has been supported by Ewald and Jahn; though the original right of the Israelites is now commonly held to have reached only to the pastoral portions of the territory. A more baseless theory, however, never was constructed. Scripture is entirely silent respecting such a claim on the part of the Israelites. But there is more than its silence to condemn the theory; for at the very first appearance of the chosen family on the ground of Palestine, it is expressly stated that “the Canaanite was then in the land” (Genesis 12:6); and in it, not merely as a wandering shepherd or temporary occupant, but as its settled and rightful possessor, to whom Abraham and his immediate descendants stood in the relation of sojourners. Hence the promise given to Abraham was, that he and his seed should get for an everlasting possession “the land wherein he was a stranger.” The testimony of Scripture is quite uniform on the two points that—Canaan, as an inheritance, was bestowed as the free gift of God on the seed of Abraham, and that the gift was to be made good by a forcible dispossession of the original occupants of the land.
It is plain, therefore, that according to the representations of Scripture, the family of Abraham had no natural right to the inheritance of Canaan. Nor would it be hard to prove that such false attempts to smooth down the inspired narrative, and adapt it to the refinement of modern taste, instead of diminishing, really aggravate, the difficulties attending it; that if, in one respect, they seem to bring the transaction into closer agreement with Christian principle, they place it, in another, at a much greater and absolutely irreconcilable distance. For, on the supposition that the posterity of Abraham were the original possessors, why should God have kept them for an entire succession of generations at a distance from the region, making their right—if they ever had any virtually to expire,—and rendering it capable of vindication no otherwise than by force of arms? Surely, on any ground of righteous principle, a right at best so questionable in its origin, and so long suffered to fall into abeyance, ought rather to have been altogether abandoned, than pressed at the expense of so much blood and desolation. And if the situation of the Canaanites had been such as to admit of terms of peace being proposed to them, then the decree of their extermination must have been in contrariety with the great principles of truth and righteousness.
It will never be by such methods of defence, that the objections of the infidel to this part of the Divine procedure can be successfully met, or, what is more important, that the God of the Old Testament can be shown to be the same, in character and working, with the God of the New. There will still be room for the sneer of Gibbon, that the accounts of the wars commanded by Joshua “are read with more awe than satisfaction by the pious Christians of the present age.”[406] On the contrary, we affirm, that if contemplated in the broad and comprehensive light in which Scripture itself presents them to our view, they may be read with the most perfect satisfaction; that there is not an essential element belonging to them, which does not equally enter into the principles of the Gospel dispensation; and that any difference which may here present itself between the Old and the New is, as in all other cases, a difference merely in form, but founded upon an essential agreement. This will appear whether it is viewed in respect to the Canaanites, to the Israelites, or to the times of the Gospel dispensation.
[406] History, c. 50.
1. Viewed, first of all, in respect to the Canaanites, as the execution of deserved judgment on their sins (in which light Scripture uniformly represents it, so far as they are concerned), there is nothing in it to offend the feelings of any well-constituted Christian mind. From the beginning to the end of the Bible, God appears as the righteous Judge and avenger of sin, and does so not unfrequently by the infliction of fearful things in righteousness. If we can contemplate Him bringing on the cities of the plain the vengeance of eternal fire, because their sins had waxed great, and were come up to heaven; or, at a later period, even in Gospel times, can reflect how the wrath was made to fall on the Jewish nation to the uttermost; or, finally, can think of impenitent sinners being appointed, in the world to come, to the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone for ever and ever;—if we can contemplate such things entering into the administration of God, without any disturbance to our convictions that the Judge of all the earth does only what is right, it were surely unreasonable to complain of the severities exercised on the foul inhabitants of Canaan. Their abominations were of a kind that might be said emphatically to cry to Heaven—such idolatrous rites as tended to defile their very consciences, and the habitual practice of pollutions which were a disgrace to humanity. The land is represented as incapable of bearing any longer the mass of defilements which overspread it, as even “vomiting out its inhabitants;” and “therefore,” it is added, “the Lord visited their iniquity upon them.”—(Leviticus 18:25) Nor was this vengeance taken on them summarily; the time of judgment was preceded by a long season of forbearance, during which they were plied with many calls to repentance. So early as the age of Abraham, the Lord manifested Himself toward them both in the way of judgment and of mercy—of judgment, by the awful destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, cutting off the most infected portion, that the rest might fear, and turn from their evil ways; of mercy, by raising up in the midst of them such eminent saints as Abraham and Melchizedek. That period, and the one immediately succeeding, was peculiarly the day of their merciful visitation. But they knew it not; and so, according to God’s usual method of dealing, He gradually removed the candlestick out of its place—withdrew His witnesses to another region, in consequence of which the darkness continually deepened, and the iniquity of the people at last became full. Then only was it that the cloud of Divine wrath began to threaten them with overwhelming destruction—not, however, even then, without giving awful indications of its approach by the wonders wrought in Egypt and at the Red Sea, and again hanging long in suspense during the forty years sojourn in the wilderness, as if waiting till a little further space was given for repentance. But as all proved in vain, mercy at length gave place to judgment, according to the principle common alike to all dispensations, “He that, being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall be suddenly destroyed, and that without remedy;” and, “Where the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.” In plain terms, whenever iniquity has reached its last stage, the judgment of Heaven is at hand. This principle was as strikingly exemplified in the case of the Jews after our Lord’s appearing, as in the case of these Canaanites before. In the parables of the barren fig-tree and the wicked husbandmen in the vineyard, the same place is assigned it in the Christian dispensation which it formerly held in the Jewish. And in the experience of all who, despite of merciful invitations and solemn threatenings, perish from the way of life, it must find an attestation so much more appalling than the one now referred to, as a lost eternity exceeds in evil the direst calamities of time. In fine, the very same may be said of the objections brought against the destruction of the Canaanites, which was said by Richard Baxter of many of the controversies started in his day, “The true root of all the difference is, whether there be a God and a life to come.” Grant only a moral government and a time of retribution, and such cases as those under consideration become not only just, but necessary.
2. Again, let the judgment executed upon the Canaanites be viewed in respect to the instruments employed in enforcing it—the Israelites—and in this aspect also nothing will be found in it at variance with the great principles of truth and righteousness. The Canaanites, it is to be understood, in this view of the matter, deserved destruction, and were actually doomed to it by a Divine sentence. But must not the execution of such a sentence by the hand of the Israelites, have tended to produce a hardening effect upon the minds of the conquerors? Was it not fitted to lead them to regard themselves as the appointed executors of Heaven’s vengeance, wherever they themselves might deem this to be due, and to render their example a most dangerous precedent for every wild enthusiast, who might choose to allege a commission from Heaven to pillage and destroy his fellow-men? So it has sometimes been alleged, but without any just foundation. Such charges evidently proceed on the tacit assumption, that there was in reality no doom of Heaven pronounced against the Canaanites, and no special commission given to the Israelites to execute it thus ignoring one part of the sacred narrative for the purpose of throwing discredit on another. Or, it is implied that God must be debarred from carrying mi Ills administration in such a way as may best suit the ends of Divine wisdom, because human fraud or folly may take encouragement from thence to practise an unwarranted and improper imitation. Thoughts of this description carry their own refutation along with them. The commission given to the Israelites was limited to the one task of sweeping the land of Canaan of its original occupants. But this manifestly conferred on them no right to deal out the same measure of severity to others; and so far from creating a thirst for human blood, in cases where they had no authority to shed it, they even fainted in fulfilling their commission to extirpate the people of Canaan. This, however, is only the negative side of the question; and viewed in another and more positive aspect, the employment of the Israelites to execute this work of judgment was eminently calculated to produce a salutary impression upon their minds, and to promote the ends for which the judgment was appointed. For what could be conceived so thoroughly fitted to implant in their hearts an abiding conviction of the evil of idolatry and its foul abominations—to convert their abhorrence of these into a national, permanent characteristic, as their being obliged to enter on their settled inheritance by a terrible infliction of judgment upon its former occupants for polluting it with such enormities? Thus the very foundations of their national existence raised a solemn warning against defection from the pure worship of God; and the visitation of Divine wrath against the ungodliness of men accomplished by their own hands, and interwoven with the records of their history at its most eventful period, stood as a perpetual witness against them, if they should ever turn aside to folly. Happy had it been for them, if they had been as careful to remember the lesson, as God was to have it suitably impressed upon their minds.
