04.06. Lecture 5.
Lecture 5. The Position And Calling Of Israel As Placed Under The Covenant Of Law, What Precisely Involved In It—False Views On The Subject Exposed—The Moral Results Of The Economy, According As The Law Was Legitimately Used Or The Reverse.
HAVING now considered the nature of the Law as revealed from Sinai, and the relation in which both the judicial statutes and the Levitical ordinances stood to it, our next line of investigation naturally turns on Israel’s position under it; in which respect such questions as these press themselves on our regard: How did the being placed under the covenant of law of itself tend to affect the real well-being of Israel as a people? or their representative character as the seed of blessing, the types of a redeemed church? How far did the proper effects of the covenant realize themselves in their history, or others not proper—the result of their own neglect and waywardness—come in their stead? And did the covenant, in consequence of the things, whether of the one sort or the other, which transpired during its continuance, undergo any material alterations, or remain essentially the same till the bringing in of the new covenant by the mission and work of Christ?
1. In entering upon the line of thought to which such questions point, we are struck at the outset with a somewhat remarkable diversity in the representations of Scripture itself respecting the natural tendency and bearing of the law on those who were subject to it. Coming expressly from Jehovah in the character of Israel’s Redeemer, it cannot be contemplated otherwise than as carrying a benign aspect, and aiming at happy results. Moses extolled the condition of Israel as on this very account surpassing that of all other people: ‘What nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon him for? And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day.’
It is clear, on a moment’s reflection, that such diverse, antagonistic representations could not have been given of the law in the same respects, or with the same regard to its direct and primary aim. If both alike were true—as we cannot doubt they were, being alike found in the volume of inspiration—it must be from the law having been contemplated in one of them from a different point of view, or with regard to different uses and applications of it from what it was in the other. At present, as we have to do with the place of the law in the Old Testament economy, it is more especially the happier class of representations which come into consideration; they may fitly, at least, be viewed as occupying the foreground, while the others may come into particular notice after wards.
2. Now, the view which we have seen reason to take of the nature of the law as revealed through Moses, will render it unnecessary to do more than make a passing reference to such modes of explanation as would resolve every thing in the covenant with Israel into merely outward and carnal elements—would make the law, as delivered to them at Sinai, a comparatively easy and lightsome thing—satisfied if it could but secure outward worshippers of Jehovah, and respectable citizens of the commonwealth. The law, we are told by writers of this class, was one that dealt only ‘in negative measures:’ ‘the precepts were negative that the obedience might be the more possible;’ and he was ‘the good man who could not be excused to have done what the law forbade, he who had done the fewest evils.’ So Jeremy Taylor,
We appeal from all such representations to the plain reading of the law itself (as we have endeavoured to give it), looked at, as it should be, in its historical connection and its general bearings. The blinding influence of theory will obscure even the clearest light; but it is scarcely possible that any unbiassed mind should apply itself earnestly to the subject, and take up with so partial and meagre a view of what, not in one place merely, but in all Scripture, is made known to us as distinctively God’s revelation of law to men. The immediate circumstances that led to it—the special acts and announcements which might be said to form its historical introduction, are alone sufficient to compel a higher estimate of the revelation. The people had just been rescued, it was declared, from Egypt, had been borne by God on eagles’ wings, and brought to Himself—for what? Not simply that they might acknowledge His existence, or preserve His memory, in the face of surrounding idolatry, but that they might ‘obey His voice and keep His covenant,’ and so be to Him ‘a kingdom of priests and an holy nation.’
Peculiar nearness to God in position, and, as the proper consequence and result of that, knowing and reflecting His character, entering into His mind and will, striving to be holy as He is holy—this was the end to which all was directed—the purpose, also, for which they stood before God as a separate people, and were gathered around Sinai to hear the law from His mouth:—And if that law had been aught else than a real disclosure of the mind of God as to what he demands of His people toward Himself and toward each other in the vital interests of truth and righteousness, it had been (we need not hesitate to say it) beneath the occasion; failing, as it should have done, to present the proper ideal, which it was Israel’s calling to endeavour constantly to have realized. The formal acknowledgment, forsooth, of Jehovah as the one true God, and paying due respect to one another’s civil rights! And that, too, chiefly in the general, without any distinct bond of obligation on the individual conscience, quite irrespective of personal righteousness! Was this a thing so important in itself, so well-pleasing in the eyes of the pure and heart-searching Jehovah, that the law requiring it should have been laid as the very foundation of His throne in Israel, and that the period of its promulgation should have formed a marked era in the history of His dispensations among men? The thought is not for a moment to be entertained. The eternal God could not so abnegate or demean Himself no more for any temporal purpose than for one directly bearing on the interests of eternity; for in such a matter nothing is determined by the mere element of duration. He could not, in consistence with His own unchangeable character, either ask or accept what should be other than a fit expression of the homage that is supremely due to Him, and the love that willingly yields itself to His requirements.