3. But the propriety and even moral necessity of the course pursued become manifest, when we view the proceeding in its typical bearing the respect it had to Gospel times. There were reasons, as we have seen, connected with the Canaanites themselves and the surrounding nations, sufficient to justify the whole that was done; but we cannot sec the entire design of it, or even perceive its leading object, without looking farther, and connecting it with the higher purposes of God respecting His kingdom among men. What He sought in Canaan was an inheritance—a place of rest and blessing for His people, but still only a temporary inheritance, and as such a type and pledge of that final rest which remains for the people of God. All, therefore, had to be arranged concerning the one, so as fitly to represent and image the higher and more important things which belong to the other that the past and the temporary might serve as a mirror in which to foreshadow the future and abiding, and that the principles of God’s dealing toward His Church might be seen to be essentially the same, whether displayed on the theatre of present or of eternal realities. It was partly, at least, on this account, that the place chosen for the inheritance of Israel was allowed, in the first instance, to become in a peculiar sense the region of pollution—a region that required to be sanctified by an act of Divine judgment upon its corrupt possessors, and thereby fitted for becoming the home and heritage of saints. In this way alone could the things done concerning it shadow forth and prepare for the final possession of a glorified world,—an inheritance which also needs to be redeemed from the powers of darkness that meanwhile over spread it with their corruptions, and which must be sanctified by terrible acts of judgment upon their ungodliness, before it can become the meet abode of final bliss. The spirit of Antichrist must be judged and cast out; Babylon, the mother of abominations, which has made the earth drunk with the wine of her fornications, must come in remembrance before God, and receive the due reward of her sins; so that woes of judgment and executions of vengeance must precede the Church’s occupation of her purchased inheritance, similar in kind to those which put Israel in possession of the land of Canaan. What, indeed, are the scenes presented to our view in the concluding chapters of Revelation, but an expansion to the affairs of a world, and the destinies of a coming eternity, of those which we find depicted in the wars of Joshua? In these awful scenes we behold, on the one hand, the Captain of Salvation, of whom Joshua was but an imperfect type, going forth to victory with the company of a redeemed and elect Church, supported by the word of God, and the resistless artillery of heaven; while, on the other hand, we see the doomed enemies of God and the Church long borne with, but now at last delivered to judgment—the wrath falling on them to the uttermost,—and, when the world has been finally relieved of their abominations, the new heavens and the new earth rising into view, where righteousness, pure and undefiled, is to have its perennial habitation.
We have said that the work of judgment in the one case was similar in kind to what shall be executed in the other; but we should couple with this the qualification, that it may be very different in form. It both may and should be expected to possess less of an external or compulsory character, according to the general change that has taken place in the spirit of the Divine economy. Outward visitations of evil may, no doubt, still be looked for, upon such as act a hostile part toward the kingdom of Christ; yet not by any means to the same extent as in former times. Christ’s own personal conquest over evil has struck in this respect a higher key for future conflicts with the adversary,—a conquest effected not by external violence, but by the exhibition of truth and righteousness putting to shame the adherents of falsehood and corruption. Conquests of this kind should now be regarded as the proper counterpart to those of the earlier dispensation. And while the Church has still, as she had in the days of Joshua, a two-edged sword in her hand to execute vengeance on the heathen (Psalms 149:6), the noblest vengeance she can execute, and the only vengeance she should seek to execute, is that of destroying their condition as heathen by the sword of the Spirit, and turning their antagonistic into a friendly position.
If such views of Israel’s conquest and occupation of the land of Canaan are just, the more striking and peculiar facts connected with it admit of an easy and natural explanation. The administration, for example, of the rite of circumcision to the whole adult population, was most fitly done before they formally entered on the work (Joshua 5:2-9); as it is never more necessary for the Lord’s people to be in the full enjoyment of the privileges of a saved condition, and in a state of greater nearness to Himself, than when they are proceeding in His name to rebuke and punish iniquity. The work given Israel to do in this respect was emphatically a work of God, bearing on it the impress alike of His greatness and His holiness. And both a living faith and a sanctified heart were needed, on the part of Israel, to fulfil what was required of them. On this account special supports were given to faith in the miracles wrought by God at the commencement of the work, in the separation of the waters of the river, and the falling of the walls of Jericho, as afterwards in the extraordinary prolongation of the day at the request of Joshua; showing it was God’s work rather than their own they were accomplishing, and that His power was singularly exerted in their behalf. And not only in the charges given to Joshua regarding his careful meditation of the law of God, and punctual observance of all that was commanded in it; but also, and more particularly, in the discomfiture appointed on account of the sin of Achan, was the necessity forcibly impressed upon the people of the maintenance of holiness: they were made to feel the inseparable connection between being themselves faithful to God, and having power to prevail. It served also impressively to teach them their unity as a people, and how the holiness which they were bound collectively to maintain, must be individual, in order that it might be national. Nor was the instruction disregarded by the immediate agents in the work of judgment. They cast out from among them the sin that was discovered in Achan; and, at a later period, their jealousy regarding the tribes on the other side of Jordan, lest they would separate themselves from the one altar and common wealth of Israel, and the protestations of allegiance to God which Joshua made before his death, and they again to him, clearly showed that much of the spirit of faith and holiness rested upon that generation. In them the covenant found, in no small degree, a faithful representation, as well in regard to its requirements of duty, as to its promises of grace and blessing.
Section Second.—The Theory, Working, And Development Of The Jewish Theocracy. THE term theocracy, as used to indicate a specific form of government, that has found a place among the politics of nations, belongs exclusively to the Jewish people: the term itself had to be invented by their historian Josephus, to express what peculiarly distinguished their national polity from that of any other people who had figured in the history of the world. “There are,” says he (Contra Revelation 2:16), “endless differences, in respect to individual nations and laws among mankind, which may be briefly reduced under the following heads: for some have committed the power of civil administration to monarchies, others to the sway of a few (oligarchies), others again to the body of the people (democracies); but our lawgiver, making account of none of these, proclaimed a theocracy as the form of government, ascribing to God alone the authority and the power.” In drawing this contrast between his own and other nations, the Jewish historian, beyond doubt, intended to prefer a claim to special honour and distinction for his people. He pointed to their theocratic polity as an evident proof of superior insight on the part of their great legislator, and the ground of distinguished excellence in the community. He did so more especially on this account, that by such a constitution, “Moses did not make religion a part of virtue, but he considered and ordained other virtues to be parts of religion;” that is, he elevated all to the religious sphere, gave to men’s studies and actions generally “a reference to piety towards God,” and thereby stamped them with the highest authority, and secured for them the firmest hold on the hearts and manners of the people. In this estimate, however, of the theocratic element in Judaism, Josephus has not had many followers among those who have made political science their study, and who have tried to cast the balance as between different political constitutions. More commonly it has been regarded by such in the light of an arbitrary and abnormal state of things one that neither actually had, nor could theoretically be expected to have, any other effect than that of producing a singular race of men—isolated, intractable, antagonistic in their habits and feelings to all but their own community. In this light the Jewish people and their theocratic constitution were certainly regarded by Tacitus and other writers in heathen antiquity. And the picture which they drew of Jewish bigotry and exclusiveness, senseless hatred and intolerance, as a kind of practical commentary on the system under which they were reared, has often been reproduced in modern times, and charged not unfrequently with still darker and more revolting features. Such, especially, has been the course adopted by men of the stamp of Bolingbroke and Voltaire, who have had it for their main object, in writing on things connected with Divine revelation, to find as many grounds of censure as possible, and present what they found in the most obnoxious form. With them the polity of Judaism was founded in injustice and cruelty; the spirit which it breathed was “detestable;” since, “by the very constitution of the law itself, the Jews found that they were the natural enemies of all mankind, and were reduced to such a necessity, that either they must enslave the whole world, or they, in their turn, must be crushed and destroyed.”[407] Even writers of a higher stamp—professed apologists and expounders of the legislation of Moses have felt themselves sadly embarrassed by the theocratic form it assumed. And when we turn to the learned pages of Spencer, Le Clerc, Michaelis, partly, too, of Warburton, we find them either virtually ignoring it, as a thing which could scarcely be treated otherwise than as a devout imagination, or viewing it merely as an accommodation on the part of God to the heathenish tendencies of the people, and an expedient to check the introduction of palpable idolatry.
[407] See the quotations given in Warburton’s Legation, B. v., c. 1; and Works, vol. xii., on Bolingbroke’s Philosophy.
Properly understood, the theocratic constitution of the Old Covenant as little needs such lame apologies from the one class, as it is open to such rude assaults from the other. The favourable estimate of Josephus in no degree overshot the mark, nay, failed, from the defective nature of his moral position, in various respects, to reach it. The singularity of the phenomenon presented by the theocracy in the history of nations, and the imperfect character of its results, is the world’s shame rather than its condemnation; for the ideal it embodied is that which should have been, and which, but for the world’s blindness and self-idolatry, also would have been, regarded as the normal state of things, which it is the misfortune, and not the excellence, of earthly administrations, that they are so far from being able to realize. In that very theocratic element lay the foundation of Israel’s past greatness and future glory; more than that, and far from breaking on the world as a novelty in the revelations of Sinai, it formed the most essential principle in the primeval constitution of things; and surviving, as an indestructible seed, both the general ruin of the fall, and the special perversities of the people with whom it became more peculiarly identified, it is destined, in another form and under better auspices, to over shadow the world with its greatness, and bring under its sway every tribe and people of the earth. That this is no exaggerated statement, will, I trust, appear, when we have considered the subject of the theocracy under the three following aspects:—first, in respect to its true idea; secondly, in respect to its actual working; and, thirdly, in respect to its ulterior development and final issues.