2. Belonging almost to the opposite pole of theological sentiment, writers of the Cocceian school have sometimes gone to a different extreme, and have given, if not a false, yet an artificial and perplexing, rather than a plain and Scriptural view of Israel’s position under the law. They were themselves embarrassed by the habit of ranging everything pertaining to covenant engagements under one of two heads—the covenant of works, and the covenant of grace. They differ, however, to some extent in their mode of representation—all, indeed, holding that the ten commandments, in which the covenant of law more peculiarly stood, was for substance the same with the covenant of works; in other words, embodied that perfect rule of rectitude, on conformity to which hung man’s original possession of life and blessing; but differing as to the precise form or aspect under which they supposed this rule of rectitude to have been presented to Israel in the Sinaitic covenant. Cocceius himself, in his mode of representation, did not differ materially from the view of Calvin, and that generally of the Reformed theologians. He held that the Decalogue was not formally proposed to the Israelites as the covenant of works; that it proceeded from Jehovah as the God and Redeemer of Israel, implying that He had entered with them into a covenant of grace; that the covenant of law was given to subserve that covenant of grace, pointing out and enjoining what was necessary to be done, in order that the children of the covenant might see how they should live, if they were to enjoy its blessings—precisely as the evangelical precepts and exhortations in the New Testament do in subservience to the Gospel. Its language, he thinks, was not, I demand that you do these precepts, and so live (this had been to mock men with impossibilities); but, I have called you to life, and now, laying aside fear, come and hear my voice.
I fear, in saying this, the good man forgot at what period it was in the Divine dispensations that the law was given from Sinai. It was still the comparatively dim twilight of revelation, when the plan of God could be seen only in a few broken lines and provisional arrangements, which tended to veil, even while they disclosed the truth. The men of that age could not so easily distinguish between the two aspects of law here presented, even if they had got some hint of the diversity; but, as matters actually stood, it could scarcely be said, that the two were ever distinctly before them. No one can read the history of the transaction without being convinced, that in whatever character the law was declared to the Israelites and established with them as a covenant, it carried with it the bond of a sacred obligation which they were to strive to make good; and of any other meaning or design, either on God’s part in imposing, or on their part in accepting the obligation, the narrative is entirely silent.
3. But a class—one can scarcely say of theologians (for the name would be misapplied to persons who in most things make so complete a travesty of Scripture)—a class, however, of very dogmatic writers (the Plymouthists) have recently pushed to its full extreme the view of the law just stated as the covenant of works—not, like the later Cocceians, as a kind of side view or secondary aspect which might also be taken of it, but as its direct, formal, and only proper character. ‘Law,’ we are told by one of them, ‘was a distinct and definite dispensation of God, according to which life was promised consequent on obedience, and had its whole nature from this, a righteousness characterized by this principle: obedience first, then life therein, righteousness.’
If this were the correct reading of the matter, why, we naturally ask, should God Himself have taken the initiative in this so-called abandonment of the covenant of promise? for it was He who sent Moses to the people with the words, which manifestly sought to evoke an affirmative reply. Why, after such a reply was returned, did it call forth no formal rebuke, if so be it displayed an in tolerable arrogancy and presumption? and the reason, the only reason, assigned for the Lord’s declared intention to appear presently in a thick cloud, why should this have been simply that the people might hear His voice, and believe Moses for ever?