I. First, then, in respect to the true idea of the theocracy—wherein stood its distinctive nature? It stood in the formal exhibition of God as King or Supreme Head of the common wealth, so that all authority and law emanated from Him; and, by necessary consequence, there were not two societies in the ordinary sense, civil and religious, but a fusion of the two into one body, or, as we might express it from a modern point of view, a merging together of Church and State. This, it will be observed, is a different thing from giving religion, or the priesthood appointed to represent its interests and perform its rites, a high and influential place in the general administration of affairs. Not a nation in heathen antiquity can be named, in which that was not, to some extent, done, nor any, perhaps, in which it was carried altogether so far, as the one from which Israel was taken to be a separate people. The religious interest was peculiarly powerful in Egypt. The priestly caste stood nearest to the throne, and furnished from its members the supreme council of state. Much of the property, and many of the higher functions of government, were in their hands; so that they formed a kind of ruling hierarchy. But while this naturally gave to religion and its offices a peculiar ascendancy in the political administration of Egypt, it by no means rendered the constitution a theocracy. The civil and the religious were still distinct provinces; and it was more as “a highly privileged nobility” (to use an expression of Heeren) that the priesthood had such a sway in the government, than as persons acting in their religious capacity. Indeed, in that, as in all heathen countries, the loss of a belief in the Divine Unity, and the worship of many separate deities, with their diversified and rival claims of service, rendered a theocracy in the proper sense impracticable. It was only at particular points and in individual cases, not as an organic whole, that the civil and the divine could possibly meet together: there might be an occasional commingling of the two, or a dominant influence flowing from the religious into the political sphere; but an actual identification, a proper fusion between them, could not come into play.
It was otherwise, however, in Israel, where the doctrine of one living and true God formed, as it were, the Alpha and the Omega of all instruction. Here there was, what was elsewhere wanted, a proper religious centre, whence a sovereign and presiding agency might issue its injunctions upon every department of the state, as well as upon all the spheres of domestic and social life. And this is simply the idea embodied in the Jewish theocracy; it is the fact of Jehovah condescending to occupy, in Israel, such a centre of power and authority. He proclaimed Himself “King in Jeshurun.” Israel became the common wealth with which He more peculiarly associated His presence and His glory. Not only the seat of His worship, but His throne also, was in Zion—both His sanctuary and His dominion.[408] The covenant established with the people, laid its bond upon their national not less than their individual interests; and the laws and precepts which were “written in the volume of the book,” formed at once the directory of each man’s life and the statute-book of the entire kingdom. Nor was this state of things materially interfered with by the special commissions given to prophets, the temporary elevation of judges, or the more settled government of the kings; for these had no authority to do or prescribe aught but as the ambassadors and delegates of Him who dwelt between the cherubim. Nay, the higher any one might stand in office, he was only held the more specially bound to “meditate in the law of the Lord, and observe to do all that was written therein.”[409] Hence, also, as being alike formally and really at the head of the kingdom, Jehovah charged Himself with the practical results of its administration: He held in His own hand the sanctions of reward and punishment; and according to the loyalty or disobedience of His subjects, made distribution to them in good or evil.
Now, that we may more distinctly apprehend the essential nature and tendency of this fundamental idea, let us endeavour to follow it out into a few leading particulars.
1. Let its bearing, in the first instance, be marked on the position of the people as members of such a kingdom. It was emphatically God’s kingdom, wherein all were directly subject to His sway, and placed under His immediate counsel and protection. On their part, therefore, it was “a kingdom of priests,” as being composed of those who were called to occupy a state of peculiar nearness to God, were divinely instructed in the knowledge of His will, and appointed to minister and serve before Him. What an elevated position, as compared with the worshippers of senseless idols, and the tools of arbitrary power, in heathen monarchies! Manly thoughts and lofty aims, consciousness of personal dignity, the liberty to do, and the right to expect great things, might seem to belong to such a position, as plants to their native soil. Hence it was precisely that close relationship to God, with the noble aspirations and exalted prospects to which it instinctively gave rise, that kindled such a glow of delight in the aged bosom of Moses, and drew from him the exclamation, “Happy art thou, O Israel! who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord! the Eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.”
True, there was in Israel also a select priesthood, separated from the rest of their brethren, to serve at the altar of God, and in sacred things to mediate between Him and the people. But this priesthood was not, as in heathen countries, invested with rights antagonistic to those of the people, nor made depositaries of secrets, to be confined to their own fraternity, nor charged with any kind of arbitrary and irresponsible power in religious matters. They were but a narrower and more privileged circle, within a large one of essentially the same priestly standing and character, chosen and set apart simply for the purpose of providing more effectively for the preservation of the knowledge of God, and the due administration of the solemnities of His worship. They had no statutes to teach, no mysteries to celebrate, but what lay open to the cognizance of all; and if they failed in their own peculiar province, it was competent for judges, rulers, prophets, from any tribe or family of Israel, to rebuke their unfaithfulness, and, to a certain extent, supplement their deficiency. The existence, indeed, of such a priesthood, bespoke prevailing imperfection in the community of Israel. It told of a practical inaptitude to attain to the proper height of their vocation, and live habitually in the observance of the duties it imposed. On this account they needed to have representatives of their number, who might discharge the more sacred functions of the theocracy, and act the part of watchmen in respect to the law of God. But still the same covenant relationship belonged to all; all ministered and partook together in the ordinance of the passover, which was emphatically the Feast of the Covenant; the same book of the law was open to the inspection of every member of the community, nay, enjoined upon his thoughtful consideration; and even the more solemn ministrations, which were assigned to the priesthood in the sanctuary of the Lord, were but an outward exhibition of what should constantly have been in spirit proceeding among the people throughout their habitations. In this one point, then—the high position accorded to the community by the theocratic principle of the constitution—what a boon was conferred on Israel! It gave to every one who imbibed the spirit of the constitution, the lofty sense of a proprietorship in God, and not only warranted, but in a manner constrained him to view everything connected with his state in the light of the Divine will and glory. What he possessed, he held as a sacred charge committed to him from above; what he did, he behoved to do as a steward of the great Lord of heaven and earth. Then, in the oneness of this covenant standing among the families of Israel, what a sacred bond of brotherhood was established! what a security for the maintenance of equal rights and impartial administrations between man and man! Members alike of one divinely constituted community—subjects of one Almighty King—partakers together of one inheritance, and that an inheritance held in simple fee of the same Lord; surely nowhere could the claims of rectitude and love have been more deeply grounded—nowhere could acts of injustice and oppression have worn a character more hateful and unbecoming.
2. Let the bearing of the theocratic principle of Judaism, again, be noted on the calling of the Jewish people. The principle itself bound them in close alliance with Jehovah, as subjects to their king; but for what ends and purposes? This must necessarily have been determined by the character of Him whose people they were. And from the first no uncertainty or doubt was allowed to exist in respect to that; the same word which declared them to have been taken by God for a peculiar treasure, and a kingdom of priests, called them to be an holy nation—to be holy, even as God Himself was holy.—(Exodus 19:5-6) And throughout all the revelations of the law, and its manifold ordinances of service, the voice which continually sounded in the ears of the people was, in substance, this: “I am the Lord your God, which have separated you from other people. And ye shall be holy unto Me; for I the Lord am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be Mine.”—(Leviticus 20:24; Leviticus 20:26) Next to the fundamental principle of the Divine unity, the point in respect to which the object of Jewish worship differed most essentially from the gods of the heathen, was the absolute holiness of His character. The heathen objects of worship, being but in some form or another the deification of nature, always partook of nature’s changeableness and corruption; they could not rise materially above the world of imperfection from which they derived their own imaginary being. But Jehovah, the God of Israel, made Himself known as the supreme and only good, the irreconcilable opponent of every form and manifestation of sin. And the law which He imposed upon Israel, which He inwove into all their institutions, which He charged their priests to teach, their judges to enforce, and their people to keep—this law was the expression, in a form suited to the existing time and circumstances, of His own peer less excellence; its one tendency and aim were to mould the people into the likeness of their Divine Sovereign.