4. But it rests upon no solid ground, and has more the character of an interpolation thrust into the sacred record than a fair and natural interpretation of its contents. The revelation of law from Sinai did not come forth in independence, as if it were to lay the foundation of something altogether new in men’s experience; nor did it proceed from God in His character as the God of nature, exercising His right to impose commands of service on the consciences of His creatures, which with no other helps and endowments than those of nature, they were required with unfailing rectitude to fulfil;—not, therefore, when when made to take the form of a covenant, was it with the view of exacting what must be given as the prior and indispensable conditions of life and joy? No, the history of Israel knows nothing of law except in connection with promise and blessing.
5. It is true, the people who entered into the bond of the covenant, as thus proposed, could not of themselves keep the precepts of the law; and the shameful back sliding which took place so shortly after they had formally undertaken to do all that was commanded, but too plainly shewed how little they yet understood either the height of their obligations, or the degree of moral strength that would be required to meet them. It was but gradually, and through a succession of painful and trying experiences, that the truth in this respect could work itself into their minds. The law undoubtedly was exceeding broad. In its matter, that is, in the reach and compass of its requirements, it did (as the writers formerly referred to maintained) comprise the sum of moral excellence—the full measure of goodness that man as man is bound to yield to God and his fellow-men. It was impossible that God, in His formal revelation of law to His people, could propound less as the aim of their spiritual endeavours; for conformity to His mind and will, to be made holy or good after the type of that which He Himself is, was the ultimate design contemplated in His covenant arrangements. But in these arrangements He stood also pledged to His people as the author of life and blessing; and that mercy and loving-kindness which prompted Him so to interpose in their behalf, and which (as if to prevent misapprehension) He embodied even in His revelation of law, could not possibly be wanting, if earnestly sought for the ministration of such help as might be needed to enable them to give, though not a faultless, yet a hearty and steadfast obedience. Was not the whole tabernacle service, springing from the covenant of Sinai as its centre, and ever circling around it, a standing and palpable proof of this? Through the rites and ordinances of that service, access continually lay open for them to God, as their ever-present guardian and strength; there the incense of prayer was perpetually ascending to draw down supplies of help on the needy: and when consciousness of sin clouded their interest in God, and troubled them with apprehensions of deserved wrath, there was the blood of atonement ready to blot out their guilt, and quicken them, under a fresh sense of forgiveness, to run the way of God’s commandments. Thus viewed, every thing is in its proper place; and the covenant of law, instead of coming to supersede the earlier covenant of promise, was introduced merely as an handmaid to minister to its design, and help forward the moral aims it sought to promote.
6. If now we turn to the writings of the Old Covenant, we shall find the evidence they furnish in perfect accordance with the view just given; only, we must take it under two divisions the one as connected with the sincere members of the covenant, who made an honest, a legitimate use of the things belonging to it; the other with such as made an illegitimate use of them, whose hearts were not right with God, and who only incidentally, and as it were by contraries, became witnesses to the truth. We shall look successively at both, considering each under a threefold aspect—with reference to God, to sin and holiness, and to salvation.
7. We look, then, in the first instance, to those who may be regarded as the more proper representatives of the Old Covenant; and to these, primarily, in respect to what concerns their relation to God—His being and character. It was certainly not, as we have had occasion already to state, the sole design of the moral law, or even of the first table of the law, to preserve the belief in one personal God, as opposed to the polytheism of the ancient world; but this was, unquestionably, a very prominent and fundamental part of the design. The tendency in those remote times was all in the opposite direction. Polytheism, the offspring of guilt and terror, leading to the deification and worship of the powers of nature under the different aspects in which they present themselves to the natural mind, set in like a mighty flood, and swept over the earth with an all-subduing force. The very name of religion came to be identified, in the different countries of the world, with the adoration of these false gods; and as civilization and refinement advanced, it became associated with all that was imposing in architecture, beautiful in art, joyous and attractive in public life. There was just one region of the earth, one little territory, within which for many an age this wide-wasting moral pestilence was withstood—not even there without sharp contendings and struggles, maintained sometimes against fearful odds; yet the truth held its place, the moral barrier raised in defence of it by the Decalogue preserved the better portion of the covenant-people from the dangers which in this respect beset them—preserved them in the knowledge and belief of one God, as the sovereign Lord and moral Governor of the world. So deeply did this great truth, from the prominence given to it in the Old Covenant, and the awful sanctions there thrown around it, strike its roots into the hearts and consciences of the people, that it was not only handed down through successive ages in the face of every adverse influence, but made itself practically known as a principle of commanding power and ennobling influence. Of this the writings of the Old Testament are a varied and pro longed witness. These writings were indited by men of very different grades of intellect and feeling, composed in circumstances, too, and at periods, widely remote from each other; yet they are all pervaded by one spirit; they exhibit a profound belief in the existence of one God, as the moral Governor of the world, and in His right—His sole and indefeasible right—to the homage and obedience of men. It is the religious view of the world, of the events of life and the interests of mankind,—the relation in which these severally stand to the one living God—which is continually presented in them, and stamps them with a quite peculiar character and a permanent value. What has antiquity transmitted to us that in this respect may be compared to them? We have, doubtless, much to learn from the literature of Greece and Home, as regards the history of kingdoms, the development and portraiture of character, the arts and refinements of the natural life; but it is to the writings which enshrined the principles and breathed the spirit of the Divine law, that the nations of the world are indebted for that knowledge of God, which is the foundation at once of true religion and of sound morality.
Look at the matter for a moment in its concrete form. See the mighty difference which appears between Hebrew monotheism and the polytheism of heathendom, even in its better phases, on that memorable occasion, in the closing period of the old economy, when the extremes of both might be said to meet—the one as represented by the polished senators of Athens, the other by Paul of Tarsus. There cannot well be conceived a bolder, and, morally, a more sublime attitude, than was presented by this man of God when, addressing the supreme council of the city on Mars’ hill, he assailed the idolatry of Greece in the very metropolis of its dominion, and in the presence of its most wonderful creations. On that elevated plat form of religion and art, he had immediately in front of him the Acropolis, adorned with an entire series of statues and temples:—among others, the Propylaea, one of the most expensive and beautiful works of Athenian architecture, with its temple and bronze statue of Minerva, under the name of Niké Apteros (wingless victory); the Erectheium, the most revered of all the sanctuaries of Athens, containing, as it did, the most ancient statue of their patron goddess, which was supposed to have fallen down from heaven, and the sacred olive tree which she was believed to have called forth from the earth in her contest with Neptune for the guardianship of the city; and, towering above all, the Parthenon, the most perfect structure of ancient heathendom, with its gold and ivory statue of Minerva, the masterpiece of Phidias; and sculptures besides of such exquisite workmanship, that the mutilated remains of them have been the admiration of the world, and, when made accessible in recent times to the studious of other lands, served to give a fresh impulse and higher style to the cultivation of modern art:—Think of all this, and then think of Paul of Tarsus, an unknown and solitary stranger, a barbarian, a Jew, standing there, and telling his Athenian audience, in the midst of these consecrated glories, that the Godhead could not be likened to objects graven by art or man’s device, nor dwell in temples made with hands; and that out of the whole amphitheatre of their shrines and temples he had been able to discover only one thing which pro claimed a truth, and that remarkable for the ignorance it confessed, rather than the knowledge it revealed—an altar to the Unknown God; adding, as from his own higher vantage-ground, ‘Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you.’
8. Here, then, was a great result accomplished in the case of those who in a becoming spirit submitted themselves to the bond of the Sinaitic covenant; in the most fundamental point of religion they became the lights of the world, the chosen witnesses of Heaven. And such also they were in a closely related point: their convictions in regard to holiness and sin. The polytheism of the heathen world wrought with disastrous effect here; for losing sight of the one great source and pattern of moral excellence, and making to themselves gods after their own likeness, men’s notions of holiness became sadly deranged, and their convictions of sin were consequently irregular and superficial. Even the more thoughtful class of minds—those who sought to work themselves free from popular delusions, and to be guided only by the dictates of wisdom—never attained, even in conception, to the proper measure: the want of right views of sin cleaves as a fundamental defect to all ancient philosophy. But Israel’s knowledge of the character and law of God, as it placed them in a different position spiritually, so it produced different results in experience. How was God Himself commonly present to their apprehensions? Pre-eminently as the Holy One of Israel, loving righteousness, and hating iniquity.