Doubtless, in so far as it might accomplish this aim, it would place the Israelitish people in a state of isolation, in respect to the corrupt and idolatrous masses of heathendom. As the servants of a holy God, and the children of a covenant which sought to have the law of holiness inscribed upon every bond and relation of life, Israel must dwell comparatively alone, and shun familiar intercourse with the Gentiles. But simply on this account, and only in so far as it might imperatively require; not, as so often falsely represented, from any essential faultiness in their position, or a kind of indigenous hatred of the human race. No—the very theory of their constitution embodied a perpetual protest against the indulgence of such a spirit; since the God whom it called them as obedient subjects to serve and imitate, made Himself known as also the God of the whole earth; and the ulterior design it contemplated was, through their instrumentality, to bring all nations to share in their peculiar blessing.[410] But as called to be the representatives of God in holiness, they were bound to keep aloof from the region of pollution; they must of necessity do the part of witnesses against the false imaginations and corrupt practices of idolatry. In this, however, was there not again conferred a mighty boon upon Israel? What better or higher thing can a people have, than being made partakers of the holiness of God? What nobler object can any institution propose for its accomplishment, than the extirpation of sin, and nourishing in its stead the seeds of genuine piety and worth? All history and experience, if interpreted aright, give testimony in this respect to the wisdom of the Jewish lawgiver, and to the distinguishing goodness of God in establishing, through him, a constitution for Israel, which had for its great practical end the training of a people to the love and practice of righteousness.
3. The bearing of the theocratic principle of government on the quality of their actions as good or evil, is another point that calls for consideration. The ordinary constitution of earthly kingdoms has here necessitated a division; it has led to the contemplation of actions under a twofold aspect—the one having respect to civil, the other to moral and spiritual relations the one dealing with actions in a materialistic manner, as objectively beneficial or hurtful, criminal or commendable; the other, making account mainly of the principle involved in them, and adjudging them to the category of sin or of holiness. Every one may see, at a glance, how superficial the former of these aspects is, as compared with the latter; and how, when actions are dealt with merely in relation to a human tribunal, considered as criminal or commendable in the eye of law, depths remain still unexplored concerning them: nothing, or next to nothing, is determined as to the real nature of what is done, or the moral condition of him from whom it has proceeded. Now, in a theocracy, where God Himself is King—where, consequently, everything comes to be tried by a divine standard, and with reference to the principle which it exhibits, as well as to the formal character it assumes—this division, with the superficiality involved in one of the aspects of it, disappears; the inherent nature and the outward tendency of actions become inseparably linked together. The distinction no longer exists between sin and crime; for whatever is a crime in respect to the community, is also a sin in respect to God, the Head of the community; and, indeed, a crime in their reckoning, because it was already a sin in His. Is it not always really so, however commonly over looked? And is it not the great weakness and imperfection of a merely political administration, that it must concern itself only with actions as criminal, and not also as sinful? On this account, earthly polities do the work of effective government but half, since they only lay their hand on the exterior of the sores which mar the well-being and endanger the interests of society; they contemplate and handle the evil with the view rather of checking the violent eruptions to which it tends, than of quenching the latent fires out of which it originates. But bring in the higher element of essential right and wrong, establish the theocratic principle, which places every member of the community in the presence of His God, and weighs every action in the balance of eternal rectitude, and you then touch the evil in its root,—not, it may be, with the effect of thoroughly eradicating it, yet surely with the tendency of awakening men’s consciousness of its existence, and engaging their common sympathies and strivings to have it brought into subjection. To do this, is to aim directly at the moral healthfulness of a people; and by setting the springs of life and goodness in motion, to accomplish a far higher work in their behalf, than can ever be effected by the machinery of civil jurisprudence, and the enactments of a criminal code. But in saying this, we again indicate the happy privilege of Israel in their singular constitution. The design and tendency of this was to raise them to the level of which we now speak. Its policy was to prevent crime by subduing sin. The same law which said, “Thou shalt not steal,” said also, “Thou shalt not covet,” and thereby laid the axe to the root of the tree. It said not merely, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me,” but, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and soul, and strength, and mind. And so, through all the departments of religious and social life, the object of the theocratic constitution ever was to lay upon the conscience the claims of God, to bring men into contact with truth and righteousness; and thus to make their fidelity to Heaven the gauge and measure of their dutifulness to the interests of the commonwealth. Where, if not on such a territory, should we look for a morally strong and healthful community?
4. Once more, let the bearing be noted of the theocratic constitution on the mode of treatment to be given to men’s actions, and the extent to which it should be applied. The Jewish theocracy, it must be remembered, was an attempt to realize on the visible theatre of a present world, and within a circumscribed region, the idea of a divine kingdom, to establish a community of saints; and so to do this, as to render manifest to all at once the moral dignity and the high blessedness attainable by such a community. That being the case, it is obvious that there required to be, not only a strict recognition of actions as good or bad in the eye of the Divine Head, but also a corresponding treatment of them an administrative system of reward and punishment. Nor should it scarcely be less obvious, however often it has been overlooked, that to serve the ends of the institution, the rewards and punishments connected with it—so far, at least, as they were to be formally announced and acted upon—must have been of a temporal nature; they must have been such as immediately and palpably to affect the interests ofcommunity where the actions to be visited by them were done. For nations, as has been well remarked on this subject, “can only be visited in this life, that is, with temporal inflictions. To have inserted in the public code of the nation eternal sanctions, would have been virtually to dissolve it as an earthly polity, and to reduce it to a collection of individuals, or at best to a Church in the Christian sense of the word; that is, a purely religious society, and therefore unable to exercise the stringent powers necessary to suppress the visible excesses of idolatry and corruption.”[411] There were reasons, besides, of a deeper kind,—reasons connected with the shadowy nature of the religious institutions of Judaism, and their merely temporary place in a scheme of progressive dispensations,—which also required that the issues of eternity should be, for the time then present, kept in comparative abeyance, however certainly they might be implied or anticipated.[412] These reasons must be taken into account, if we would give a satisfactory explanation of the difference in this respect, doctrinally considered, between the old and the new economies. But apart from them, and looking simply to the formal character and proposed ends of the theocracy, temporal sanctions are the only ones that, from the nature of the case, could be brought distinctly into notice; since to have in any measure overleapt the present, and transferred the distribution of good and evil to a future world, must inevitably have tended to relax the whole framework of the polity, and mar its uniformity of plan and purpose. The objection so often urged on this ground against the Mosaic legislation, turns rather, when the matter is considered from the right point of view, into an argument in its behalf; the more especially so, when it is farther considered that the establishment in so remarkable a manner of recompenses, in the temporal and earthly sphere, laid the surest foundation for the expectation of them hereafter.[413] [411]
[412] See vol. i., p. 210 sq.
[413] In truth, the point now under consideration is not quite fairly dealt with when presented under the aspect of rewards and punishments on this side of eternity as contradistinguished from the other; and it is rather out of accommodation to the common mode of contemplating it, than from a conviction of its essential Tightness, that the matter has been so presented in the text. Canaan, according to the idea of the theocracy, was the temporary substitute or type of heaven; and so the constitution of things appointed for those who were to occupy it was framed with a view to render the affairs of time as nearly as possible an image of eternity. The temporal and eternal were not so properly distinct and separate regions, when contemplated from the theocratic point of view, as the counterparts of each other. Ideally, the dwellers in Canaan were in their proper home; the land was the habitation of holiness, therefore also of life and blessing; death was regarded as something abnormal, hence treated as a pollution and put out of sight; and every needful precaution was taken both to avoid death as the great evil, and to prevent the alienation of inheritances from those who were entitled to live and enjoy the good. The representation was, of course, imperfect, like everything under the old economy, and rendered still more so by prevailing unfaithfulness on the part of the people; but the nature and object of the representation itself should not the less be taken into account. And if it is, instead of deeming it strange that the issues of eternity were not formally brought into view and placed over against those of time, we shall rather wonder that any one should seriously have expected such an incongruity; for, in the formal aspect of things, there was not a state of probation for a coming good (though in reality it was such), but the good itself,—a good destined, no doubt, with the antagonistic evil, to be reproduced in a higher sphere of being, but only under that aspect to be anticipated as a matter of hope or expectation. The same, substantially, may be said in respect to another and closely related point, on which also a ground of accusation has been raised; we mean the extent to which, in such a commonwealth, those temporal sanctions should have been applied. From the very nature of its constitution, matters of religious belief and practice were among the things subject to reward and punishment; for on the basis of these was the entire polity framed, and with a view to their efficient maintenance was its administration to be carried on. What in other states might be regarded as matter of personal predilection, or, at most, harm less devotion—namely, the introduction of new gods must here, of necessity, be held at variance with the first principles of the constitution, and be dealt with as treasonable conduct was elsewhere; it must be repressed as a capital offence against the laws of the state. The ablest defenders of civil and religious liberty in modern times have admitted this, as an essential part of the ancient theocracy, and forming a broad line of demarcation between it and worldly states. Thus Mr Locke, in his treatise on Toleration, says, in reference to those who apostatized from the worship of the God of Israel, that they were justly “proceeded against as traitors and rebels, guilty of no less than high treason. For the commonwealth of the Jews, different in that from all others, was an absolute theocracy; nor was there, nor could there be, any difference between the commonwealth and the church. The laws established there concerning the worship of the one invisible Deity, were the civil laws of that people, and a part of their political government, in which God Himself was the Legislator.” In short, with the theocratic principle for the basis of the polity, the tolerance of idolatry and its accompanying rites would have been as incongruous, as it were, in the bosom of a Christian community, to allow the claims of Mahommed to rank beside those of the Saviour. But must any abatement be made on this account from the privileged condition of Israel? Viewing the matter simply in connection with the old theocracy (as it ought to be), and with reference to the real interests of the people, was it a disadvantage to have idolatry prohibited there under the penalty of death? Let it only he considered what that idolatry was, especially in Egypt and the licentious countries of the East, with which Israel came more immediately into contact. Changing the truth of God into a lie, it did, in the moral and religious sphere, what, in the province of the intellect, Bacon justly called the greatest evil of all, “the apotheosis of error, since, when folly is worshipped, it is, as it were, a plague-spot upon the understanding,” and we may add here, upon the heart. For while thus it corrupted the very fountain-head of knowledge, and stifled the better aspirations of the soul, it also served, by its fouler practices, to bring the unholy desires of the flesh and the pollutions of lust within the sanctuary of religion. Yet, with such inherent evils in idolatry, and tendencies on the side of corruption, so great, in the ancient world, was the disposition to fall in with the practice, that it spread everywhere like a moral contagion; causing Egypt, with her mystic lore, and even Greece, with her fine intellect, and manly heart, and philosophic culture, to bow down before it. In such circumstances, what should reasonably be esteemed the wisest legislation? Should it not be that which raised the strongest barriers against the tide of heathenism, and tended to hold its abominations in check? If we may not say—as some have unadvisedly done that the one great object of the theocracy, with all its ritual observances, and the rigid sanctions by which they were enforced, was to guard the doctrine of the Divine unity against the encroachments of idolatry, we must still hold that this was an object of fundamental importance, an object that at once deserved and called for the most stringent measures of defence. And, assuredly, when read in the light of history, the real ground for complaint lies, not in that guardianship being too vigilant, and those defences too stern, but that practically they proved all too feeble to resist the assaults of the giant and insidious adversary against which the truth had to struggle.
Such, then, was the Jewish theocracy, both in respect to its general idea, and to some of the more distinctive peculiarities which it threw around the aspect and constitution of affairs in Israel. Viewed simply as an ideal, after which their views of truth and their strivings in duty were to aim at being conformed, it was a great thing for Israel to be placed under such a polity. For, in bringing them acquainted, as it did, with the being and character of God, with the relation in which they stood to Him, the connection between the lower and the higher elements of their welfare, and the dependence of all upon their fidelity to the interests of truth and righteousness, it placed them, as it were, on sure foundations, and set full before them the path to glory and virtue. If “noble deeds are but noble truths realized,” then in Israel, above all other people in ancient times, might such deeds be looked for; the seeds were there sown in the very framework of their constitution, from which the richest harvest should have sprung. But did it actually do so? Did the reality in any measure correspond to the idea? Can we appeal to the actual working of the theocratic principle in proof of its heaven-derived origin and practical importance?
II. This was to form our second branch of inquiry—the actual working of the theocracy. That the reality should, in many respects, come far short of the idea, is only what might have been expected; considering that the pattern of the kingdom, though heavenly in its origin, and in itself wisely adapted to the circumstances of the time, was necessarily committed, for its ordinary administration, to the hands of men—and this at a comparatively immature stage of the Divine dispensations. It was therefore inevitable that human weakness and perversity should have mingled in the results actually produced, so as materially to mar the completeness of the work; yet not (we may conceive) so as wholly to defeat the design, or to render its execution altogether unworthy of the source from which it came. For the method of administration was also of God. And the real question is, how such a polity, having such Divine and human elements entering alike into its theory and its administration, wrought on the theatre of earthly things? whether, in this respect also, there was enough to attest the wisdom and the agency of God?
1. In answer to such questions, let the matter be viewed, first, in relation to the knowledge of the being and character of God Himself. The foundation of all lies there, as already intimated; the foundation, not only of the affairs of the old economy, but of all genuine religion and true moral excellence. Most deeply, therefore, does it concern the world to possess that knowledge, and have it preserved in living energy and power. But where was it so preserved and possessed? In what land, or by what people, was anything like a clear and faithful testimony borne in ancient times to the existence and perfections of God? Nowhere but in the land and by the people of Israel; it was confined to the favoured region of the theocracy. Even there, no doubt, the light was too often obscured by the surrounding darkness, and the national testimony was far from being so uniform and distinct as it should have been. But still it was maintained and perpetuated; the truth never ceased to have its faithful witnesses; and while the gross polytheism, which brooded over the other nations of the earth, suffered only a few glimmerings of the truth at times to break through the gloom, the monotheism of Israel shone clear and bright upon the world, down even to the closing epoch of the theocracy. It were difficult to imagine a nobler proof of the superiority in this respect of ancient Israel, and a finer contrast between their polity and that of other nations, in the results yielded concerning the knowledge of God, than was presented by the Apostle Paul at Athens, when, appearing on Mars Hill, a solitary representative of the theocratic kingdom, standing there as on the very summit of heathen civilisation, and in the presence of its most wonderful achievements in art and science, he could descry but one element of truth in the whole; and that not a revelation of knowledge, but a confession of ignorance, embodied in the altar dedicated to the unknown god. On that confession the virtual acknowledgment of heathendom, that it had not yet attained to any true acquaintance with the things of God—the Apostle disclosed that certain knowledge which he possessed; and not he alone, but which, under the fostering care of the theocracy, had become the common heritage of the families of Israel.
It is not merely, however, the possession of this knowledge concerning God, in the midst of surrounding ignorance and superstition, which here deserves our notice, but the fulness of that knowledge, and the living freshness and power by which it was characterized. The relation held by God to His people as King of Zion, with the many special appointments of service and interpositions of Providence to which it naturally gave rise, served to bring out, in almost endless variety and minuteness of detail, the revelation of His mind and will. Every attribute of His character received in turn its appropriate manifestations; and nothing that essentially concerned His wisdom and power, His faithfulness and love, His inflexible hatred of sin or supreme regard to righteousness and truth, could remain hid from those who meditated aright in His word and ways. Not only so; but the things connected with these, which might have been known, and yet have continued dim and shadowy to men’s view, became, through the working of the theocratic institution, clothed as with flesh and blood; the Eternal was brought as from the depths of infinitude, whither the human spirit labours in vain to find Him, and rendered objectively present to the soul, by being on every hand allied to the relations of sense and time. The children of the covenant, continually as they came to draw near to His habitation, and witness or take part in the outward ministrations of His service, were made, in a manner, to feel as if they saw His form and heard His voice. They stood comparatively under a clear sun and an open sky,—walked where communications were ever passing from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; so that the experiences of their bosom, and the lines of their history, became as a mirror on which the face of God’s countenance reflected itself in traits of life and truthfulness. Oh! what a happiness had it been for the heathen world, what an advance should it have made in divine knowledge, had it but known to look there for light and blessing! And even we, amid the higher privileges and ampler revelations furnished to our hand, yet how much do not we owe for our clearness of conception in the things of God, and for fitting terms to tell forth our conceptions, to the records of those dealings of God with Israel, and the impressions produced by them on the hearts of the people! What a loss should we not have sustained had we but wanted the more special reflection given of them in the Book of Psalms,—a book to which even the French theosophists of the last century were fain to betake themselves when seeking to compose a liturgical service to their god of nature,—and of which one of the profoundest of modern historians (John von Müller) writes, “My most delightful hour every day is furnished by David. His songs sound to the depth of my heart, and never in all my life have I so seen God before my eyes.”