9. Had there been nothing more than law in the Old Covenant, there had also been nothing further in Israel’s experience, except the penalties that were the just desert of sin. But with the true members of the covenant another thing invariably appears—a fleeing to God as the Redeemer from sin, the Healer of Israel—or a falling back from the covenant of law on the covenant of grace and promise out of which it sprung. Take as an example the rich and varied record of a believer’s experience contained in Psalms 119:1-179. The theme of discourse there, from beginning to end, is the law of God—its excellence, its breadth and fulness, its suitableness to men’s condition, the blessedness of being conformed to its requirements, and the earnest longings of the pious heart after all that properly belongs to it:—but things of this sort perpetually alternate with confessions of backslidings and sins, fervent cries for pardoning mercy and restoring grace, and fresh resolutions formed in dependence on Divine aid to resist the evil, and strive after higher attainments in the righteousness it enjoins. And so elsewhere; the consciousness of sin and moral weakness ever drove the soul to God for deliverance and help; and especially to the use of that gracious provision made through the rite of sacrifice for expiating the guilt of sin and restoring peace to the troubled conscience. But then this present deliverance bore on it such marks of imperfection as might well seem to call for another and more perfect arrangement; since both the means of reconciliation were inferior (the blood of bulls and goats), and the measure of it also, even as things then stood, was incomplete; for the reconciled were still not permitted to have direct and personal access into the presence-chamber of Jehovah—they were permitted only to frequent the courts of His house. The law, therefore, awakening a sense of guilt and alienation which could not then be perfectly removed, creating wants and desires it but partially satisfied, while it could not fail to be productive of fear, was also well fitted to raise expectations in the bosom of the worshipper of some better things to come, and dispose him to listen to the intimations concerning them which it was the part of prophecy to utter. And in proportion as men of humble and earnest faith acted on the hints thus given, they would, in answer to believing prayer and pious meditation, understand that, however the existing provisions of mercy were to be appreciated, there was a sense also in which they might be disparaged;
Such, briefly, is the evidence furnished by one portion of the covenant-people, those who constituted the true Israel, and who used the covenant of law, as it was intended, in due subservience to the prior covenant of grace. Even with the imperfections cleaving to the Divine plan, as one of a merely provisional nature, and corresponding imperfections in the spiritual results produced by it, we may yet ask if there was not, as regards that portion of the people, fruit that might well be deemed worthy of God? Where, in those ancient times, did life exhibit so many of the purer graces and 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 claims of truth and righteousness even known in such a manner as to reach the depths of conscience, and bring into proper play the nobler feelings, desires, and aspirations of the heart. It is to Israel alone, of all the nations of antiquity, that we must turn alike for the more meek and lovely, and for the more stirring examples of moral excellence. Sanctified homes, which possessed the light, and were shone upon by the favour 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 ecstasy of charity, and feeling of infinite communion’ (Bacon): for refreshing sights and inspiring exhibitions like these, we must repair to the annals of that chosen seed, who were trained to the knowledge of God, and moulded by the laws and institutions of His kingdom. Must we not, in consideration of them, re-echo the saying of Moses, ‘O Israel, what people was like unto thee! a people saved by the Lord!’
10. But, unfortunately, there is a darker side to the picture. There was another, and, for the most part, a larger and more influential portion of the covenant-people, who acted very differently, who either openly resiled from the yoke of the law, or perverted it to a wrong purpose, and in whom also, though after another fashion, the truth found a remarkable verification. In this class, the most prominent thing—that which was always the first to discover itself, was a restive and reluctant spirit, fretting against the demands of the law, often even against that fundamental part of them, which might be said to involve all the rest—the devout acknowledgment and pure worship of Jehovah. With this class, the prevailing tendency to idolatry in the ancient world had attractions which they were unable to resist. Like so many around them, in part also among them, they wished a less exacting, a more sensuous and more easily accessible mode of worship, than that which was enjoined in the law and connected with the tabernacle; and so idolatrous sanctuaries in various localities, with their accompanying rites of will-worship, were formed: these generally first, and then, as a natural consequence, altogether false deities, local or foreign, came to take the place of Jehovah. There was a strong tide from without bearing in this direction; it was the spirit of the age, which human nature is ever ready to fall in with; but the real ground of the defection, and that which rendered the apostatizing disposition a kind of chronic disease in Israel, lay in the affinity between those corrupt idolatries and the natural inclinations of the heart. Living in Gospel times, we are wont to speak of the carnal and ritualistic nature of the Old Testament worship; but underneath it all there was a spiritual element, which was distasteful to the merely natural mind, and the reverse of which was found in the showy and corrupt rites of heathenism. These fostered and gratified the sinful desires of the heart, while the worship of Jehovah repressed and condemned them: this was the real secret of that inveterate drawing in the one direction, and strong antipathy in the other, which were perpetually breaking forth in the history of Israel, and turned it, we may say, into a great battle-ground for the very existence of true religion. In its essence, it was the conflict of human corruption with the will, the authority, and the actual being of God; and, therefore, it never failed to draw down those rebukes in providence, by which God vindicated the honour of His name, and made the backslidings of His people to reprove them. Viewed in this light, the history of Israel, however melancholy in one respect, is instructive and even consolatory in another: it shewed how every thing for Israel, in evil or in good, turned on the relation in which they stood to the living God, as the object of faith and worship—how inexcusable, as well as foolish, they were in hardening their hearts against His ways, and preferring the transitory pleasures of sin to the abiding recompenses of His service—and how, in spite of all manifestations of folly, and combinations of human power and wisdom against the truth of God, that truth still prevailed, and they who stood by it, the godly seed, though comparatively few, proved the real strength or substance of the nation.