2. We may find another and closely related proof of the actual working of the theocracy in the elevated moral tone of the writings it produced. The writings of a people, the better class of writings especially, are the fruits and evidences of its inner life; and if they have been called forth by the genius and interests of the constitution, they may justly be taken as among the best exponents of its real tendency and operation. Of no writings may this be so emphatically said as of those included in Old Testament Scripture. For these were no random or scattered effusions; they were the productions of men who may be said to have lived and laboured for the great ends of the theocracy. To this, indeed, they owed their existence,—having been indited by the sacred penmen partly for the purpose of explaining the nature and objects of the theocracy, partly to inculcate the duties it imposed, and partly, again, to exhibit the failures and achievements, the fears and hopes, connected with its history. We speak, it will be understood, of the writings belonging to the theocracy, only in respect to their immediate occasion and formal design,—not in that higher respect in which they stand related to the supernatural workings of God’s Spirit, and the special communications of His grace to men; for as such they might have stood apart from the theocratic polity, and have come forth as independent spiritual communications from heaven. But, in reality, the higher and the lower met together in them. They had a human, a national, and we may even say a political side, which formed the specific ground of their appearance and character; since they appeared as representations of the mind and feelings of those who were themselves the fittest representatives of the state. But, considered simply in this aspect, what a spirit of moral life and energy breathes in them! What treasures of practical wisdom have they laid up in store for all future times and generations of men! Reflecting the character of the great Head of the theocracy, a profoundly earnest and ethical tone everywhere pervades them,—one that looks through the appearances into the realities of things, brings prominently into view the principles of eternal truth and righteousness, and subordinates all interests to those of justice, goodness, and mercy. Even in dealing with the natural attributes of God, the natural becomes penetrated with the moral; not the naked reality, but the bearing of that reality upon the heart and conscience, is what comes prominently into view; as (to take but one example) in the earnest and lofty meditation on the omniscience and almightiness of God which is contained in the Psalms 139:1-24 Psalm, and in which the thought, woven like a thread throughout the whole discourse, is the respect borne by those Divine attributes to the psalmist himself, in his relation to the character of Jehovah. We shall search in vain among the other nations of antiquity for any productions comparable in this respect to those of the Old Testament,—in vain, more especially, in those regions of Asia which lay around the territory of the chosen people,—regions which have been from remotest times the favourite haunts, not of the practical, but of the contemplative, and which have given birth to many an airy speculation and philosophical reverie, but to nothing, save what came from the bosom of the theocracy, which has exercised the slightest influence for good on the character and destinies of the world. Whence, then, the mighty and permanent influence of the writings now under consideration, but that they sprung under the shade and breathed the spirit of the theocratic constitution? On this account they possessed, and have carried along with them wherever they have gone, the elements of a higher wisdom, and a more ennobling morality than can be learned from the pages even of the most thoughtful and enlightened of other lands. For that heritage of good in the ethical sphere, the world again stands indebted to the theocracy of Moses.[414]
[414]
3. For a still further proof of the actual working of the theocracy on the side of good, we look to the results it produced in the personal and family life of the people. Here, also, there is evidence of a fruit in Israel which was nowhere else produced in the ancient world. Not, indeed, to the extent it should have been among the subjects of the theocracy, even in the better periods of its history; while, at times, corruption came in with such sweeping violence, that it seemed as if all were to be borne along by the current. But look to the history as a whole—look to it more especially as it appears in the better and more prominent members of the theocracy, and the superiority of Israel will be seen to be beyond dispute, in the things which more peculiarly constitute the worth and well-being of a people. With many of the nations of antiquity they could stand no comparison, as regards matters of secondary moment—the cultivation of science and learning, and whatever may be included in the sphere of taste, refinement, and art. But where did life exhibit so many of the purer graces and the more solid virtues? Or where, on the side of truth and righteousness, were such perils braved, and such heroic deeds performed? There alone were the interests of truth and righteousness even known in such a manner as to reach the depths of conscience, and bring fully into play the nobler feelings and affections of the heart. What elsewhere was contemplated by a select few merely as a fine ideal, or reckoned fit and proper to be done should circumstances favour the attempt, assumed here the form of lofty principle, and laid upon the spirit the bonds of a sacred obligation, which, instead of weakly bending to circumstances, sought rather to make circumstances bend to it. It is to Israel, therefore, alone of all the nations of antiquity, that we must turn alike for the more pure and lovely, and for the more stirring examples of moral excellence. Sanctified homes, where the relations of domestic and family life stood under law to God, and where something was to be seen of the confiding simplicity, the holy freedom, and peaceful repose of heaven; lives of patient endurance and suffering, or of strong wrestling for the rights of conscience, and the privilege of yielding to the behests of duty; manifestations of zeal and love, in behalf of the higher interests of mankind, such as could scorn all inferior considerations of flesh and blood, and even rise at times in “the elected saints” to such a noble elevation, that they have “wished themselves razed out of the book of life, in an ecstacy of charity and feeling of infinite communion” (Bacon);—for refreshing sights and ennobling exhibitions like these, we must repair to the annals of that chosen seed, who were trained under the eye of God, and moulded by the sacred institutions of His kingdom. How different from what is recorded of the worldly, self-willed, and luxurious Asiatics around them! And how fraught with lessons of wisdom and heroic example to future times and other generations of men!
It is impossible, however, by any general survey, to apprehend aright the difference that here separates Jew from Gentile, or to make fully palpable the wide chasm that lies between life as formed and maintained under the Jewish theocracy, and as groping its devious way or rioting at will amid the darkness and corruption of heathenism. “We should need to descend into the particular details of comparative history. But merely to indicate what might be done, let it just be thought, how peculiar to Israel, how unlike to what is elsewhere to be met with, are such family pictures as those of Boaz and Ruth, Elimelech and Hannah! or such characters as those of Samuel, Elijah, and the more distinguished prophets! Let but one be selected, who had thoroughly imbibed the spirit of the theocracy, and entered cordially into its design: take David, for example, of whom this may strictly be said, notwithstanding a few mournful failures, which he himself most bitterly deplored; and where, in those ancient times, shall any approach be found to his marvellous combination of gifts and graces? Where may we descry a character, at once so high-toned and so fully orbed? Think of this man as passing from the rustic simplicities of shepherd-life to the throne of the kingdom, yet bearing with him still the same tender, open, and glowing heart; treated on his way to the throne with the basest ingratitude and most ruthless persecution, forced even to become for many tedious years the tenant of savage wilds and caves of the desert, yet never lifting, when it was in his power to do so, the arm of vengeance, but ever repaying evil with good, and over the fall of his fiercest persecutor raising the notes of a most pathetic lamentation; distinguished above others by deeds of chivalry and military prowess, by which the kingdom was raised from its oppression and widely extended in its domain, yet reigning not for selfish ambition or personal glory, but as Jehovah’s servant for the establishment of truth and righteousness in the land; gifted, moreover, with a genius so fine, with sympathies so fresh and strong, as to be able to originate a new species of poetry, yet consecrating all to the service of the same Lord, in celebrating the praise of His doings, and telling forth the moods and experiences of the soul in its efforts to be conformed to the will of Heaven; and doing it in strains of such touching pathos and power, that they have found an echo in every pious bosom through succeeding generations, and to myriads of tempted souls have proved the greatest solace and support. The history of remote times can, indeed, tell of individuals who have risen from humble and sequestered life to sit with princes of the earth, or extend the glory of their country; but it can tell of no individual fitted by many degrees to be placed beside the shepherd-king and sweet psalmist of Israel. Nor could it have told of him, but for the training he enjoyed under that theocracy with which he was so closely identified, and of which, in the grand features of his character, he was at once the legitimate offspring and the noblest representative. May we not appeal, in proof of all we have said, to the common sentiments of Christendom? Why have the thoughts and feelings, not of the superstitious or devout merely, but of the most enlightened and spiritual in later times, hung around the region of the old theocracy, with an attraction which no other has been able to exercise. Why still, after centuries of desolation have passed over it, does it seem invested with so peculiar a glory? No doubt, in great part, because on it were performed formed the marvellous transactions of gospel history because there are
“The holy fields
Over whose acres walked those blessed feet,
Which eighteen hundred years ago were nailed,
For our advantage, on the bitter cross.”
Yet not by any means on that account alone. The interest thence arising, is but the enhancement and consummation of that which is awakened by the long train of similar characters and events which had distinguished it in the ages preceding. These did of themselves raise the land of Israel to a height, in moral estimation, above all the kingdoms of the earth—rendering it emphatically the region of light and valley of vision—the land of uprightness, where were found the habitations of the righteous, where angels visited, where prophets witnessed and struggled for the cause of God, and men of faith and piety hazarded their lives for the kingdom of heaven. There, in short, as nowhere else in the ancient world, were moral elements of a high and ennobling kind, not only embodied in the ideal of the theocratic polity of Israel, but exhibited also in the results actually produced by it among the people; and the hallowed feelings and associations of which the land itself is the object, are a standing and hereditary evidence of the fact. So much, then, for the favourable side of the picture; but undoubtedly there is another, that must go along with it to give a fair exhibition of the reality. The Jewish theocracy contained also elements of weakness and imperfection, which materially hindered the fulness of its efficiency, and rendered its termination in the original form ultimately a matter of necessity. The existence of such elements, to some extent, was unavoidable, on account of the comparatively immature stage of the Divine economy to which the old theocracy belonged; for, as that economy is formed on the plan of a regular progression, it was inevitable but that there should be imperfections in the earlier as compared with the later forms of administration. What, then, were those elements of weakness? It will be enough if here they are briefly indicated.
(1.) First of all may be named the local and earthly conditions with which it was entwined. These, as already stated, were of great service in giving objectivity to the truths and principles of the theocracy, rendering them more palpable to men’s view, and lending, as it were, outward sense to faith, that it might, through the near and visible, realize the unseen and eternal. But there was, at the same time, a tendency formed to contract the idea of God, and the interests of the economy, too much within those local and earthly bounds—to rest in them, instead of rising through them to a higher sphere and more enlarged considerations. From want of discernment and faith, multitudes were always giving way to this tendency, looking simply to the temporal recompense, and thereby becoming selfish and sordid in their minds; regarding God as little more than, in the restricted heathen sense, the tutelary God of the land and people of Israel—yea, regarding Him as, even within that local territory, chiefly confining the manifestations of His presence to the place and ordinances in which He chose to put His name, and, by natural consequence, regarding themselves as in a position of privileged antagonism to the heathen, rather than as furnished with peculiar endowments and opportunities to do them service. All this, doubtless, proceeded on a misinterpretation and abuse of the local and earthly conditions amid which the theocracy was set, and tended, in so far as it might be practised, virtually to subvert the ends of the institution. But there can be no doubt that, with a large portion of the people, matters took very much the direction now indicated, and that this feature in the Jewish theocracy proved, in the result, a material element of weakness. (2.) As another thing of this description, must be mentioned the predominantly outward character of the means employed to maintain the knowledge of God, and a course of obedience to His will. These took the distinctive form of law, and, consequently, even when they conveyed direct instruction as to the things to be believed and done, they were imposed from without, and formed a yoke of service resting upon the individual, rather than a spirit of life springing up and working within. Not only so, but a great part of the instruction thus conveyed, and of the moral training connected with it, was tied to ritual forms and observances, in which the external act was always the first and most prominent thing to be attended to, since the object aimed at by them was first to form the habit of obedience, and through the habit to establish the principle. Imperfection was obviously stamped upon this mode of action; and the result was, that many stopt short at the earlier stage of the course, satisfied themselves with the mere form of knowledge and of truth in the law, and never attained to the inward power of life, which becomes a law to itself. Coldness, formality, distrust of God, selfishness of spirit, corruption of manners, necessarily ensued—how commonly and fatally, the records of the nation but too amply testify—yet how far from being an inevitable result of the polity, how certainly arising from a failure in apprehending or using aright the privileges belonging to it, equally appears from the examples of faith, and spirituality, and love, always found in a select portion of the community. In short, the system, in its ostensible aspect, had a tendency to the formal and outward, and, on the part of the great majority, it was not met by a sufficient counteractive. (3.) Difficulties, and, by reason of difficulties, imperfections of administration, must be named as a third great element of weakness in the theocratic constitution, and of comparative failure in its working. The administration of affairs, as to its ultimate authority and power, was in the hands of God Himself; but, in ordinary circumstances, it was necessarily exercised by those who were put in stations of trust, and were more peculiarly called to act as His servants. Now, these were not only beset by the difficulties arising from human frailty and imperfection in themselves, but, by special difficulties, adhering to the law they had to administer. For this law, as we have said, however outward in form, was still essentially inward in principle; it was the law of Him who is emphatically a Spirit, and required nothing less than habitual holiness in heart and conduct. To administer such a law properly required discernment of spirits, as well as observance of outward actions; it required often dealings with the conscience; and this, again, could not be adequately performed except by those who had themselves a conscience void of offence toward God and man. Then the sanctions of the law, which, for deliberate overt transgressions, imposed the penalty of death—necessarily imposed it, for otherwise there could have been no proper exhibition of sin and holiness, as they are known in the Divine government these sanctions brought other difficulties into the administration. For men who had themselves imperfect views of sin and holiness, naturally felt averse to the enforcement of what was threatened; offences were suffered to proceed with impunity; “the law was slacked, and judgment did not proceed;” and, from the mixed state of things which in consequence resulted, neither could the blessing nor the curse be made good in such a way as to manifest fully the righteousness of God. First, partial disorders; then general decay; finally, total decrepitude and dissolution came on. (4.) Once more, an element of weakness and imperfection in the old theocracy, and the fundamental ground, indeed, of all the others, consisted in the defective nature of its revelations, in those things especially which concern the relation of God to man. Near as God was to Israel, and accessible in worship, compared with what He was to the heathen, there was still a great gulph. Satisfaction was not yet made to the deeper wants and necessities of the soul. The demands of law and the guilt of sin stood more prominently out than the riches of Divine grace, and righteousness, and love. A thick veil hung over the things which were to form the great redemption of man, and which, when they came, were to exert the mightiest influence upon the soul for good, and in a manner transfigure the entire state of a believer’s condition. For want of these, the theocracy in Israel was necessarily defective in the more vital functions, and naturally became partial and imperfect in its actual working. On this account, also, it had to stand so much in the outer sphere of things, the higher and better being as yet not directly available; and so, in comparison of what was to come, it might fitly be designated “weak and unprofitable.” On the whole, therefore, we perceive that the Jewish theocracy, as to its actual working, was of a mixed description. It had results connected with it of a most important and interesting character, on account of which the world then, and, indeed, for all time, has become largely its debtor. But, at the same time, there were imperfections in its framework, which gave rise to many failures in the accomplishment of what it aimed at; so that the idea it embodied of a kingdom of God on earth was never more than very partially realized, and, as became but too manifest in the progress of time, could not be realized under so imperfect and provisional a state of things.
III. Still it did not properly die; for nothing that is of God perishes, or ultimately fails of its destination: in so far as there may be change, it can only be in the particular form assumed, or the mode of operation. This will appear in regard to the subject before us, if we turn now, in the third place, to consider the Jewish theocracy in respect to its ulterior development and final issues.
There was a striking difference, in this respect, between the kingdom of God in Israel, and the worldly kingdoms by which it was surrounded, and for a time overborne. “Their end and aim,” so even the semi-rationalist Ewald writes, in his History of the Jewish People, “lay only in themselves, rose into strength through human power and caprice, and again passed away. But here (viz., in the Jewish theocracy) we have for the first time in history, a kingdom which finds its origin and its aim external to itself, which did not come into being of man, nor of man attained to its future increase; therefore a kingdom which, itself affecting only what is divine, carries also in its bosom the germ of an eternal duration, in spite of all incidental change, preserves still its inner truth, and revives anew in Christianity as with the freshness of a second youth.”[415] It was not, however, reserved for the historian of the past to discover this mark of superiority in the theocratic kingdom; it was done as well by the prophets of the future, and never more clearly and emphatically than when the external fortunes of the kingdom were in the most enfeebled or prostrate condition. “Unto us a child is born,” said Isaiah in the time of Ahaz, when everything was tottering to its fall, “unto us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever.” Not only so, but when the kingdom had fallen to its very foundations, and to the eye of sense lay smitten by the rod of Babylon as with an irrecoverable doom, that precisely was the time, and Babylon itself the place, chosen by God to reveal, through His servant Daniel, the certain resurrection of the kingdom, and its ultimate triumph over all rival powers and adverse influences. In contradistinction to the Chaldean and other worldly kingdoms, which were all destined to pass away, and become as the dust of the summer threshing-floor, he announced the setting up of a kingdom by the God of heaven, which should never be destroyed,—a kingdom which, in principle, should be the same with the Jewish theocracy, and in history should form but a renewal and prolongation, in happier circumstances, of its existence; for it was to be, as of old, a kingdom of priests to God, or of the people of the saints of the Most High; and, as such, an everlasting kingdom, which all dominions were to serve and obey. And as this kingdom was imaged in the visions of Daniel by one having the appearance of a son of man, so did it begin, in the last days of the Jewish theocracy, to assume a formal existence in the person of Him who purposely took the title of Son of Man to Himself, that He might be the more easily recognised as the Head of Daniel’s kingdom of saints—the Reviver of the Old, and, at the same time, the Founder of the New—coming to establish, as of Himself, the kingdom of heaven, and yet coming to occupy the throne of His father David. What, indeed, was the end and purpose of His mission? What the design of His sufferings and death? Simply to raise up for Himself a community of saints a royal priesthood, with whom, and through whom, He might exercise dominion in the earth. And so, as the world began with a theocratic paradise, in which God associated Himself in closest fellowship with man, and man, in turn, acknowledged no law, was subject to no authority, but God’s; in like manner, it shall end with a paradise and theocracy restored, when no kingdom shall any longer appear but the Lord’s, and to the farthest bounds of the earth the saints shall live and reign with Him in glory.
[415] Geschichte, ii. 138.