11. There was, however, another form of evil which manifested itself in this portion of the covenant-people, which latterly became a very prevalent form, and which so far differed from the other, that it could consist with an outward adherence to the worship of Jehovah, nay, with apparent zeal for that worship, while the great ends of the covenant were trampled under foot. The failure here lay in false views respecting holiness and sin, necessarily leading also to an utterly false position in regard to salvation. Instead of viewing the institutions and services connected with the tabernacle—the ceremonial part of the law—as the complement merely of the Sinaitic tables, intended to help out their design and provide the means of escape from their just condemnation of sin, the persons in question exalted it to the first place, and, however they might stand related to ‘the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith,’ thought all in a manner accomplished, if they kept the ordinances and presented the appointed offerings. Many sharp reproofs and severe denunciations are pronounced against this mode of procedure, and those who pursued it, in the writings of the Old Testament, especially the prophets. Asaph asks such persons in his day, asks them indignantly in the name of God, what they had to do with declaring God’s statutes, or going about the things of His covenant, since they were full of backbiting and deceit, taking part with thieves and adulterers?
It is this latter form of the evil that has most of interest for us, as it comes prominently into view in New Testament Scripture. Its fundamental error, as I have said, lay in isolating the covenant of law, taking it apart from the prior covenant of promise, as if it was alone sufficient for men—and not only so, but failing to distinguish between what was of prime, and what of only secondary moment in the law, throwing the ceremonial into precisely the same category with the moral. From this grievous mistake (which some would still most unaccountably confound with proper Judaism) three fatal results of a practical kind inevitably followed. First, they shut their eyes upon the depth and spirituality of the law’s requirements. They were obliged to do so; for had they perceived these, the idea must of necessity have vanished from their minds, that they could attain to righteousness on a merely legal footing; they could never have imagined that ‘touching the righteousness which is in the law they were blameless.’
They naturally regarded it as foul scorn to be put virtually on a level with those who had been without Jaw, and clung to the law as the ground of all their distinctions, the very charter of their privileges and hopes. So completely, by misapprehending the proper nature and relations of things, did the major part of the later Jews frustrate the object of the law, and turn it from being a schoolmaster to lead them to Christ, into the jealous and lordly rival that would keep them at the remotest distance from Him. And the mournful result for themselves was, that the rock in which they trusted, itself rose against them; the law which could condemn but not expiate their sin, cried for vengeance with a voice that must be heard, and wrath from heaven fell upon them to the uttermost. A marvellous history, on whichever side contemplated!—whether in the evil or the good connected with it—and fraught with important lessons, not for those alone who were its immediate subjects, but for all nations and for all time. God constituted the seed of Israel the direct bearers of a Divine revelation, made them subjects alike of law and promise, and shaped their history so that in it men might see reflected as in a mirror the essential character of His kingdom, the blessings that flow from a hearty submission to His will, and the judgments that not less certainly come, sooner or later, in the train of wilful perversion and incorrigible disobedience. In a sense altogether peculiar, they were called to be God’s witnesses to the world;