It is, undoubtedly, with Christ’s appearance and work for the salvation of men—in other words, with the institution of the New Testament Church—that we are to connect the theocracy in its new, more expanded, and permanent form. And yet, in what may be designated the most fundamental characteristic of this form, in the comparative disuse of the outward and carnal for the more inward and spiritual elements of strength, it might not improperly be said, that the times of Daniel and the captivity formed the turning-point from the Old to the New, and that thenceforward the one was continually shading into the other. The external framework and political aspect of the kingdom, in its original and independent state, had assimilated it too much to the kingdoms of this world, had always had the effect of taking off the minds of the people from the things in which their polity differed from that of others—had led them, in short, from undue regard to the external and secular features in the constitution of the kingdom, to lose sight of the great truths and principles which constituted the real elements of its strength and permanence. The special efforts put forth from time to time to check this carnalizing tendency, had proved unavailing. The mission, for example, of Samson,—the externally strong, but internally weak, Nazarite,—so singularly furnished, and yet accomplishing so little (in each respect the exact type of the people); the higher and more successful mission of Samuel, who, shortly after the times of Samson, and by no weapons of war, but by the spiritual agency of God’s word, and the labours of like-minded men, trained and drawn together by the schools of the prophets, brought in a period of revival; the occasional missions and still higher gifts of the later prophets; as also, the earnest spiritual strivings of David, and some of his better successors, in the administration of the kingdom: these things, and others of a like kind, though all pointing in one direction, and perpetually sounding in the ears of the people a call to look to the realities of Divine truth and righteousness, enshrined in their peculiar polity as the bulwarks of their safety and well-being, were never more than partial and transitory in their influence. The more carnal elements of power—worldly resources and expedients—the things in which they resembled, not those in which they differed from, the nations of heathendom, always rose to the ascendant, and marred the proper working of the theocracy by the carnality and corruption of the world. Hence, as a last resort, the Lord laid prostrate the in dependence of the kingdom, annihilated its political power by the hand of the King of Babylon, and by the captivity and subsequent dispersion of the people, suspended, to a large extent, even the more peculiar observances of worship. They were thus driven more from the outward shell to the inward kernel, and led to seek the ground of their strength and relative superiority in the grand truths and principles of the theocracy. And seeking it thus, they found that, even amid external ruin, the way was still open to the greatest power and glory. Daniel, and his companions in Babylon, by their uncompromising adherence to the truth, and the special direction and support they in consequence received from the hand of God, showed in Babylon itself that a might slumbered in their arm which was capable of the greatest things, which could carry them at the very seat of the world’s empire to the highest place of power and influence,—a type of that victorious energy and progressive advancement to glory which were destined to appear in the true, the spiritual members of the theocracy. And sad and humiliating as they were in one respect, yet in another and higher respect, important benefits were derived by the covenant people from their period of exile, from the comparative meanness of their circumstances after the time of restoration, and their prolonged dispersion throughout the cities of heathendom. For these led, among other things, to the institution of the synagogue, with its simpler forms of worship, and helped materially to work the people into a greater freedom from what was local and outward, spiritualized and elevated their ideas of divine things, and enlarged their opportunities of displaying the banner, which God had given them because of the truth, in the sight of the heathen. A great advance was thus made in the fortunes that befell the theocracy and its people, in preparation for the coming of Christ, and the institution of the New Testament Church. What was earthly and carnal in it was made to fall into comparative abeyance, that the glory of its spiritual excellence might be brought more prominently into view. But it was only by the mission of Christ that the change was properly effected, and that provision was fully made for the establishment of a theocratic kingdom among men. By the union in His person of the Divine and human, by the infinite satisfaction accomplished in His death for sin, by the clear revelations of His word, and the plentiful endowments of His Spirit, the truth embodied in the old theocracy was extricated from its cumbrous environments, and raised to a nobler elevation. And by the institution of a church founded in this truth—a church confined to no local territory or temporal jurisdictions, but chartered with the rights of universal citizenship, holding directly of Christ as its Divine Head, and committed to the hands of those who in every place might receive His Gospel and exhibit the virtues of His Divine life—by such an institution He set the theocratic principle on a new course of development, and gave it, as it were, a commission to take possession of the habitable globe. A noble calling, indeed, for the Church to have received! Would that she had always understood aright its nature, and entered into the mind of Christ as to the way by which it should be carried into effect! How plain did all seem to have been made to her hand by the course of preparation going before, and still more by the actual teaching of Christ and His apostles! In laying the foundations of the Church, and labouring to give the right tone as well as the needed impulse to all future times, how carefully did they abstain from intermeddling with anything but the truth of God, and its manifestation to the hearts and consciences of men! How clear was it that the weapons of their warfare were not carnal, but spiritual! They had perfect confidence in the higher elements of power; and, rejecting all others as unsuitable to their vocation, they sought “by pureness, by knowledge, by long-suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left”—by such means, but only by such, they sought to raise men into living fellowship with God, and bring God’s will and authority to rule in the affairs of men. But the Church had not proceeded far on her course till she began to distrust these spiritual weapons, and by a retrograde movement fell back upon the weak and beggarly elements which in earlier times had proved the constant source of imperfection and failure, and from which the Church of the New Testament should have counted it her distinctive privilege to be free. Instead of the common priesthood of believing souls, anointed by the Spirit of holiness, and dwelling in the secret place of the Most High, a select priesthood of artificial distinctions and formal service were constituted the chief depositaries of grace and virtue; instead of the simple manifestation of the truth to the heart, there came the muffled drapery of symbolical rites and bodily ministrations; and for the patient endurance of evil, or the earnest endeavour to overcome it with good, resort was had to the violence of the sword, and the coercive measures of arbitrary power. Strange delusion! As if the mere form and shadow of the truth were mightier than the truth itself—or the circumstantial adjuncts of the faith were of more worth than its essential attributes—or the crouching dread and enforced subjection of bondmen were a sacrifice to God more acceptable than the childlike and ready obedience of loving hearts! Such a depravation of the spirit of the Gospel could not fail to carry its own curse and judgment along with it; and history leaves no room to doubt, that as men’s views went out in this false direction, the tide of carnality and corruption flowed in; the Christian theocracy, as of old the Jewish, was carried captive by the world; the spouse became an harlot. This mournful defection was descried from the outset, and in vivid colours was portrayed on the page of prophetic revelation, as a warning to the Church to beware of compromising the truth of God, or attempting to seek the living among the dead. What constitutes the peculiar glory of the Gospel, and should ever have been regarded as forming the main secret of its strength, is the extent to which its tidings furnish an insight into the mind of God, and the power it confers on those who receive it to look as with open face into the realities of the Divine kingdom. Doing this in a manner altogether its own, it reaches the depths of thought and feeling in the bosom, takes possession of the inner man, and implants there a spirit of life, which works with sovereign power on the things around it, and casts aside, as being no longer needed, the external props and appliances that were required by the demands of a feebler age. Not that Christianity is altogether independent of outward things, and refuses the aid of the world in so far as this may be of service in providing defences for the truth, or securing for it a free course and a favourable consideration among men. There are respects in which the earth can help the woman. And the very tendency of the truth to work from within outwards to work on till it bring under its sway the whole domain, first of the personal relations, then of the social, finally of the public and political,—naturally leads, and in a sense compels, those who are conscious of its power, to make everything under their control subservient to its design. How far they may right fully go in this direction can only, with good men, be a question of fitness and propriety, viewed in connection with the state of the Church, the condition of the world, and the spirit of Christianity itself. But with such men it never ought to be, it never can justly be, a question, whether the external should so far be brought in upon the internal affairs of the Divine kingdom, as to allow the truth to be overshadowed by outward pomp and circumstance, impeded in its working by the restraints of worldly power, or thrust upon men’s consciences by weapons of violence. For, the kingdom established by the Gospel is essentially spiritual: it is a kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost; and when true to itself, and conducted in harmony with the mind of its Divine Head, it must ever give to the spiritual the ascendancy over the carnal, and look for its gradual extension and final triumph to the power and influence of the truth itself.
Therefore—to sum up the whole matter, and to indicate, in a word, how one part links itself with another, and all with the responsibilities of a Christian calling—the Church of Christ, according to its idea, is the theocracy in its new, its higher, its perennial form; since it is that in which God peculiarly dwells, and with which He identifies His character and glory. Every individual member of this Church, according to the proper idea of his calling, is a king and a priest to God; therefore not in bondage to the world, nor dividing between the world and God, but recognising God in all, honouring and obeying God, and receiving power, as a prince with God, to prevail over the opposition and wickedness of the world. Every particular Church, in like manner, is, according to the idea of its calling, an organized community of such kings and priests; therefore bound to strive that the idea may be realized by the united strenuousness of its exertions in the cause of Christ, and the steady growth of its members toward a state in which they shall be without spot and blameless. The more this is the case, the more is the prayer of the Church fulfilled, “Thy kingdom come;” and the nearer shall we be to that happy time, when all power, and authority, and rule, shall give way before the one heaven-anointed King, to whom the heritage of the earth belongs.